October 20, 2025 • 12 mins
IT'S TIME TO FLIP THAT BOARD And Jimmy Sengenberger explains here why and the how. Again, vote for Alex Magaña, Timiya Jackson, Caron Blanke, and Mariana del Hierro, they are the best hope we've got right now. He joins me at 2:30 to discuss.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
It's the Jimmy Singenberger bet signal. It's the harmonica. I
just play that and all of a sudden, Jimmy appears.
It's like magic. So I was waiting for Jimmy to
say that, Hi Jimmy, welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Oh you were well. Hello, long time, no c or
no air on KOA, Yeah, busy, busy.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I got lots of compliments on your filling gig last week,
so that was very very good.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Thank you. Somebody liked it.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Oh stop stop it now. I called you today not
because I want to talk about your filling ability. It's
because they're excellent. I want to talk about this column
that you've written for the Denver Gazette on Denver public schools.
And it's interesting because I don't know if you saw
the article also in the Denver Gazette about how everybody's
(01:03):
racist when you come to the Denver Public schools if
you are white and you say anything that they don't
want to hear or don't want to do. It's racism
that's at the heart of this. So let's talk for
a second about your column. But it really just goes
to show how bad the board is in the grand
scheme of things. This school board race is very important,
(01:24):
and you kind of lay out some of the reasons
why in your column.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
We have in Denver Public Schools a superintendent who has
spent years failing upward. And I say failing upward because
earlier this year the school board voted five to two
to give them a swanky new contract extension with more
job protections before even doing his annual review. In fact,
(01:52):
they just put new metrics in place in January. A
few months later they said, we don't need to worry
about those until this fall.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Let's give them a contract extension anyway.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Meanwhile, they have a district attorney, and I don't mean
the DA, I mean the attorney for the school district
who has promoted and made it possible for the district
to consistently go behind closed doors and flout laws that
are all about shining light on what happens open meetings laws.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
You have to be open to the public.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
For meetings accepted in express circumstances and following proper things.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well, those people of.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Alex Morero and Aaron Thompson, the superintendent and attorney, respectively,
are just one small example of.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
How bad this district is.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Because the school board is what enables all the failures,
from school safety failures to educational quality. The outcomes is
are just terrible. And the list goes on for problems
in the district that are out.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Of the feet of the school board.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
And four of the seven seeds are up for grabs
in this election.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Mandy, I keep telling people, no matter where they are,
pay attention to the school board races. Pay attention to
the school board races. Jimmy, you like I I mean, at
this point, following Denver Public Schools is almost like a sport,
right following what the board does.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
It's like, what fresh hell.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Can they unferral this week? I'm old enough to remember
when Tay Anderson called Soshi Gutana racist. So you know,
going back to this article the dysfunction of this board,
and to your point about going back and changing the
parameters of Alex Morero's contract for the sole purpose of
tying the hands of the next board before they even
(03:41):
had a chance to get elected. It's just indicative of
how little they care about student achievement and how focused
like a laser they are with racial metrics about the
makeup of the board or the makeup of the superintendent
ethnically rather than can kids read and write? And if
they can't, what are we doing to make sure they can?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
It's important to note, since you mentioned our good buddy
Tay Anderson, that he's running the campaigns of two of
the candidates, Scott Esserman and Michelle Quadlebaum, who both hired
him in twenty twenty one when the investigation report into
allegations of sexual misconduct hadn't even come out. When it
did come out, he was still working for their campaign,
(04:26):
and they still voted him to be vice president even
after it was determined that, among other things, he had
aggressively attempted to date pursued relationships with multiple underage schoolgirls,
among other things. And this is a guy who has
no business involved in the school board in any way,
(04:47):
shape or form. But both Esserman and Quadlebaum, who were
tight enkit as they could come when Tay was on
the board, have hired him to effectively be their campaign manager,
and most of the money for both of their campaigns
that they have spent so far has gone towards Kay
Anderson's company business called Good Trouble Consulting, and Good Trouble
(05:11):
is a term that the late Congressman John Lewis was
known for saying and using especially in the Civil rights movement.
And look, I'm not a big John Lewis fan, but
he's got to be rolling over in his grave. Yeah, kay,
Anderson and his antics in the name of good trouble consulting.
And by the way, neither Essermon nor Quadobaum has the
(05:33):
backing of the Teachers' union because they're so bad not
even the union could support them.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
This time.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
There are union back candidates, and I am reflexively asking
people to vote for anyone, Like if there is a
dead body running against a union candidate, go ahead and
give Weekend at Burners your vote. Okay, We've already proven
that dead people can run big organizations. We saw that
in the White House for four years. Anyway, in this race,
(05:58):
like Alec Miniana to Mia Jackson, Karen Blank, Marianna del Hiero,
they are the four most reasonable candidates that I can find,
So that is who I am. I'm not endorsing any
of them. This is who I would vote for if
I were in Denver. But I'm not endorsing any of
them because whoever I endorses loses, So I'm not doing
that is there a real possibility. Are you getting a
(06:21):
sense that people are fed up enough? After the last
few years of these garbage safety policies, We still don't
have a good safety plan for Denver public schools. The
discipline matrix is absurd. And I know that you probably
know more about the discipline matrix outside of the school
district than most So if you could, if I asked
(06:42):
you in ninety seconds, Jimmy, can you encapsulate the district's
discipline policy when it comes to placing dangerously or students
that are potentially dangerous, who are facing crimes, including attempted
murder and murder back into the schools? What would that
discipline matrix look like?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
It will just quote the single word of one teacher
to me many months ago when the so called revised
discipline matrix was put in place, anemic. I definitely think
that word captures it. I mean still to this day.
You can have a principle go to the district and say, hey,
we have a violent student who's been charged with this
(07:26):
crime or convicted of this crime. Can we find an
alternative pathway for them to make sure they still get
their education? But they're not in the classroom with other
students and the district we'll just say no, sorry, we're
not going to do that, and that ties in to
the disciplined matrix. But I want to go to something
you were saying in terms of the union candidates and
what potential there could be for a change here, and
(07:49):
I think we could we could look at the union's contribution.
That is the donation data from the Teachers' Union this cycle.
So four years ago when Scott Wesserman, Michelle Quadobaum and Socigeitan,
who still has the union's endorsement, were elected and now
President Carrie Olsen was re elected, the Teachers' Union from
(08:12):
the state and the locals spent two hundred and forty
two thousand dollars on Denver public schools in direct and
non monetary contributions.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
That's astonishing.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
But this year, Mandy, so far on their four candidates,
they have only spent forty eight thousand dollars, which is
about a fifth of what they spent four years ago,
which to me suggests maybe they think it's possible they
might be throwing good money after bad and that a
(08:46):
change is gonna come. I don't know who knows this
is Denver after all. But we could see something positive here.
And one final thing I'll add. You can look at
the union website for their endorsement candidates not to vote for.
Make sure you remember that Scott Westerman and Michelle Quadobaum
are also union candidates.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
They were just.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Endorsed and backed and financed by the union the first time.
Between the two of them, they got about one hundred
and twenty thousand dollars from the union. So just because
they don't have union support anymore this time, at least officially,
doesn't mean they aren't union candidates.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
There are six of them in this race.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Okay, So here's the thing about teachers unions against me, Jimmy,
Because in my mind, the discipline matrix could be one
of those areas where the teachers Union could take a
firm stand and say, look, we want to not only
protect students, we want to protect teachers. These are the
people that we are supposed to represent, and we want
a discipline matrix that a makes sense. That discipline matrix
(09:49):
is a mess. If you can figure out easily what
the proper response is for some of this stuff, it's
it's amazing how idiotic the entire thing is. But the
teachers unions don't that. They don't do that because they
don't necessarily care about the discipline matrix. They just care
about staying in favor with the superintendent, whoever that is.
(10:09):
And now they've got Alex Morrero, who is beyond incompetent
in my view, and weigh in over his head. And
you can look at the district's results on academics and
know exactly what I'm talking about. But why doesn't the
union say, yeah, we want security for our teachers and
our students. At least find one area of commonality with
parents on this right, But they don't do that.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I think twofold reasons. One is ideological. They believe that
it would exacerbate the so called school to prison pipeline,
and probably would prefer the union bosses, that is, which
don't necessarily and tend not to actually follow along with
what rank and file teachers would want, but they believe it,
(10:50):
so there's an ideological black. They probably would prefer to
not have school resource officers back in schools, like was
voted in a couple of years ago, after two years
before Tay Anderson led the charge to get rid of them.
I think the second reason isn't so much about being
in league with the superintendent as getting the superintendent to
be in league with him or with them rather, and
(11:13):
that means picking and choosing when you want to criticize
the superintendent.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
The only time was earlier this year.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
They had issues with their contract negotiations, and that's when
the teachers' union suddenly decided to speak out against the superintendent. Otherwise,
you don't hear a thing. They are ZiT and unwilling
to say a peep. And I think that's because they
want the status quo, because it serves the interests of
(11:41):
the union bosses, even to the detriment of teachers and
students alike.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Read Jimmy's column on the Denver Gazette. I linked to
it on the blog today along with the four names Manyana, Jackson, Blank,
and del Heerro. Those are the four candidates I would
vote for if I was in Denver. None of them
are perfect in my estimation, but some of them were
quite good. Jimmy, good to see you again, my friend.
Thanks for doing such a great job last week.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Always, thank you
It's the Jimmy Singenberger bet signal. It's the harmonica. I
just play that and all of a sudden, Jimmy appears.
It's like magic. So I was waiting for Jimmy to
say that, Hi Jimmy, welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Oh you were well. Hello, long time, no c or
no air on KOA, Yeah, busy, busy.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I got lots of compliments on your filling gig last week,
so that was very very good.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Thank you. Somebody liked it.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Oh stop stop it now. I called you today not
because I want to talk about your filling ability. It's
because they're excellent. I want to talk about this column
that you've written for the Denver Gazette on Denver public schools.
And it's interesting because I don't know if you saw
the article also in the Denver Gazette about how everybody's
(01:03):
racist when you come to the Denver Public schools if
you are white and you say anything that they don't
want to hear or don't want to do. It's racism
that's at the heart of this. So let's talk for
a second about your column. But it really just goes
to show how bad the board is in the grand
scheme of things. This school board race is very important,
(01:24):
and you kind of lay out some of the reasons
why in your column.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
We have in Denver Public Schools a superintendent who has
spent years failing upward. And I say failing upward because
earlier this year the school board voted five to two
to give them a swanky new contract extension with more
job protections before even doing his annual review. In fact,
(01:52):
they just put new metrics in place in January. A
few months later they said, we don't need to worry
about those until this fall.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Let's give them a contract extension anyway.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Meanwhile, they have a district attorney, and I don't mean
the DA, I mean the attorney for the school district
who has promoted and made it possible for the district
to consistently go behind closed doors and flout laws that
are all about shining light on what happens open meetings laws.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
You have to be open to the public.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
For meetings accepted in express circumstances and following proper things.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well, those people of.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Alex Morero and Aaron Thompson, the superintendent and attorney, respectively,
are just one small example of.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
How bad this district is.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Because the school board is what enables all the failures,
from school safety failures to educational quality. The outcomes is
are just terrible. And the list goes on for problems
in the district that are out.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Of the feet of the school board.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
And four of the seven seeds are up for grabs
in this election.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Mandy, I keep telling people, no matter where they are,
pay attention to the school board races. Pay attention to
the school board races. Jimmy, you like I I mean, at
this point, following Denver Public Schools is almost like a sport,
right following what the board does.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
It's like, what fresh hell.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Can they unferral this week? I'm old enough to remember
when Tay Anderson called Soshi Gutana racist. So you know,
going back to this article the dysfunction of this board,
and to your point about going back and changing the
parameters of Alex Morero's contract for the sole purpose of
tying the hands of the next board before they even
(03:41):
had a chance to get elected. It's just indicative of
how little they care about student achievement and how focused
like a laser they are with racial metrics about the
makeup of the board or the makeup of the superintendent
ethnically rather than can kids read and write? And if
they can't, what are we doing to make sure they can?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
It's important to note, since you mentioned our good buddy
Tay Anderson, that he's running the campaigns of two of
the candidates, Scott Esserman and Michelle Quadlebaum, who both hired
him in twenty twenty one when the investigation report into
allegations of sexual misconduct hadn't even come out. When it
did come out, he was still working for their campaign,
(04:26):
and they still voted him to be vice president even
after it was determined that, among other things, he had
aggressively attempted to date pursued relationships with multiple underage schoolgirls,
among other things. And this is a guy who has
no business involved in the school board in any way,
(04:47):
shape or form. But both Esserman and Quadlebaum, who were
tight enkit as they could come when Tay was on
the board, have hired him to effectively be their campaign manager,
and most of the money for both of their campaigns
that they have spent so far has gone towards Kay
Anderson's company business called Good Trouble Consulting, and Good Trouble
(05:11):
is a term that the late Congressman John Lewis was
known for saying and using especially in the Civil rights movement.
And look, I'm not a big John Lewis fan, but
he's got to be rolling over in his grave. Yeah, kay,
Anderson and his antics in the name of good trouble consulting.
And by the way, neither Essermon nor Quadobaum has the
(05:33):
backing of the Teachers' union because they're so bad not
even the union could support them.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
This time.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
There are union back candidates, and I am reflexively asking
people to vote for anyone, Like if there is a
dead body running against a union candidate, go ahead and
give Weekend at Burners your vote. Okay, We've already proven
that dead people can run big organizations. We saw that
in the White House for four years. Anyway, in this race,
(05:58):
like Alec Miniana to Mia Jackson, Karen Blank, Marianna del Hiero,
they are the four most reasonable candidates that I can find,
So that is who I am. I'm not endorsing any
of them. This is who I would vote for if
I were in Denver. But I'm not endorsing any of
them because whoever I endorses loses, So I'm not doing
that is there a real possibility. Are you getting a
(06:21):
sense that people are fed up enough? After the last
few years of these garbage safety policies, We still don't
have a good safety plan for Denver public schools. The
discipline matrix is absurd. And I know that you probably
know more about the discipline matrix outside of the school
district than most So if you could, if I asked
(06:42):
you in ninety seconds, Jimmy, can you encapsulate the district's
discipline policy when it comes to placing dangerously or students
that are potentially dangerous, who are facing crimes, including attempted
murder and murder back into the schools? What would that
discipline matrix look like?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
It will just quote the single word of one teacher
to me many months ago when the so called revised
discipline matrix was put in place, anemic. I definitely think
that word captures it. I mean still to this day.
You can have a principle go to the district and say, hey,
we have a violent student who's been charged with this
(07:26):
crime or convicted of this crime. Can we find an
alternative pathway for them to make sure they still get
their education? But they're not in the classroom with other
students and the district we'll just say no, sorry, we're
not going to do that, and that ties in to
the disciplined matrix. But I want to go to something
you were saying in terms of the union candidates and
what potential there could be for a change here, and
(07:49):
I think we could we could look at the union's contribution.
That is the donation data from the Teachers' Union this cycle.
So four years ago when Scott Wesserman, Michelle Quadobaum and Socigeitan,
who still has the union's endorsement, were elected and now
President Carrie Olsen was re elected, the Teachers' Union from
(08:12):
the state and the locals spent two hundred and forty
two thousand dollars on Denver public schools in direct and
non monetary contributions.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
That's astonishing.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
But this year, Mandy, so far on their four candidates,
they have only spent forty eight thousand dollars, which is
about a fifth of what they spent four years ago,
which to me suggests maybe they think it's possible they
might be throwing good money after bad and that a
(08:46):
change is gonna come. I don't know who knows this
is Denver after all. But we could see something positive here.
And one final thing I'll add. You can look at
the union website for their endorsement candidates not to vote for.
Make sure you remember that Scott Westerman and Michelle Quadobaum
are also union candidates.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
They were just.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Endorsed and backed and financed by the union the first time.
Between the two of them, they got about one hundred
and twenty thousand dollars from the union. So just because
they don't have union support anymore this time, at least officially,
doesn't mean they aren't union candidates.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
There are six of them in this race.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Okay, So here's the thing about teachers unions against me, Jimmy,
Because in my mind, the discipline matrix could be one
of those areas where the teachers Union could take a
firm stand and say, look, we want to not only
protect students, we want to protect teachers. These are the
people that we are supposed to represent, and we want
a discipline matrix that a makes sense. That discipline matrix
(09:49):
is a mess. If you can figure out easily what
the proper response is for some of this stuff, it's
it's amazing how idiotic the entire thing is. But the
teachers unions don't that. They don't do that because they
don't necessarily care about the discipline matrix. They just care
about staying in favor with the superintendent, whoever that is.
(10:09):
And now they've got Alex Morrero, who is beyond incompetent
in my view, and weigh in over his head. And
you can look at the district's results on academics and
know exactly what I'm talking about. But why doesn't the
union say, yeah, we want security for our teachers and
our students. At least find one area of commonality with
parents on this right, But they don't do that.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I think twofold reasons. One is ideological. They believe that
it would exacerbate the so called school to prison pipeline,
and probably would prefer the union bosses, that is, which
don't necessarily and tend not to actually follow along with
what rank and file teachers would want, but they believe it,
(10:50):
so there's an ideological black. They probably would prefer to
not have school resource officers back in schools, like was
voted in a couple of years ago, after two years
before Tay Anderson led the charge to get rid of them.
I think the second reason isn't so much about being
in league with the superintendent as getting the superintendent to
be in league with him or with them rather, and
(11:13):
that means picking and choosing when you want to criticize
the superintendent.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
The only time was earlier this year.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
They had issues with their contract negotiations, and that's when
the teachers' union suddenly decided to speak out against the superintendent. Otherwise,
you don't hear a thing. They are ZiT and unwilling
to say a peep. And I think that's because they
want the status quo, because it serves the interests of
(11:41):
the union bosses, even to the detriment of teachers and
students alike.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Read Jimmy's column on the Denver Gazette. I linked to
it on the blog today along with the four names Manyana, Jackson, Blank,
and del Heerro. Those are the four candidates I would
vote for if I was in Denver. None of them
are perfect in my estimation, but some of them were
quite good. Jimmy, good to see you again, my friend.
Thanks for doing such a great job last week.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Always, thank you
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.