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Erin Kenworthy
From Ballotpedia
This page was last updated during the official's most recent election or appointment. Please contact us with any updates.
Erin Kenworthy is a member of the Jeffco Board of Education in Colorado, representing District 4. She assumed office on December 5, 2023. Her current term ends in 2027.
Kenworthy ran for election to the Jeffco Board of Education to represent District 4 in Colorado. She won in the general election on November 7, 2023.
Kenworthy completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Erin Kenworthy was born in Annapolis, Maryland. Kenworthy's professional experience includes working as an educator. She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2002.[1]
Elections
2023
See also: Jeffco Public Schools, Colorado, elections (2023)
General election
General election for Jeffco Board of Education District 4
Erin Kenworthy defeated Amara Hildebrand and Joel Newton in the general election for Jeffco Board of Education District 4 on November 7, 2023.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Erin Kenworthy (Nonpartisan)  | 42.2 | 74,958 |
 | Amara Hildebrand (Nonpartisan) | 33.8 | 60,088 | |
 | Joel Newton (Nonpartisan) | 23.9 | 42,522 | |
| Total votes: 177,568 | |||
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Endorsements
Kenworthy received the following endorsements.
- U.S. Rep Brittany Pettersen (D)
- Golden Mayor Laura Weinberg
- Lakewood City Cncl. Memb. Jeslin Shahrezaei
- Lakewood City Cncl. Memb. Rebekah Stewart (D)
- Frmr. U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D)
- Working Families Party of Colorado
- Colorado Education Association
- Jefferson County, Colo., Education Association
- Colorado Black Women for Political Action
- Everytown for Gun Safety
- Students Deserve Better
Campaign themes
2023
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Erin Kenworthy completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Kenworthy's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am an educator, a parent, and a supporter of public education. I come from a family of public educators, am a product of public education, and have classroom experience teaching in a public high school. I'm running for the School Board because I know that my experience and perspective are assets that have prepared me for public service in this role. Our students and families deserve a school board that will work collaboratively to maintain and grow safe, thriving school communities that foster a sense of belonging, a variety of pathways to college and career readiness, and community engagement. My own children are current students in our neighborhood schools, and I have invested time and effort into supporting those learning communities by serving on our school and district level accountability committees. I am passionate about the role public education plays in creating strong local communities and am ready to support Jefferson County Schools with integrity, compassion, and collaboration.
- We must attract and retain highly qualified educators with competitive pay, fair benefits, and healthy work environments in order to meet student needs at every school in our district.
- Our students deserve a variety of college and career readiness pathways that provide them with agency and ownership of their own learning experience, and allow for them to engage their academic interests.
- Our schools must be focused on meeting the needs of our vibrant and diverse community of learners where they are academically, socially, and geographically, exactly as they authentically show up, inclusive of lived experience, identities, and varied strengths, without allowing external political agendas to distract our focus.
I am passionate about public education policy, especially funding mechanisms that leveraging our available resources to provide a quality educational experience to every student in our district. I'm very interested in Equity, Diversity, and inclusion measures that support whole student learning. Public health and safety policies that maintain bodily autonomy, equitable access to services, and increase community awareness and prevention of violence and illness are also policy areas of personal interest and investment.
I look up to many of my family members, who lived and worked within their values through service to their communities. My grandparents were teachers who actively participated in disaster relief efforts after they retired from the classroom. My father worked as a public servant for 32 years before becoming an emergency teacher hire in a title 1 elementary school. My mother worked and volunteered in the community as a substitute teacher, a girl scout leader, a justice initiative organizer, an advocate for student engagement in schools, and a department administrator at a major university before retiring. I've had the good fortune to be surrounded by leaders who taught me what to do, and what not to do by example, and by encouraging me to use my own internal compass as a guide.
Integrity is at the top of my list for qualities I hope our elected officials possess, myself included. I value leadership from folks who approach this work through a lense of power being exercised with others, rather than over others. Elected officials are public servants, and so my belief is that service minded individuals who are able to see the whole of their impact rather than just the narrow scope of their own desires are best suited for any leadership role.
Transparency. Collaboration.
I remember hearing conversations about the Iran Contra Affair on the nightly news with Dan Rather. My father worked for the federal government in Washington, D.C., and it caught my attention because the hearings that went on took place in building close to where my father worked. I was 8 years old.
My very first job was as a babysitter for a family friend upon completion of the Red Cross Babysitting Certification course that I completed at my local public library. Babysitting gave me experience working with young children and paved the way for my career as an educator. In many ways, I feel like it is still a part of my personal and professional life, even though my job titles and responsibilities have changed along the way. Caring for the health and safety of children and youth is still a significant part of my professional job duties, as well as my own lived experience as the parent of two children.
To be a member of a 5 person policy governance board who oversee and collaborate with the district superintendent to create and implement policies that guide the work of the school district. This work is collaborative, and requires that members listen to, and learn with one another to do what is necessary and best for all students in our district.
All citizens of Jefferson County. This includes students and their families, educators, community members, and municipal leaders.
I believe we need to be curious about what our community needs actually are, as identified by qualitative and quantitative data. We need to have community conversation with realistic mechanisms for participation and feedback. I believe there is space for many perspectives as we consider solutions to the challenges we face, and that the more informed we are as to the specific needs, the better targeted, effective, and efficient our responses can become over time. Accountability processes are a tool we have in our toolbox, but that may need some fine tuning to produce maximized results. It is imperative that we amplify voices of community members that have not traditionally been represented by our elected leadership, and work to make leadership positions accessible to all community members in a way that realistically mirrors our diverse populations.
I hope that the existing relationships I have already built will become open doors to other community stakeholders. I believe that school communities are unique and that engaging with school leaders in formal processes is important. Of equal importance are the opportunities for informal connection with students and families. Attending sporting events, concerts, ceremonies, graduations, and other community centered gatherings will provide the opportunity and access for folks across the district to get to know me. I plan to spend some time in each articulation area that I'll represent in District 4 so that I can come to better understand the joys and the challenges of those unique communities.
Good teaching is informed by best practices as identified by experience and collaboration. Good teaching allows for the teaching and learning styles of educators and students to exist naturally, and work alongside one another to maximize outcomes. There must be multi-modal forms of assessment that serve to provide scaffolding and inform instructional methods, differentiation of instruction must be available and widely utilized to keep lessons engaging and on topic, with space for innovation amidst a framework of concepts that build upon one another. Teacher observation, self-reflection, and continuing education credits are excellent ways for educators to gain and refine their teaching toolbox. I believe that educators should be encouraged to experience ongoing, immersive educational experiences that inform both their classroom administration and content mastery throughout their career.
College and Career Readiness pathways will expand as our district reimagines what our high school experience will look like in the future. Increasing apprenticeships, internships, and community engagement partnerships offer our students real life experiences that augment their content specific learning. I'm excited to learn how innovative programming can meet the needs of our diverse student population.
I support creative funding measures that provide short term relief, while we look for long term, sustainable measures that move our schools closer toward the fully funded budgets that all students deserve. Long term school budget solutions will have to be the collaborative effort of state and local leadership working together to increase funding for our public schools.
I lean toward prevention focused policies, over reactive policies, though both are necessary at this time.
I fully support efforts to increase social emotional learning in schools, using restorative justice practices when applicable, and providing increased affordable and accessible mental health resources for students and staff.
The board policies recently underwent a very thorough review, and I'm excited to look at what policies are still outstanding in that review process. Overall, I'm interested in working with district staff to identitfy priorities that have shared interest from multiple stakeholders for creation or review.
Jefferson County Educators Association
Colorado Educators Association
Colorado Black Women for Political Action
Former Representative Ed Perlmutter
Dr. James Comer said "Significant learning requires significant relationship." I believe this to be true. Ideal learning environments are places where students are able to experience the safety of authentic relationships to their educators, one another, and the resources they encounter in their learning journey. Our classrooms, buildings, and institution must foster a sense of belonging across differences, support the different learning styles of our diverse learners, and encourage curiousity and ownership of the learning process by our students. Educators and school staff must feel supported by their instutions, well resourced, and encouraged to not overextend their efforts. Collaboration between schools, home, and the community must prioritize student presence and active participation. When learning environments are places of possibility and open minds, the learning follows.
The pandemic presented unprecedented challenges in our schools. Overall, we navigated the pandemic with the utmost caution, centering the health of our students and staff, while still providing educational services in a less than optimal circumstance.
I believe that our communications and engagement processes must be accessible and transparent. We also need a way to streamline and prioritize information flow. Jefferson county is a large district, and it will take time to foster relationships of trust and authenticity, but it is possible. I will show up with an open mind, and a willingness to work alongside our parents as we support our Jeffco students.
I believe that competitive pay and benefits are just one part of an attractive recruitment strategy. The cost of living in the communities where our educators work is high, and this must be addressed. We also must be willing to have ongoing conversation about the health of the work environment, school cultures and expectations must be sustainable for our professional staff. I believe that our state can support efforts to recruit highly qualified educators by examining our public funding equations.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Other survey responses
Ballotpedia identified the following surveys, interviews, and questionnaires Kenworthy 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 Jeffco Board of Education District 4 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 9, 2023
