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, valuing schools for sale as vacant lots, excluding parents from decisions, focus on social issues over reading, writing, and arithmetic, and other policies that detract from education. We need better results from the Jeffco schools budget of about 1.32 billion yearly.
Local Colorado school boards have much autonomy and supposedly report to the voters. In practice many district boards are union controlled. 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, candidates, political teachers who suggest votes to students and parents, measly funds raised by conservative candidates, ballot division between conservative candidates, etc. 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 an 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. The Jeffco district board can also be voted out in the 2027 and 2029 elections. This is an uphill battle as Harris creamed Trump by 20% in 2024 in CD7 that includes Jeffco.
Voters can force reforms on the Jeffco schools 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 will 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. 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 other school districts in the state.
It would also be good to vote for conservative candidates for State House and State Senate seats because they can help trim waste and overspending on healthcare thus preserving the State education budget (of which Jeffco gets a slice) and repeal some awful legislature-imposed curricula. As Jeffco is split among several districts, I cannot give specific names here.
In 2027, for the November 2027 odd-year election:
To complete reforming Jeffco schools, it is 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 local school board. 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 Jeffco schools in June 2027 to approve petition formats and, between 90 and 67 days before the November 2027 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 2027 election.
In the November 2029 odd-year election:
Repeat the process proposed for 2027 with a slate of 3 candidates to expel the remaining local board members. Once this is done, the new local board can make many changes in Jeffco school operations.
Recall Alternative
The Jeffco school board members can also be recalled before their terms expire in 2027 and 2029 To do so requires circulating a petition and obtaining 15,000 valid signatures.
Paid for by Barton Campaign, registered agent Steven Barton. © 2026 Steven Barton