By Rachel Vigil

As the summer comes to a close, Jefferson County schools are entering into the season of recall elections and teacher contract negotiations.

As of Sept. 3, the option to dispute the recall election ended and the initiative was officially put on the ballot.

Since their election in 2013, the three conservative school board members John Newkirk, Julie Williams, and Ken Witt have been swamped with controversies. Last year, issues of censorship and teacher compensation were across national news.

Those controversies, along with generally tumultuous relations with some of the community and teachers union, have culminated into a community-led recall election for Newkirk, Williams, and Witt. The approval of  petitions for the recall was started on June 26th, followed quickly by the announcement more than double the required amount of signatures, 15,000 for each member, had been collected by July 26. No challenge of the recall has been put forward in time, meaning that the recall will be on the general ballot this November.

Thus far, the board members have responded relatively calmly to this, with Board President Witt saying in an emailed statement that, “I am looking forward to this dialogue with our fellow parents in Jeffco. This recall will serve to highlight the accomplishments of this board, staff and students.” The board majority also decided not to file a protest of the recall.

The opposite side of the recall, those who began it, responded with equal enthusiasm. Parent Tina Gurdikian with Jeffco United for Action stated in a press release that, “The message is clear.” Jeffco United for Action cites the lack of transparency by the majority, how little the parents and students are represented by the board, the lack of space in schools, and the waste of taxpayer money as the reasons that they decided to recall the board members.

Four candidates have registered to run in the recall election against the current majority. Three of them announced their pursuit of the board seats together: Brad Rupert, Susan Harmon, and Ron Mitchell. They are an attorney, a school volunteer, and a retired principal respectively.

A fourth candidate, former school board member Paula Noonan, filed paperwork separately and is running for the District 5 (John Newkirk) seat.

Along with this, both members of the minority, Jill Fellman (District 3) and Lesley Dahlkemper (District 4), have decided not to run for re-election so two more seats will be voted on in this upcoming election. Kim Johnson and Ali Lasell will be running against each other for District 3 while Tori Merritts and Amanda Stevens will be running against each other for District 4.

Though the contract with teachers has been approved, it will only last for 10 months and will soon  be a point of contention again.

“They tried to explain it as trying to follow the fiscal year. If that’s the case  then why isn’t the superintendent on a similar type of contract schedule?” said Stephanie Rossi a history teacher at Wheat Ridge High School and a teacher union representative and negotiator.

She continued by saying, “The problem with a ten month duration is that you’re a year long employee, school year to school year and the people who have to work on it had to work on it 6 months before this contract so with this short term contract the workload for teachers will be intensified.”

Despite these limitations, Rossi still, “Thinks this a beneficial contract.” The biggest challenge to her was starting out on the contracts, “With a blank sheet of paper.”

To keep up with the current activities of the school board, simply attend their meetings or watch the live streams of the meetings online.