Jeffco — Steve Barton Campaign for CD7 State Board of Education

How Voters Can Reform JEFFCO Schools

Many parents and community members are frustrated with Jefferson County (Jeffco) schools and the Jeffco school board. Among issues reported in media are 61 boys on girl’s teams, boys sharing hotel beds with girls on school trips, lawsuits against the Federal government chasing funds that the Feds threaten to withhold, expending over 2 million on repairs for each of several schools subsequently closed and sold for about the cost of the repairs, excluding parents from decisions, focus on social issues over reading, writing, and arithmetic, and other policies that detract from education.

In Colorado, local school boards have much autonomy and supposedly report to the voters. In practice many district boards are controlled by large teacher’s unions. This results from low-turnout, odd-year, school board elections (Jeffco’s last election was 2025), heavy union and leftist-group financing of union-picked, leftist, candidates, political teachers who suggest votes to students and parents, measly funds raised by conservative candidates, and ballot division between conservative candidates. This pattern has been broken in places by organizing communities to get high voter turnout and educate voters about conservative candidates.

This year, we have a rare opportunity to “flip” the State Board of Education and the State Department of Education that the State Board controls. Flipping the State board will affect policies and state rules imposed on the Jeffco board.

Reforms can be forced upon the Jeffco schools by voters as follows:

In the 2026 Midterm elections:

Form parental and concerned community organizations to canvas voters, encouraging them to vote, and to vote as follows:

1. Vote YES on proposition 134. This proposition amends the Colorado constitution and State law to prohibit boys on girls teams and resolve the 61 boys on girls teams and related litigation.

2. Vote STEVE BARTON for the Congressional District 7 seat on the State Board of Education. Since the incumbent is a democrat on the 5/4 democrat-to-republican State Board, a win could flip the State Board to be more conservative than it is now. The State Board can then conduct a forensic audit of Jeffco schools, revise State curriculum standards to focus more on basic skills and less on social and race indoctrination, and revise State rules that exclude parental input. This will affect Jeffco schools as well as many other school districts in the state.

In 2027, for the November 2027 odd-year election:

To complete reforming Jeffco schools, it will be necessary to change the local board.

1. Organize parental and concerned community groups to select 2 conservative candidates to run as a slate against existing members and/or union-sponsored candidates for the Jeffco school board. Limit conservative candidates because multiple candidates split the vote. As Jeffco has board districts, the candidates must reside within the board district for which they run-this excludes me as I live in another school district. Please contact Jeffco schools to determine board district boundaries.

2. Contact the District office in June to approve petition formats and, between 90 and 67 days before the election, circulate, notarize, and submit signed petitions to put the 2 candidates on the ballot. Since many signatures will be rejected, get at least 100 signatures.

3. Fund these 2 candidates well – but expect to be well outraised by union candidates.

4. Campaign hard to inform voters and get out the vote district-wide to elect 2 conservative candidates in the October-November combined election.

In the November 2029 odd-year election:

Repeat the process proposed for 2027 with a slate of 3 candidates to expel the remaining board members from the local board. Once this is done, the new local board can make many changes in Jeffco school operations.