AURORA | School board directors and superintendents from across the state are gathering at the Broadmoor hotel this week for their annual convention, drawing criticism from open-meeting advocates and government-spending critics.
The Colorado Association of School Boards’ 83rd convention began Thursday and will go until Saturday. It’s the 60th year of it being held at the hotel, according to CASB Executive Director Jubal Yennie.
The hotel is billed as one of the most luxurious hotel resorts in the state. The hotel claims to be “The Longest-Running Forbes Five-Star, AAA Five-Diamond Resort in the World.”
Cherry Creek School District and Aurora Public Schools school board directors were among dozens of other school board officials attending the convention. Both districts are also among those that are holding public meetings at the Broadmoor, about 70 miles from the community they serve.
Colorado open meeting laws do not dictate where meetings of public bodies must be held, only that they are open to the public if public business is discussed. Critics of remote meetings say that conducting public business so far from the area the local government serves defeats the purpose of a public meeting.
“The school district community has a right to know what school board members are discussing at a study session far from district boundaries,” said Jeff Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition.
Cherry Creek held an hours-long study session Wednesday morning ahead of the convention. The Sentinel sent a reporter to observe a portion of the meeting. School officials discussed the districts’ audits, budget and ongoing litigation regarding the state’s universal preschool program, among other topics. The study session, like all of their other public meetings, was not broadcast or video-recorded.
Cherry Creek has recently been criticized publicly for not live-streaming their board meetings like other large Colorado school districts. They do, however, upload an audio recording of the meeting after it has ended.
This was often a topic of discussion during the last election cycle, when two challengers said they would advocate for live-streaming of meetings. Incumbents Anne Egan and Angela Garland, who both won re-election, said that they would be open to live-streaming the meetings, but acknowledged that their board meetings are not held in a central location.
“The school board could and should livestream the meeting, even though it’s not required to do so by the law,” Roberts said.
Cherry Creek spokesperson Abbe Smith said that the district typically conducts its December study session at the Broadmoor during the conference.
Boulder Valley School District and JeffCo Public Schools also held meetings on Wednesday at the Broadmoor, according to the districts’ calendars. The latter organized a retreat for new board members.
APS will also be having a retreat at the Broadmoor hotel, but it is not scheduled until Sunday, the day after the convention ends.
Critics say the optics and actual expense of holding school-district events and conferences at what is billed as an opulent resort is troublesome to much of the public.
Jon Caldara — president of the Independence Institute, a political commentary columnist for the Colorado Springs Gazette and host of “Devil’s Advocate” on public television — criticized the costs of attending the conference and staying at the hotel as school districts are faced with funding problems.
“I am thrilled that CASB has the elegance, style and sophistication to meet at the Broadmoor, as I’m certain they expect Colorado’s school board members to have the same opulent mindset when they return to their home districts and cry poverty to their taxpayers,” Caldara said. “The Broadmoor is a state treasure. But that doesn’t mean taxpayers’ treasure should be spent there.”
All Cherry Creek and APS board directors are attending the convention and staying at the hotel, which is paid for by the district. APS spokesperson Corey Christiansen said that “the CASB conference is a good opportunity for the board to conduct its own training in addition to the training provided by CASB.”
Yennie said that the Broadmoore offers special pricing for the convention.
“It’s actually less expensive to be here than in anyplace else, like all those places in Denver,” he said.
He added he was unable to provide an “apples to apples” estimate on costs for other venues but the Broadmoor’s partnership with CASB goes back to the decades-long relationships between the organization and the hotel. He also said that people have grown accustomed to coming to the Broadmoor.
Convention pricing for Broadmoor rooms during the event start at $212 per night, plus taxes, and range to about $300 a night, plus taxes. Parking is extra, between $25 and $35 a day, according to the CASB convention website. Published rates for those rooms, posted earlier in the week on the hotel website booking page, showed rooms ranged from $255 a night to $400 a night.
Pricing at nearby hotels in Colorado Springs, according to the convention website, varies.
At a Marriott hotel located about two miles away from the Broadmoor, the room rates are $110 per night. At the Cheyenne Mountain Resort, less than two miles from the Broadmoor, standard room rates are $145 per night.
Nightly rates for some hotels near the Denver Convention Center, such as the Hyatt and Hilton hotels, range from $129 to $189 per night. At the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center in Aurora, rooms start at $324 per night.
CASB does not provide any financial assistance to board directors who serve smaller school districts or who do not receive any stipends, but Yennie said that there are different payment structures for members and non-members.
The CASB website details costs for members to attend the convention from Thursday to Saturday. Prices start at $700 for members and $1,000 for non-members. This cost includes some meals such as a continental breakfast every day, some lunches, a networking luncheon and reception.
“This is one of the premier education events for school boards. Superintendents also attend,” Yennie said. “From all the events that we have throughout the year, this is one of the better events we have for learning, for school leaders.”
Your attitude regarding the location of the school boards’ meetingplace exhibits your mindset that schools and education are second-class entities.
Maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are plenty of decent hotels within the Arapahoe County area that they could have had the meetings. They didn’t need to go all the way down to the Springs for that, irrespective of the hotel.
seriously???? since when do local school boards need to hobbob with other school boards??? They have a district to run. They could save a bunch just staying home and using a local gym to network within their district. What a concept???
All school board public meetings should be streamed and available to the public, regardless of location. Thank you for this important coverage.
The winter holiday timing is more problematic than the location of the professional convention.
It would be interesting to know
* when was the last time there was a request to multiple hotels to see if the state meeting was getting a competitive rate.
* it also would be good to know from some of the attendees HOW the bill for the meeting is paid. Long, long ago when I was in academia, my state institution provided a clear list of the “maximum” reimbursements for lodging and meals. At a number of conventions, I chose to stay in the convention hotel and wound up paying nearly as much as the university did.
The appropriateness of the Broadmoor is a perennial question. But some of the facts are that School Boards do a better job when not isolated. The Broadmoor gives a discounted rate because of the dates, the first week of December. It is the largest gathering of school board directors with many different break out sessions to choose from whether it is professionals discussing laws effecting school district or finance or fellow board members sharing successful programs. The Broadmoor is the only place I’m aware of that has enough meeting rooms to facilitate all the variety of breakouts including a Student Leadership Strand. But there are not enough rooms for everyone so many boards book rooms at near by hotels like The Cheyenne Resort at a lower cost. The value to the gathering is invaluable for mostly volunteer Boards to share ideas and learn more about a complex job.
It is disheartening to learn that a school district struggling financially would choose the most expensive venue in the area in which to hold a convention at taxpayers’ expense. Denver has plenty of other, equally comfortable venues in which to hold a convention, and for half the price at that. Having been in leadership in a school district for four decades, I fully understand the decision-making process for convention venues, especially when someone else is footing the bill. It takes selfish, self-focused, and often corrupt administrators to make the decision to choose Eisenhower’s “villa and golf course of choice”, rather than a venue that a school district can afford with ease.
WPS school board is exactly like Jon Caldara described: they will attend the meeting and dine like royalty and then come back to tell us parents things like “high poverty schools mean low test scores. That’s just the way it is.” Hell, half of our school board doesn’t even bother to show up to meetings. I wonder if our current board member used some of the millions he siphoned from the district to help pay for his trip or if the district paid for it too.