BOULDER – A teacher and a data scientist each made their best case for why they should be elected to the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) board at a forum hosted by The League of Women Voters of Boulder County (LWVBC). 

Both candidates have extensive experience in education with the district. 

Jeffrey Lowe Anderson has been a member of BVSD’s Long Range Advisory Committee, the District Accountability Committee, and accountability committees at Fireside Elementary and Fairview and Boulder high schools. He also served as a regional science fair judge.

The self-described “data wonk” is focused on the ongoing enrollment declining within BVSD, as well as its ongoing and anticipated budget challenges. 

“I know the data and have the skills to interpret it,” Anderson said at the forum. “I’m a consensus builder, a listener, a team builder. It would make me successful as a member of the board.”

Challenging Anderson is Deann Bucher, a BVSD teacher who has spent more than three decades in local classrooms. Bucher will lean heavily on her on-the-ground experiences to inform decision-making at the school board level. 

“We haven’t had a teacher on the school board for 30 years,” she said. “I think it’s time we get the view from down under so we can figure out what is the best way to implement these policies.” 

Bucher’s “three big issues” are “creating equitable outcomes,” literacy, and helping “our students be safe,” she said. 

Anderson and Bucher are running for the open District E spot. Current District E board member Beth Niznik is not seeking re-election.

Of the three district board seats up for election, District E is the only contested race. Also on the ballot are current board member Nicole Rajpal, running for re-election in District B, and Ana Temu Otting, the sole candidate for the District F seat.

District E primarily covers South Boulder, with bits of Louisville and Superior. It runs west to east from Foothills Parkway to 95th, and north-south from Valmont to Dillon Road and the Northwest Parkway.

The October 9 forum was held at BVSD’s Education Center. A LWVBC moderator asked candidates questions submitted by community members. 

Below are the candidates’ responses.

Although Rajpal and Temu Otting participated, we are including only responses from Anderson and Bucher to help inform your decision on November 4. Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: The district is facing a number of challenges, and the board needs guiding values with budgeting decisions. What are your values and priorities? 

Anderson: The first value is transparency. I’m a data person. Our decisions have to be data-driven; we need to have it available, study it, have professionals tell us how to interpret us. There’s hard data. There’s also soft data: How many students feel safe? How many have witnessed bullying? 

Bucher: I think one of the biggest challenges we’ll have is shrinking enrollment, which could have implications for shrinking the number of schools. We have communities that are growing.

In the end, the value I hold most dear is that it is equitable, no matter where [students] live or what school they choose to go to.

Q: How will you address the shrinking student population in BVSD without losing the robust education?

Bucher: When the board looks at and allocates funds to school, some of what they don’t see is what gets done after school. We need to compensate teachers for the extra work they do. If you lose teachers, you’re losing people who are willing to [give] those hours.

Anderson: There’s no short-term solution to get us more students back in the district. We’re going to need more holistic solutions. I’m up for making hard, data-driven decisions.

Question: What changes to BVSD policies would you like to pursue?

Anderson: Technology, in particular artificial intelligence. It is doing great things for educators and students and can also be a burden and “catastrophic” for students. I would establish a committee that would deal with these issues.

Bucher: How things are distributed throughout the district so that schools are treated the same. There is a “Boulder bonus”—Boulder schools are more important. I worked at Monarch [High School in Louisville] for 20 years, I worked at Broomfield High, and I work here at the Education Center.

The other problem that’s very big is we do not have substitutes to keep teachers afloat. We do not have enough people to keep teachers employed, and we’re going to lose them.

Q: How will you prioritize hearing student voices and improve social, mental, and emotional support available to students? 

Bucher: There aren’t enough resources, and I think it’s very important that we figure out how to work with the community. I know we have a relationship with community organizations trying to help the large high schools, but I’m not sure how that plays out in smaller schools or schools that tend to attract students who are not as able.

Anderson: We do need to listen to students [and] get the message from them, continue our support for counselors. Our faculty, our administrators are also under enormous pressure. They themselves need resources, too. Having a trusted adult for every student in our building is super important.

Q: How can we make schools safe for all students and employees?

Anderson: The most important thing for safety is that our students must feel welcome, included and valued. I think our policies are good. [But] we are not always implementing our policies.

Bucher: There’s different ways to look at safety. One is the safety of the persons in the building, especially against weapons.

That fear is real in the students that I talk with daily. Many of them left our comprehensive high schools because they did not feel safe. That’s something we really need to work on, but we need to work on it through the back door.

Why are those students bringing weapons, and how can we help them? If kids are achieving, they are probably less likely to bring weapons into the school and be angry.

Q: Tech fields are undergoing employment decline. How can we make sure students are prepared for the future?

Anderson: There is certainly less opportunity for folks coming out of traditional colleges on tech paths. We need to be identifying different possibilities, including opportunities for trades and technical careers. The district is going to need to put more resources into this fairly quickly.

Bucher: We need to make sure those opportunities are attractive. We have to change the atmosphere. It might make them happier than sitting at a theoretical computer all day.

Q: BVSD food service is highly regarded, with most meals made from scratch for students. All schools offer free low-cost breakfast and lunch. What happens to healthy food if Propositions LL and MM do not pass? [Editor’s note: The state ballot initiatives would fund free school meals for every student in the state.]

Anderson: It’s absolutely essential that LL and MM are passed.. They get their funding in a most progressive way, only tax[ing] people making over $300,000. Realistically, the district cannot pick this up on their own.

Bucher: That would be a sad day if LL and MM do not pass. I really honestly believe the availability of food over the last couple years has been a game-changer. I’d dare my data-mongering friends to prove that the achievement gap reduction and good scores that gave us so much recognition weren’t just from the food.

Q: What plans do you have to support students whose first language is not English?

Anderson: Targeted additional resources for students in this situation. (Hopefully we’re not going to lose those programs or the funds for them.) Those are going to be priorities we have to take out of other funds. 

Bucher: There is a conflict between students who want to go to their community school and maybe need an English as a Second Language (ESL) program, because those things don’t happen in every school. Students are waiving their right to ESL services in order to be able to attend their community school.

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