Andrew Brandt (Boulder Valley School District Board of Education District D, Colorado, candidate 2023)
Andrew Brandt ran for election to the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education District D in Colorado. He lost in the general election on November 7, 2023.
Brandt completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. Click here to read the survey answers.
[1]Elections
General election
General election for Boulder Valley School District Board of Education District D
Lalenia Quinlan Aweida defeated Andrew Brandt in the general election for Boulder Valley School District Board of Education District D on November 7, 2023.
Candidate | ||
| ✔ | Lalenia Quinlan Aweida (Nonpartisan) | |
Andrew Brandt (Nonpartisan)  | ||
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| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Endorsements
Brandt received the following endorsements. To view a full list of Brandt's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here.
- State Sen. Janice Marchman (D)
- State Rep. Junie Joseph (D)
- Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett
- Lafayette Mayor J.D. Mangat
- Boulder Valley Sch. Brd. Memb. Richard Garcia
- Boulder City Cncl. Memb. Nicole Speer
- Broomfield County, Colo., Democratic Party
- Boulder Progressives
- Boulder Weekly
- Everytown for Gun Safety
Pledges
Brandt signed the following pledges.
Campaign themes
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Andrew Brandt completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Brandt's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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Andrew values BVSD as an institution that delivers exceptional education, and recognizes that his family's good experience has not been shared by every family. With equity and inclusion as core values, he backs BVSD's work to support all students while directing resources to schools and programs with greater need.
He favors expanding CTE programs into all high schools, extending restorative justice programs to the middle schools, and ensuring all students receive a high quality public education, while supporting the needs of the BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and neurodiverse members of the school community. Andrew will work in a spirit of teamwork, creativity, and empathy to secure funding for innovative school programs, within budget.- Andrew backs the continuation of BVSD's differential funding model that assigns extra funding to schools with greater needs for programs that support their students. As BVSD's budget faces the prospect of belt-tightening, it will be important to maintain the differential funding model that has, initially, been successful at pushing back against a wave of achievement challenges that started before the pandemic, but were exacerbated by pressures from COVID and natural disasters that have struck our community in the past decade. BVSD will need creative, outside the box thinkers to keep these programs running, and to track these new programs to ensure the district is getting the most bang for its bucks.
- Andrew supports expanding BVSD's retorative justice (RJ) programs. Studies of RJ in school settings show that student outcomes are better when students resolve conflicts through RJ. Kids reflect on their behavior and make meaningful amends for wrongs, and learn empathy and social skills. Those same studies found that traditional punishments not only alienate the punished student, but make it more likely they quit before graduating high school. While BVSD has made significant strides in discipline transparency, the district needs to do more to mitigate discipline disparities, clarify standards and expectations for staff, add more oversight of (and accountability for) subjective discipline procedures.
- Andrew recognizes that there is a vast, unmet need for mental health support, and will work to find ways to expand the existing mental health resources available to students and staff. Students without mental health support are less likely to perform at their peak abilities, or to graduate from high school. It's clear that kids face monumental pressure and anxiety over their futures, and that as a society we better understand that ignoring our children's needs solves nothing. We must do better to help the next generation build a culture of independence, resilience, and self-sufficiency, and this all begins with mental health.
As someone who has spent a lot of my professional life working in the cybersecurity field, I understand why the district has a device abuse policy, especially considering that computers are now required for nearly every grade level. But I also would like to tweak policies that would give the district the flexibility to develop curriculum that can teach kids to evade a wide range of threats online, including phishing, malware, cyberstalking, sextortion, manipulation, and inappropriate requests from "online" friends.
After a process involving a lot of stakeholder input, the BVSD board voted on this decision, but our community made the choice to replace SROs with our current School Safety Advocates (SSAs). I applaud the success it has enjoyed so far.
Our highly trained SSA professionals are focused solely on student safety, full time. SROs only worked in schools about twice a week, and on those days they mostly wrote tickets. SSAs prioritize good relationships with students, building trust that helps them do their job effectively. SSAs also sweep the area around Boulder High School for threats early each weekday, well before students arrive, and work with the Safe-To-Tell program preventing acts of self-harm.
BVSD's current budget structure designates additional resources to schools with greater needs, as defined by elements like performance and factors like the need for paraeducators or supplemental support staff. This so-called differentiated funding model has demonstrated some early success. Based on the progress so far, I'd support continuing using this funding model to help those student populations that need the extra help. The budget plan places most of in the district - 37 out of 52 total schools, more than 70% of schools - in either the "high" or "targeted" support category. That to me means the district still has more work ahead of it, but the success so far is promising. Since comtemporary research indicates that mental health is a component of student success[1], I'd like the district's existing mental health services to stay funded, and expanded to more schools.
Colorado House representative Junie Joseph
Boulder Councilmember Nicole Speer
Lafayette Mayor JD Mangat
Colorado Senator Janice Marchman
Boulder Valley School District board member Richard Garcia
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Other survey responses
Ballotpedia identified the following surveys, interviews, and questionnaires Brandt completed for other organizations. If you are aware of a link that should be added, email us.
See also
2023 Elections
External links
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Candidate Boulder Valley School District Board of Education District D |
Personal |
Footnotes
