Let's talk about Denver Public Schools,
which you brought up there.
Could you each take a minute to
explain in specific detail how you make
Denver a safer place to be a child?
Inside school and outside school is rough.
I'll start with inside school,
I think for me, you know, in.
I've spent most of my campaign in the
living rooms of people throughout this city.
I think I've been in 70 living rooms.
I kind of wish I would have taken
a picture of each of them so
you could see the living rooms.
We can make a coffee table
book that you could have.
But in those conversations,
the number one issue often was
discussion of our school board and
loss of confidence in the school
board itself and its ability to make
decisions both about educating our
kids but also keeping them safe.
And one of the issues we discussed was
this requirement for blanket policy.
Where schools themselves couldn't
come together, the teachers,
the principal, the students,
and decide how best to keep
kids safe school by school.
Because I do think it can look different.
And I would strongly support a school
board that recognizes that that
kind of autonomy and agency in our
schools increases safety for our kids,
including those schools who
want school resource officers,
which is part of I think the
last debate you all hosted.
It's
rough. Thank you. That's how I
want to make sure we hear from Mr.
Johnson on that as well.
How do you make Denver safer for
kids inside and outside school?
I think the best way to keep a 17
year old from picking up a gun is
to make sure when that kid is 12,
he picks up a passion,
he picks up something that he actually
loves that is a part of a positive peer
group that gets them motivated, engaged.
That's why I would really start with
expanding these after school and
summer school programs for kids on
free and reduced lunch so they can
help find those passions early on.
The second best way you avoid a
17 year old from shooting someone
else or injuring himself is when
that young person is 13 or 14 or 15
and makes their first mistake gets
caught with a gun for the first time.
In our serious criminal activity
we actually dramatically increase
the intervention we provide to
wrap around that young person.
That means counseling,
that means supervision,
that means positive peer groups,
that means family based supports.
I would significantly expand that
kind of support across the city.
And then the third is you do have to
support schools and providing the
security They think they are going
to want to keep their kids safe.
That can look different school to school.
But when parents and teachers
tell us we want back some basic
security in our school,
including school resource officers,
that means for me,
allowing those parents and those
teachers and those school leaders
to choose that and keep that.
Some short answer questions on the
situation D PS:. To get some clarity,
both of you support the idea of
individual schools deciding whether or
not they want a school resource officer.
If it means that the city has to pay for it.
Are you willing to do that, Mister Johnson?
Yes, I am Miss Ruff. Miss Ruff?
You seem to suggest that the DPS
discipline matrix should be changed.
As we've reported,
young people charged with violent
crimes up to and including attempted
murder are allowed back into class
so long as the attempted murder
happened off of school property.
Would you actively seek,
through school board races or whatever,
to have DPS reform its discipline matrix?
What I would do is partner with DPS
and our community to be able to Yes,
I would listen, I when we think
about our obligation to educate
our kids and keep them safe,
I think we can do both of those things
and have kids who are at high risk,
both for their own protection but
also other kids to be in a safer
location or in another school or
learning in a different manner.
Until they're stabilized or doing better
or deemed to not be at risk to other kids.
Mr. Johnson, does the mayor have
any role in leaning on DPS over
their discipline matrix? Yeah,
I think the mayor should be
a part of this conversation.
And here's why I think we've missed what
can be a very reasonable solution here.
I ran schools that serve kids who had
committed murder or an attempted murder,
had serious histories of sex assault,
and we had settings with
those kids that succeed.
They were often.
40 kids and it's 11 or 12 adults,
and that includes therapists and
psychiatrists and psychologists.
They are created for that service.
We can both offer every kid a free
and appropriate public education
and not say that a kid who's been
expelled from another school for a
gun charge ought to be in a 3000
student comprehensive high school
where we have teachers every day
trying to pat them down for a gun
to make sure that they're safe.
That is not the right strategy.
But there is a way to serve those
young people and to serve them
in a saying that's going to serve
them better and it's going to serve
the rest of their peers better.
Both of you said you'll get involved
in school board races. That's an.
Awful nebulous thing to say.
Let's be specific.
The DPS board member who led
the charge to get School
Resources Resource officers out,
Vice President Ante Anderson,
is up for reelection in November.
Should a Ante Anderson be reelected to
the Denver School board, Miss Bruff,
I'll work with the community to identify
three people that there's three seats up,
and I'll work in community in Denver
to identify the three people that
need to be on the school board
instead of who's there today. It's
declined to answer Should a Ante Anderson No.
Should a Ante Anderson be reelected?
Instead of who's there today,
I want to make sure we're clear on that.
Thank you. Thank you for catching that.
So you see, you will oppose his reelection.
I will support someone else
with the community that restores
confidence. Mr. Johnson,
I believe he's lost the faith
of the voters on this one.
So I do not think, I do not know
that he will run for that seat.
But I believe he's lost the faith of
the voters based on the leadership
over the last several years.