Luis A. Torres, Ph.D.
Posted October 2, 2025
Voters in the City and County of Denver have the opportunity to decide who will represent them as School Board members for Denver Public Schools in the fast-approaching election on November 4th. El Semanario/The Weekly Issue is proud to endorse Ms. Xóchitl Gáytan’s candidacy for another term on the School Board. Among Ms. Gáytan’s major accomplishments in her first term, she was a vital contributor to Denver Public Schools’ exceptional leadership educating newcomer immigrant students, assisting in managing the DPS budget, supporting DPS teachers and staff including for equitable pay, advocating for Mental Health resources, and promoting equal treatment for socially marginalized students. Her tenure on the School Board since 2021 included two years as DPS Board President, which this reporter considers one of the two major positions in Denver, the Mayor the other. She has been a lifelong advocate for District run public schools.
Ms. Gaytán is the DPS Board District 2 representative for southwest Denver and the mother of two DPS students, one graduated and the other still attending. She stated in our recent interview that she is proud to have been the first Mexican-born President of the Denver Public Schools School Board, stating, “I lived the undocumented experience from the time I arrived in this country until the time I became a United States citizen at the age of 21.” (Note: She arrived as a toddler, at three years old.) “Protecting our children means protecting their families too.” As a bilingual speaker, she has been eager to communicate with Spanish-speaking students and parents.
To the question, “What are some of the major accomplishments by the School Board you have influenced?”, Ms. Gaytán cited several, beginning with advocating for supportive treatment for the newly arrived immigrant students. She worked tirelessly to provide a quality education for these newcomer students to the U.S. during the increased immigration period, especially late 2022 through 2024, including Venezuelan families fleeing political unrest, government corruption, soaring monetary inflation, and economic collapse. Many of them, seeking asylum, were sent by the Texas political establishment in buses during the depths of the Denver winter, with families loaded onto buses, unaware they would arrive in Denver from Texas and unprepared for our winter. Other immigrants, including from Colombia, Peru, Russia, and other countries, likewise arrived, in desperate conditions.
As Ms. Gaytán stated, beginning in 2022, with her leadership the Superintendent and the Board, unanimously, moved funding to ensure these newcomer students would receive meals and appropriate support from staff, who were eager to assist. “That happened very, very fast, and the Superintendent and staff, and the teachers very courageously took on the need” to assist them. “We had phenomenal adults to help students to adjust and start healing from their trauma. The City and County of Denver graciously provided support especially around housing, children that were settled into a school could stay in the school.” The DPS leadership, likewise, created partnerships with the city of Denver. The DPS team and city agencies helped families to secure housing and food and clothing. “We had teams of people, and the city agency showed up at the schools that were receiving the new children to provide for the students, almost daily,” with the families. That was work over and above the responsibilities for teachers and staff, who already had high class and caseloads with special service providers. The teachers and staff “were trying to be kind and patient and nurturing to these children.”
In addition to the Denver City Council, then-Mayor Michael Hancock and current Mayor Mike Johnston ensured Denver provided essential assistance, including food, clothing, and shelter during the winter of 2022-2023 and following. According to an NBC News report on January 27, 2024:
Nearly 40,000 migrants have arrived in Denver over the past year, making… [Denver] the top destination per capita for newly arrived migrants crossing the U.S. southern border…. In many ways, Denver welcomed the migrants in a way not seen in other cities. They have not had major protests like New York and Chicago. Instead, residents have joined with nonprofits to donate food and clothing and even organized carpools to get new migrant students to school…. Nearly 3,000 immigrant children, mainly from Venezuela, have joined the Denver Public School system since July” of 2023.
As Ms. Gaytán stated in our interview, “If we [in DPS] didn’t have enough finances, we could build partnerships, things like food and clothing that leads to supporting the Superintendent to partner with the city of Denver.” She stated Dr. Marrero recommended creating Community Hubs to provide for the students, and the Board and DPS School District approved them and worked to implement them. They created six such Hubs with funds from DPS and the city of Denver to provide food and clothing for the students, and GED education for parents. Ms. Gaytán stated, “We have over 60 to 70 parents every year graduating with GED and ESL. Parents who are not prepared sufficiently in English for GED studies, a teacher teaches them ESL and then they can move into GED,” ongoing for the last three years.
As a leader, Ms. Gaytán worked along with immigrant rights groups such as American Friends Service Committee and with current Board President Dr. Carrie Olson and the Superintendent. They supported DPS teachers by establishing an Immigrant Task Force which has helped prepare teachers and staff how to respond if the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE were to try to enter DPS schools. The staff knows they must ask ICE for an ID, and a warrant signed by a Federal Judge. Therefore, DHS and ICE enforcement agents must have their papers.
Ms. Gaytán has also worked with the Board and District to partner with non-profits to provide “Know your Rights Training” including in Spanish and other languages such as African and other Refugee languages.
This reporter believes that the measures by Ms. Gaytán and her School Board colleagues, with Superintendent Marrero, constituted the most significant educational and civil rights achievements in Colorado, perhaps in the last decade. Some cities in the Denver metro area and the front range passed resolutions against assisting immigrants during this period, without regard to children being among those newcomers. However, Denver and DPS helped provide for and protect these students and families. As she states, despite all of the trauma and barriers they faced outside of the school buildings, “the students are doing well and are on their way to becoming bilingual in English and Spanish.”
She wants to ensure people know she is a District run public school champion, and she has stood strongly with teachers’ unions, and most importantly, with the students.
Ms. Gaytán has contributed a variety of other significant accomplishments both before and after her role as Board President. These include the work she has done to increase minimum wage for paraprofessionals, working to ensure the Board passed the measure to increase it to $20 an hour. She partnered with the Superintendent to negotiate the raise. In addition, for one of the first policies she worked on, she partnered with Board Member Scott Balderman on the policy that compels the District to protect bargaining rights in “innovation” schools, as they did not have bargaining rights before.
The Board, with the leadership of Xóchitl Gaytán and Scott Balderman, were able to pass the policy within only a couple of months of her becoming Board President. Some innovation schools, per innovation laws per state statute, are required to have an innovation plan, but that does not necessarily provide teachers with bargaining rights. The policy calls for clear job expectations and legally compliant evaluations.
In addition, Ms. Gaytán has a record of navigating on the large and extremely complex budget, which has required her to maneuver through its complexities in a variety of ways. While she did not necessarily have a history of budget management for the Denver Public Schools’ over $1 billion dollar budget, she studied assiduously to quickly learn to be a voice that policies and line items have to be redistributed to have funding that would further directly impact teachers and classrooms.
It is clear that there are challenges ahead in DPS, a system with 90,000 students, and with half identified as Chicano, Mexicano, and Latino, with a top need identified by Ms. Gaytán as funding multilingual education. As she states, such students deserve to have their needs met. “We keep getting these threats around funding cuts [from the Federal Government] that hurt our ability to strengthen our Multilingual Department. We need to get creative in how we can be persuading our state legislators to pull more funding into public education.” As she asserts, “Legislators can help us with state funding for public education,” specifically for District run public school classrooms.
An additional need she has championed is to speak for and invest in mental health support for students, teachers, and staff. Along with ensuring that students must have their basic needs met, Ms. Gaytán includes mental health as one of those needs.
Additionally, she will advocate for Latino Student Success and Black Student Succes, IEP (Individualized Education Programs), and for those with different learning abilities, including the intersectionality of all such identities, including GBTQ students. As she asserted, “I’ve always stood with and will continue to stand alongside LGBTQ students and their families,” as Board members must stand with them, not just speak about them. She has supported the legal action for an injunction and a restraining order against ICE, as well as against the recent government interference against the LGBTQ students at East High School. Ms. Gaytán considers those students as displaying a great deal of courage for advocating for a gender-neutral bathroom.
Should Xóchitl Gaytán receive the confidence of District 2 voters in returning for another Board term, she would continue to be a strong voice for teachers, the Teachers Union, and all of the other bargaining units, including paraprofessionals, nutrition service workers, facilities workers, and security teams. When the Denver School Board discusses budget issues, she will advocate for them, including pay compensation. As she stated, employee-pay should advance with the cost of living adjustments, and they should know that they have representation on the Board. She wants to ensure people know she is a District run public school champion, and she has stood strongly with teachers’ unions, and most importantly, with the students. “I want to be sure every student has access to resources, quality learning inside these District run public schools. Board members should lead with compassion and dignity.”
Luis Torres, PhD, retired, served as Deputy Provost for Metropolitan State University of Denver for Academic and Student Affairs and professor of Chicana/o Studies. Torres is a noted advocate for equity in education, policy and community efforts. Torres is also a member of The Weekly Issue/El Semanario Advisory Board.
