Welcome to Class Notes! If you're new, I'm Suzie Glassman, and I cover K-12 education across Jefferson, Adams, and Weld counties for the Colorado Trust for Local News.

What's on my mind this week: On Wednesday, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office announced no charges would be filed against the parents of the Evergreen High School shooter. For the staff at Evergreen, that closes a legal chapter — but not an emotional one.

I spent time this week talking with two teachers who know exactly what Evergreen's educators are going through. One survived Columbine. The other survived Sandy Hook. They've built something that didn't exist before: a crisis team by teachers, for teachers. Their stories stayed with me all week.

The first crisis intervention team built for teachers who've survived school shootings has come to Evergreen, and the people behind it say the kind of support gap they're seeing there is the norm, not the exception.

I spoke with Kiki Leyba, a first-year teacher at Columbine in 1999, and with Abbey Clements, whose second-grade classroom survived Sandy Hook. They launched the team in November through the nonprofit Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence.

Leyba has already visited Evergreen but said the 90 minutes he spent with the staff weren't nearly enough.

What they both described is a version of the same story: you go back to school, you hold it together for your students, and you fall apart everywhere else. Leyba said his family "got the tattered remains" of him on weekends. Clements said she didn't recognize herself. The trauma doesn't just hit the people closest to the violence; it fractures entire buildings.

Between the lines: I've heard from people inside the building that staff are struggling with how much of the recovery effort has focused on students, while the adults in the room are left to figure it out on their own. That tracks with everything Leyba and Clements described.

What teachers will feel: The no-charges announcement this week means the legal chapter is closed, but for staff still walking those hallways, nothing about the day-to-day has resolved. Leyba and Clements say the hardest stretch often comes months later, when the community has moved on, but the people inside the building haven't.

If you're an educator who needs someone who's been through it, contact the Teachers Unify Crisis Intervention Team at 203-296-3689 or [email protected].

What's next: Teachers Unify also runs Project Lockdown, targeting what the U.S. Secret Service identifies as the single biggest factor in school shootings: unsecured guns at home. Roughly two-thirds of school shootings involved firearms obtained from the home or a relative. More at projectlockdown.org.

📌 Jeffco "lost track" of a $33 million promise to voters. That's how a district spokesperson explained why an oversight committee named in the 2018 ballot measure, known as 5A, was never created. The district cited pandemic disruptions and staff turnover. Meanwhile, Jeffco is considering asking voters for another tax increase — at least $15 million through a new mill levy override. Read the full story →

📌 Another Jeffco school employee pleads guilty to assaulting a student. Former social worker Chloe Rose Castro, 29, admitted to sexually assaulting a student she met while working in the district. She is the latest in a pattern: former paraprofessional Imagine Kay Ewer was sentenced in February 2025 to four years in prison for similar charges at Brady Exploration School, and former school psychologist James Michael Chevrier was convicted on five felony charges involving three students. Read more →

📌 Westminster City Council approves Zerger housing over neighborhood opposition. The council voted to amend its Comprehensive Plan to allow residential development on the former Zerger Elementary School site in Westminster. Jeffco sold the property to Cardel Homes for as little as $1.26 million, less than half its $3.43 million appraised value. Read more →

📌 Jeffco is already polling for a November ballot measure. At Wednesday's board meeting, Superintendent Dorland said the district hopes to have polling data by late March or early April to gauge voter appetite for a revenue measure on the November 2026 ballot.

Notably, there was no mention of the 2018 mill levy override or the oversight committee that was never created. Board President Applegate also addressed repeated CORA requests for 2024 polling data: "Every time we talk about this, we get a CORA for a poll that we don't have." The district says that polling was commissioned by outside groups and was never in the district's possession.

If you're a 27J family, the district is redrawing attendance boundaries for middle and high schools. At community listening sessions, the district presented three potential maps, each involving a real trade-off.

I built an interactive tool that walks you through what each option means for your family. Pick your priority — safety, enrollment balance, or keeping middle school groups together — and see exactly who moves, what you gain, and what you give up.

What's at stake: Under the safety option, no students cross US 85, but Prairie View's capacity drops to 52% in the first year. Under the balance option, enrollment evens out, but 93 students would cross the highway. Under the alignment option, middle school groups stay together, but 68 families in one area would be reassigned for the second time.

What's next: The district will use community input to make a final recommendation to the 27J Board of Education. If you want your preference counted, use the tool above, and I’ll share the results or attend an upcoming listening session.

📍 Westminster Public Schools is changing course on school closures. The district is expected to revise part of its plan to close and merge schools. The board is set to discuss the changes at its Feb. 10 meeting. I'll be there.

📍 State Board of Education voted on Stuart Middle School's future yesterday. Stuart, in the 27J district, has received five consecutive years of Priority Improvement or Turnaround ratings. I'm reviewing the vote and will report on the outcome.

Two-thirds — The share of school shootings that involve a firearm obtained from the shooter's home or a relative, according to the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center.

That statistic runs through both the Evergreen case and the work of Teachers Unify's Project Lockdown campaign. The gun used in the September shooting was a family heirloom stored in a safe. The sheriff's office concluded there was not enough evidence to charge the parents, but the case illustrates the gap between Colorado's safe storage law, which requires guns to be stored in a safe or with a trigger or cable lock, and enforcement.

An estimated 4.6 million children in the U.S. live in homes with unsecured, loaded firearms. Barrel and trigger locks cost as little as $10 and are available at most hardware stores.

Check your district's website for the most current schedule. Meetings are subject to change.

I can't be everywhere, but you are. If something's happening in your district or school that doesn't add up, I want to hear about it. A policy that makes no sense. A budget line that vanished. A question no one will answer.

You can stay anonymous. I protect my sources.

Class Notes is reported and written by Suzie Glassman for the Colorado Trust for Local News.

I do the homework on your schools, so you don't have to.

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