Molly for CO Kids

Accountability starts with real transparency. 🔍

Public calendar records obtained via CORA are raising FRESH questions about leadership oversight and potential FAVORITISM in Cherry Creek Schools:

✈️ The D.C. Trip: Why did Scott Smith (CCSD CFO) and Ashley Verville (CCSD Director of Communications) travel out of state TOGETHER during a district travel freeze to meet with Rep. Jason Crow—an official whose constituent office is right here in the district?!

💼 The Transition: Ashley Verville is transitioning out of her district role to become Deputy Director at the Colorado Association of School Executives (CASE)—where she will be UNDER Scott Smith in his role as CASE President. (Yes, he holds both positions!)

Given their SHARED district-funded travel and immediate supervisor/employee transition, community members are asking:

🚩What conflict-of-interest protocols were followed?
🚩Was proper oversight applied, or does this reflect internal favoritism/nepotism within leadership circles?
🚩Why does it take CORA records requests for taxpayers to learn how district resources and administrative RELATIONSHIPS are being managed?

Taxpayers fund this district and deserve full transparency, strict adherence to travel policies, and clear ETHICAL boundaries! IYKYK.

Swipe through the images to see the calendar records and details. ➡️

🚨 AND THE NEPOTISM CONTINUES IN CHERRY CREEK SCHOOLS 🚨
While Cherry Creek Schools drowns in a massive multi-million dollar budget deficit, teacher layoffs, and skyrocketing healthcare costs for frontline workers, the central office inner circle is busy taking care of its own.

Communications Director Ashley Verville just announced she is stepping down from CCSD. Her new position? Deputy Executive Director of CASE (Colorado Association of School Executives).
And who currently sits as the President of CASE?
Cherry Creek's Chief Financial Officer, Scott Smith.

This isn't a coincidence—it's classic central office nepotism and the revolving door of public education leadership.

🔴 While paraprofessionals watch their take-home pay drop below zero and teachers worry about job security, top administrators build soft landings and executive landing pads for each other using interconnected state networks.

🔴 How can CASE represent the best interests of school leadership or hold administrators accountable when the same small circle holds top positions in both the district and the state association?

🔴 Instead of fixing the toxic work environment and financial crisis in Cherry Creek, leadership is simply reshuffling the deck and rewarding insider relationships.

Our tax dollars and our kids' classrooms should not be funding an insulated network for district executives. The community is tired of the double standards, the insider favors, and the complete lack of transparency.
It’s time to clean house and put classrooms before central office connections. We’ve had enough.
Bye, Ashley.
It’s time for Scott Smith to go, too.

🚨 Is Cherry Creek Schools Finally Showing CFO Scott Smith the Door? 🚨

Take a close look at the latest district leadership roster, because a major shift just happened quietly behind closed doors! Scott Smith has lost his title as Chief Operating Officer (COO). David Henderson has officially been promoted to the COO spot, leaving Smith downgraded to only Chief Financial Officer (CFO)—and after doing a CORA, his newest contract extension only runs through December 31st. (See contract for 25-26 and new contract below)

It begs the question: Why does this guy still have a job at all?

When contract renewals came up, the district had a prime opportunity to place him on interim status while things are sorted out. Why wasn't that done? Instead, we are looking at a "poison pill" in his contract leading up to December 31st, right when it is highly anticipated that the findings of the audit will make his departure necessary.

The facts speak for themselves:
💸 The Budget Hole & The Audit: Under Smith's fiscal watch, the district has plunged into a massive financial hole. It has gotten so bad that CCSD is forced to undergo an expensive independent internal control audit just to track down the dollars and see where things went off the rails.

😤 Animosity Toward Staff: Taxpayers aren't the only ones paying the price. Multiple complaints have surfaced revealing that Smith carries severe animosity and an antagonistic attitude toward our hard-working school principals and district staff.

As a K-12 graduate, mom, and teacher, I know how much culture matters. Our educators and school leaders deserve a supportive environment, not hostility from the top. And we the taxpayers deserve fiscal responsibility—not expensive, multi-month forensic audits to figure out how our money was mismanaged.

A downgraded title and a short-term contract through December isn't enough. It is time for the Cherry Creek School Board to completely reconsider this hire and clean house for the sake of our students and staff.

It’s time to show Scott Smith the door.

Every time the Cherry Creek School District wastes our tax dollars and violates public trust…you’re on notice Scott Smith (CFO) and Sonja McKenzie (Legal Counsel)!! 👀👇🏻

🚨 BUSTED!!! 🚨

Cherry Creek School Board and District Leaders Caught Running a Closed-Door Cover-Up…

At a time when our community deserves absolute transparency, a damning new investigation by The Denver Gazette has caught Cherry Creek School District administration and the Board of Education working in cahoots to hide the truth from taxpayers.

The most alarming part? This isn't just a failure of the board. The district’s own General Counsel, Sonja McKenzie, is the one directing the legal maneuvers behind these meetings—orchestrating a systematic shutdown of transparency and coordinating with board members to keep the public completely in the dark.

How they got caught red-handed
On January 27, the board held a private executive session officially noticed ONLY for former Superintendent Chris Smith’s evaluation…the night he abruptly resigned amid scandal. Instead of keeping it strictly to personnel matters, the Board brought in Steve Welchert, a political and crisis management consultant, to run public relations "messaging."

Welchert Had No Business Being There!!Legal experts are pointing out a glaring truth—public relations and political spin are not legally authorized topics for a private executive session under Colorado's Open Meetings Law. Political crisis consultants have absolutely NO place in our private board meetings. Especially when we the taxpayers, ya know the people footing the bill, are locked out!

The Paperwork Cover-Up
The district tried to claim Welchert was there as an extension of their outside legal team to hide him under attorney-client privilege. But public records exposed the truth. The law firm wasn't even officially hired until two days after the meeting happened.😱

A Calculated Pattern of Secrecy &
Killing the Audio Recorder
Under state law, boards can only turn off the audio recorder when an attorney is providing specific legal advice. Yet, under the guidance of legal counsel, CCSD routinely kills the recorder at the very beginning of executive sessions and leaves it off until the end—ensuring the public can never hear what district leadership is actually doing.

Unusually Frequent Closed Doors
District administration and the board have coordinated an astonishing
TWO DOZEN executive sessions since January. For comparison, Denver Public Schools—the state's largest district—held just three during that exact same timeframe.😵‍💫

Our schools are funded by the public, and both district administration and the board answer to the taxpayers. Using legal maneuvers and political crisis consultants to protect institutional images behind closed doors is a blatant betrayal of public trust and we’ve had enough. It’s time to cut ties with Sonja McKenzie. BYE! 👋

🚨 Leadership Isn’t About Marketing. It’s About Reality. 🚨
I just received this political flyer in the mail from Cherry Creek School Board member Angela Garland, who is currently running for Arapahoe County Commissioner while still having 18 months left in her school board term. The mailer boldly claims she "delivered results" and "protected taxpayer dollars." Ummmmm, NOT!

Thanks, but we aren’t buying it. Let’s look past the slick campaign lingo and talk about the actual reality of her tenure and the dismal results for our students, teachers, and community:

📉 A $23 Million Deficit: Under her watch and governance as Board President, Cherry Creek Schools plunged into a massive $23 million budget crisis.
💔 Frontline Staff Bearing the Brunt: Because of these severe budget shortfalls, dedicated teachers and staff are facing job insecurity, while frontline workers like our paraprofessionals are watching their take-home pay drop below zero due to skyrocketing 20% healthcare hikes.
⚠️ Executive Incompetence & Scandals: Her tenure leading the board was defined by a series of severe internal administrative crises, compliance failures, and executive mismanagement that leadership consistently chose to sweep under the rug rather than address transparently.
💰 Campaign Finance Issues: Reports show she has accrued over $100k in fines for campaign finance violations related to failing to properly report contributions and expenditures. If a public official faces this level of scrutiny over managing their own campaign finances, how can taxpayers trust them to oversee a massive county budget?

Our community cannot afford to have this track record of financial deficits and institutional mismanagement imported into Arapahoe County government.
When Angela Garland claims she “protected taxpayer dollars," it flies in the face of the facts. All we have to do is look at the classrooms, the students, and the employees she left holding the bill. Our community deserves true fiscal accountability, genuine transparency, and leaders who prioritize the public interest over their next political ladder.

Do NOT reward this record of financial mismanagement and unethical behavior.

Do NOT vote for Angela Garland for Arapahoe County Commissioner.

Just in case you (aka the folks footing the bill) wanted to know what Rebecca Lopez was making, I have attached her contract for your review. I have also CORA’d the separation agreement and so far the response has been: “None.”
I’ll keep trying and let you know the results.

🚨 Look at the new DISTRICT-WIDE initiative…WE ARE ASKING TOO MUCH OF OUR TEACHERS! 😱

There is a massive disconnect between the quiet offices of our district administration and the loud reality inside our classrooms.
Right now, our school district is facing a major staffing crisis. We just watched the administration lay off 159 frontline workers—including 51 critical special education roles and vital classroom support staff. These paraprofessionals and aides are the exact people who help manage student behavior, provide extra attention to kids who need it, and keep classrooms running smoothly.
But the cuts didn't stop the behavioral challenges from walking through the door.
Instead, our teachers are being left to handle these complex situations entirely alone. To make matters worse, internal documents like the recent district-wide training: "Discipline Mindset Shifts" are actively stripping teachers of clear, predictable tools to maintain order. They are being told that standard consequences are the wrong approach, and that bad behavior is simply "communication" they need to decipher while trying to teach a lesson to 25 other children.

Let's be completely honest about what we are doing to our educators:
•We cut their classroom support staff.
•We tie their hands when it comes to student accountability.
•Then, we expect them to magically produce top-tier academic results while managing chaotic environments completely by themselves.
•And on top of all of that we are spiking their health insurance by at least 20% and only giving them a 1.25% raise.

It is entirely unfair, unrealistic and it is driving incredible burnout across our schools. We cannot expect student excellence if we refuse to protect the working environment of the people teaching them.

Our teachers do not need more top-down initiatives or corporate training flyers. They need administrative backing, they need real consequences in the code of conduct, and they need their support staff put back in the classrooms.

To every educator and staff member handling the pressure right now: Thank you for pushing through. Our community needs to start standing up for you, because the leadership at the top has left you on an island. Please DM me if you have something to share. You will always remain anonymous.

🏝️✈️The Contrast Speaks Volumes: Luxury Trips vs. Negative Paychecks 💸

Last night at the CCSD Board of Education meeting, the CFO laid out a grim budget detailing a $23 million deficit, looming staff layoffs, and a tiny 1.25% cost-of-living adjustment for our hardworking staff. But the real crisis is in the fine print: skyrocketing healthcare premiums mean that for many employees, their actual take-home pay is going down.

For our critical, lowest-paid hourly staff—like our paraprofessionals—the math is even more devastating. The healthcare cost increase completely wipes out the tiny raise, to the point where some part-time staff will actually owe money back to the district just to maintain their health benefits. They are literally paying out of pocket to work here. 😱

Yet, while this bleak financial reality was presented, the Interim Superintendent took the microphone to cheerfully announce how excited she is for her upcoming luxury trip to Greece. ✈️

After everything this community has endured with former leadership treating public funds like a personal travel agency, this level of tone-deaf disconnect is staggering. Our frontline educators and paras are facing negative paychecks, while the priority at the podium is celebrating a Mediterranean vacation. 😳

This is exactly why summer break doesn't mean a break from accountability. The culture at the top of Cherry Creek Schools is entirely detached from the economic reality of the classrooms and the taxpayers funding them. We are going to keep digging into the budget, demanding CORA compliance, and fighting to ensure resources go to supporting staff—not administrative tone-deafness. UNREAL!