06/28/2021
***Open Letter 6.28.21***
Dear Friends, Family, and Supporters,
Four years ago, my little cousin Ulises Cordova started his first year of college at Colorado State University-Fort Collins. He would be the fifth Cordova to go to a four year university (I was the first, my little sister Nicole the second, and my cousins Naomi and Clara the third and fourth respectively). This year, he graduated and became the fifth in our family to earn a Bachelor's Degree. I am so proud of Ulises and know that the ability to graduate from high school and persist through college is a tool to achieve dreams, and by extension, self-determination for an entire community.
Indeed, it is this belief that drove me to run to be the Director for District 2 on the Denver Board of Education four years ago. I was moved by the idea that I could help govern a system that would ensure my former students from my days as a teacher would graduate from high school and be ready for college and a career. This year, my former third grade students did just that: graduated from high school. I used to tell my students that they were “la luz de mi vida,” (the light of my life) when I was their teacher. My board service is a reflection of my love and dedication to their future.
Four years later, I have decided not to run for re-election. This is the hardest decision I have had to make in a long time. Together, my community and I have accomplished so much! From working with parents at Valverde and KIPP to secure traffic upgrades from the City and County of Denver to make the school safer, to revising the School Performance Compact (SPC) alongside Director Bacon to diversify school improvement strategies beyond closure, to issuing recommendations on reforming the curfew policy to Chief Pazan and the Denver Safety Department after co-hosting a forum with Young African American and Latinx Leaders (Y’ALL). Recognizing that budgets are value statements, I was so proud to be able to work with our Finance Team to increase the minimum wage within the school district for hourly employees and maintain the raise during the instability of the pandemic. I am honored to know that after my time on the Board, the changes we made will continue to positively impact the community. I worked to establish a representative and inclusive Budget Advisory Committee through a shift in board policy to solve our $65 million budget deficit with equity at the core, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. I leveraged my work outside of the Board of Education to connect DPS to the Southern Poverty Law Center so that DPS could fight back against Betsy DeVos and the Department of Education when she tried to share pandemic relief funds with private schools during her tenure as Secretary of Education. I worked to ensure DPS was a lead plaintiff in a lawsuit alongside the NAACP and other national advocates.
Denver Public Schools is turning a new page in its history with an inspiring and accomplished superintendent, Dr. Alex Marrero. Dr. Marrero and the Board of Education will chart a path forward with a new strategic plan to ensure “every child succeeds.” As DPS moves forward, it is time to empower another Latina Leader in the same way that four years ago, the Honorable Rosemary Rodriguez enabled me to run and win with her mentorship and support. For the 2021 election, I endorse Karolina Villagrana to become the next Director on the Denver Board of Education to represent our home barrio of southwest Denver.
I have known Karolina for five years and am supporting her because she will put the needs of students and families in southwest Denver at the center of every decision. For both Karolina and me, our students and families are extensions of ourselves. We are both former DPS students who call southwest Denver home, were multilingual students, and are daughters of Mexican immigrants. Karolina is a former teacher and administrator who has worked in a variety of different school models in Denver, Kansas City, and San Jose. Her expertise is aligned to the needs of the nearly 50% of southwest Denver students who speak English as a second language, most recently serving as the Director of Elementary Literacy and K-8 Language Acquisition for the KIPP network. You can find Karolina at Huston Lake Park on Tuesday evenings facilitating bilingual read-alouds and art extension activities with students and families in an event she calls Libros en el Parque. She does this on her own time, knowing that in the times of quarantine isolation, our students need both literacy and community. Karolina has both the lived and professional experiences to ensure the continued advancement of southwest Denver students, as well as to collaborate with the Board of Education and Superintendent Marrero to govern as an effective team.
I hope the community will join me in supporting Karolina. More importantly, I hope we all recommit to working together to tackle the challenges that Denver Public Schools faces. At the end of every board meeting, we should ask ourselves: “Is our shared work reflective of the needs of students of color, and do the outcomes tangibly change the course of their lives?” If the answer is anything other than a resounding “yes,” then we are wasting time. Time my sister’s kindergarten students, and all students of color, cannot afford to lose.
Though my tenure on the board is ending, I will continue to advocate for the academic, economic, and political conditions that my former students and their families deserve. I will work to ensure students graduate on to college and career through my board service on Prosperity Denver Fund, have access to community food systems in southwest Denver through my board service at ReVision, ensure students’ families live in a state that enables economic mobility by design with my board work at the The Bell Policy Center, and advocate for students’ and families’ reproductive rights and health in federal policy at Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
It has been an honor to serve my family and neighbors in southwest Denver on the Board of Education. I am forever grateful for their love and support. And to my students, you continue to be la luz de mi vida.
Con compañerismo y mucho cariño,
Angela Cobián
