Denver Public Schools appeals judge’s order requiring district to release recording of board’s closed-door meeting

Denver Public Schools on Monday appealed a judge’s order requiring the district to publicly release a recording of the Board of Education’s five-hour, closed-door meeting the day after the March shooting inside East High School.

DPS argued in its notice of appeal that the contents of the meeting “should not be made public because doing so would do substantial injury to the public interest.”

Last week, Denver District Court Judge Andrew Luxen ordered Colorado’s largest school district to release the recording to a coalition of media organizations — including The Denver Post — by noon Monday after finding that DPS violated state law when the board met in an executive session on March 23.

The media organizations had sued the district, seeking the release of the recording, alleging the school board violated Colorado law by making policy decisions behind closed doors and not properly declaring an executive session before doing so.

After reviewing the recording himself, Luxen on Friday issued an order finding that school board members discussed topics behind closed doors that are not permitted by state law, adopted a policy or took formal action. He also found that the board did not properly notice the executive session.

The board met in an executive session on March 23, a day after a student shot and wounded two administrators inside East. When the board members emerged five hours later, they voted unanimously — and without debate — to approve a memo that temporarily suspended a 2020 board policy banning armed police in schools.

The board recently fully reversed that 2020 policy, allowing school resource officers, or SROs, to return more permanently to campuses. Superintendent Alex Marrero is also expected to release his final districtwide safety plan — which was also a directive included in the memo — later this week.

The Colorado Open Meetings Law states that “the formation of public policy is public business and may not be conducted in secret,” according to the lawsuit.