The Denver Post, other news outlets sue DPS for recording of closed-door meeting after East High shooting

The Denver Post and five other Colorado news organizations sued Denver Public Schools on Friday, accusing the district’s elected Board of Education of breaking the law by creating public policy in secret the day after a student shot two administrators inside East High School.

The lawsuit, filed in Denver District Court, alleges the school board violated the Colorado Open Meetings Law and demands the release of the recording of its closed-door meeting on March 23.

The board members met privately for five hours that day before emerging and voting to approve, without discussion, a written memorandum directing Superintendent Alex Marrero to put armed police officers back in Denver high schools as a safety response to the East High shooting.

The lawsuit alleges the Board of Education violated state law in two ways. First, board members improperly declared the meeting an executive session because they failed to specify plans to discuss the board’s 2020 policy that removed police from schools, the complaint says.

Then the board unlawfully made decisions on public policy during a closed session, the lawsuit alleges. The policy underlying the Colorado Open Meetings Law is that “the formation of public policy is public business and may not be conducted in secret,” the lawsuit notes.

“No public discussion, whatsoever, preceded the board’s historic about-face concerning its policy of preventing armed ‘school resource officers’ inside the district’s high schools. None,” attorney Rachael Johnson, of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, wrote in the complaint.

“It is clear and irrefutable that the board had already decided, behind closed doors, to adopt the position or resolution in the memorandum that they then unanimously voted to approve in public without discussion — a mere ‘rubber stamping’ of their earlier decision.”

DPS spokesman Scott Pribble on Friday said the district would not comment on pending litigation.