The Denver school board is in talks with Superintendent Alex Marrero to extend his contract, a move members said is necessary for consistent leadership during a precarious time for K-12 education — but which has sparked criticism from others over a lack of transparency.
The discussions, which have so far taken place behind closed doors, will be brought into public view when Denver Public Schools’ Board of Education meets Thursday afternoon.
Few details have been revealed about the changes proposed for Marrero’s contract beyond a potential extension, but school board members are expected to consider removing the superintendent’s ability to receive a bonus — a decision Marrero favors.
“There’s been some pain points in that contract that, quite frankly, I never wanted… particularly the bonus,” the superintendent said in an interview Wednesday.
Marrero, who was hired in 2021, makes a base salary of $346,529 a year and received a $17,326 bonus in October. His contract was extended by the school board two years ago and is set to expire in June 2026.
But the negotiations have drawn speculation from corners of the DPS community who questioned why the school board is taking up Marrero’s contract a year before it expires — a move one organization called an “intentional move to subvert the will of the voters” ahead of November’s election.
On Monday, a group of Latino community leaders, Denver City Council members and state legislators sent a letter to the school board that said extending Marrero’s contract at this time was “premature.”
“We request that you pause any consideration to re-evaluate the superintendent’s contract before you can assess the progress he and his team have made to increase the academic performance and well-being of Denver students,” the group wrote in the letter.
“The community deserves the opportunity to review and discuss the results of such an evaluation before any decisions about contract extensions are made,” they wrote.
Among those who signed the letter: former Denver Mayor Federico Peña, City Council President Amanda Sandova, state Rep. Cecelia Espenoza and state Sen. Julie Gonzales.
But it also included former DPS school board directors and members of Educate Denver, a coalition of civic leaders that has pushed the district for more transparency on things such as school closures and the superintendent’s evaluation.
An old fight — and an upcoming election
Simmering beneath the conflict is a battle between so-called reformers and DPS leadership that has taken place since union-backed members gained control of the school board in 2019 and two years later hired Marrero to lead Colorado’s largest school system.
And an election is scheduled in six months that has the potential to significantly shake up the direction of the seven-member board, as four seats could turn over.
Denver Families for Public Schools “is voicing strong opposition to this anti-democratic, intentional move to subvert the will of the voters,” Michael Teague, a spokesman for the organization, wrote in an email to The Denver Post on Wednesday. “…This is pure politics and should concern our entire community — regardless of whether or not they support an extension for the superintendent.”
Denver Families launched in 2021 and receives funding from The City Fund, a national group that supports charter schools and school reform, according to Chalkbeat Colorado.
Marrero said he was approached by the board in January about initiating talks about his contract. He was told members were interested in doing so to take another look at his bonus and to make sure DPS leadership was secure, as the federal government threatened to pull funding from K-12 institutions.
“We need to ensure the consistency of his leadership sooner rather than later,” board member Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said.
The board has until September to let Marrero know if his contract will be extended, and the superintendent has until Jan. 1 to let the board know if he wants to stay, board member Scott Esserman said.
“This has nothing to do with the election,” he said.
But Esserman noted that Marrero has faced scrutiny since he was hired four years ago.
The Latino Education Coalition was among those concerned about Marrero because he came from the East Coast and the organization questioned whether he understood Denver’s Mexican American population, said Theresa Peña, a former member of the coalition and onetime DPS board member.
“We weren’t saying, ‘Don’t hire him,’ ” she said. “We were saying, ‘Don’t hire him yet.’ ”
Peña noted that some members of the coalition that scrutinized Marrero’s hiring in 2021 were among those who signed the letter asking the board to wait on his contract extension, but others sent a separate letter to the school board this week supporting an extension.
Marrero, who is Afro-Latino, speaks Spanish and English.
In an interview, he pushed back on the criticism regarding his contract negotiations, which he said comes from a “small vocal minority” in the community that has sought to control his superintendency.
“You’re not going to buy me,” Marrero said. “I have a duty to make sure what I’m doing is in the best interest of those I serve.”
Marrero said he doesn’t fall on either side of the union vs. education reform fight that has played out in Denver for years, since the expansion of school choice and charter schools during DPS’ so-called reform era of the late 2000s and 2010s.
“We’re not in that fight anymore,” Marrero said. “…Clearly, the city has moved on from that.”
During his tenure, Marrero has occasionally been at odds with city leaders, such as for not attending meetings. In 2023, Marrero and former Mayor Michael Hancock disagreed over whether they discussed the use of an executive order to put armed police back into schools following a shooting at East High School.
Marrero, in the interview, noted that he upset some Denverites for bringing police back into schools after the board voted to remove them in 2020.
The district’s teachers union is also not happy with him right now over contract negotiations for DPS educators, despite the superintendent working for a school board that was largely backed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, Marrero noted.
“For Alex to frame this as control, I think, he’s missing the point,” Peña said. “Where have you demonstrated active positive collaboration so that we’re all moving in the same direction?”
Letter from Latino community strikes a nerve
This week’s letter from Latino community members, which Peña signed, was not personal, she said. But, she added, previous DPS superintendents have collaborated with the community, including with business leaders or the City Council.
“If Alex wants to be the big boss and doesn’t want to do anything because he wants to do this in isolation, then the only losers are our kids,” she said.
But the group’s letter struck a nerve as it suggested Marrero hasn’t done enough to improve student outcomes.
Latino students’ proficiency in English Language Arts and Math hasn’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels, according to the letter from Peña and others. In fact, they wrote, only 24% of Latino students are proficient in literacy and 15% in math as of the 2023-24 academic year.
“The audacity of them,” Marrero said of the letter, adding that when he took over as superintendent, DPS was still recovering from the pandemic and the 2019 teachers strike.
“It was about to implode,” Marrero said of the district. “…It was at its worst.”
Now, Marrero said, DPS graduation rates increased to almost 80% last year, the highest ever for the district.
“You cannot tell me this district is not better than where it was,” he said. “…Delusional.”
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