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Jane Shirley
Jane Shirley ran for election for an at-large seat of the Denver Board of Education in Colorado. She lost in the general election on November 2, 2021.
Shirley completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Jane Shirley was born in Norman, Oklahoma. She earned a bachelor's degree from Oklahoma State University in 1983. She earned a graduate degree from the University of Northern Colorado in 1999.[1]
Elections
2021
See also: Denver Public Schools, Colorado, elections (2021)
General election
General election for Denver Public Schools Board of Education At-large
Scott Esserman defeated Vernon Jones Jr., Jane Shirley, Marla Fernandez, and Nicky Yollick in the general election for Denver Public Schools Board of Education At-large on November 2, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Scott Esserman (Nonpartisan)  | 40.1 | 54,964 |
| Vernon Jones Jr. (Nonpartisan) | 23.5 | 32,172 | ||
 | Jane Shirley (Nonpartisan) | 15.9 | 21,714 | |
 | Marla Fernandez (Nonpartisan) | 14.7 | 20,166 | |
 | Nicky Yollick (Nonpartisan) | 5.8 | 7,953 | |
| Total votes: 136,969 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Jorge Hernandez (Nonpartisan)
Campaign themes
2021
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Jane Shirley completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Shirley's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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As a career educator, I’ve taught across all grade levels, worked in the central office, and served as a high school principal. After retiring from Aurora Public Schools, I developed a program for principals and district leaders focused on leadership for transformational change. I'm currently working as a consultant and executive coach for education leaders and entrepreneurs.
Along with my work in education, my husband Dave and I own Rattlebrain Productions, a company that creates and produces original comedy. Our son Drew often gets roped into helping out with video shoots or running tech, making it a full family affair. Together, we’re in the business of making people laugh and we take that very, very seriously.
I have a talent for connecting seemingly unrelated dots, creating order out of chaos, and putting together powerhouse teams. I lead with honesty, fairness, and humor. I build organizations that are respectful and open, and I care deeply about the health and well-being of our school communities. I hope to bring my knowledge, skills, and belief in what’s possible to support the future success of Denver Public Schools.
- A key responsibility of the board is to oversee the work of the superintendent and evaluate his performance. I am an experienced school and district leader and I’ve also served as a COO and CEO in a non-profit organization. I will use my organizational and leadership development expertise to help build and sustain a strong and trusting relationship between the board and the superintendent, provide effective feedback, and evaluate performance.
- I have a proven track record of results in leading transformational change. I will bring those skills to oversee a strategic planning process that harnesses the creative capacity of our entire community. With a strong plan in place, we will more effectively utilize resources, eliminate waste, and empower our educators to implement actions that improve student performance in all our schools.
- Over the past few years, the board has struggled to effectively engage the community in important decisions. I will bring strong planning and facilitation skills along with my experience in community engagement to help the board create effective processes for input and participation. This will require us to go beyond surveys and committees. It will require us to listen to all voices and perspectives through processes that build and maintain trust.
School choice and charter school policies have led to a fractured and incoherent system in DPS which is more expensive, less effective and is not getting better results for students. Denver's lack of strategy in this area has also resulted in resegregation across the city. This needs to be addressed at both the local and state level.
In this podcast, she talks about how to build and maintain trust and mutual respect among students, teachers, and families. You can listen to an interview or download a transcript here:
There were two main tasks in this job: take orders by phone when the customer called the department, and call the customer when their order came in. In addition to that, we were supposed to call customers to tell them about some random item on sale like an oscillating fan, a rake, or some piece of furniture. Any items sold during outgoing calls were totaled up and we received a bonus if we hit certain sales goals. I hated the thought of just calling someone out of the blue and trying to sell them something and it turns out, I never had to do that.
We know how to measure good teaching and it's not with any of the current tools in use today. As a board member, I'll be looking to the expert teachers and leaders to provide the data along with their analysis of strengths and needs.
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.
Campaign website
Shirley's campaign website stated the following:
| “ |
I'm a teacher, designer, facilitator, coach, writer, performer and novice ukulele player. I have a talent for connecting seemingly unrelated dots, creating order out of chaos, and putting together powerhouse teams. I lead with honesty, fairness, creativity and humor. I build organizations that are respectful and open and I care deeply about the health of each community that I'm a part of. I am an optimistic pessimist who believes that everyone is working together for the greater good, but who also knows that is not always true. So I look for the good, but I'm not afraid to call out the bad because at my core, I value justice over getting along. My Story I consider myself a Coloradan since I've lived here for almost forty years, but I grew up in Norman, Oklahoma which is where I get my expertise on tornadoes. My mom always told us kids we were part Cherokee from her side and part Choctaw from my dad's. I knew my grandfather was born in Indian Territory in 1900 and one of my great grandmothers came to Oklahoma via the Trail of Tears, but the rest of the story was largely unknown. As information became more accessible and I learned more about my own ancestry, it got me thinking about how our identities are formed and shaped by both nature and nurture. None of us is an archetype of any one race, culture, religion or upbringing and all of us are influenced by our DNA, our families, communities and the events we experience. The opportunity before us is to understand and embrace our differences for the richness they bring and to align on the hopes that we share for our future. I've spent most of my career working at the intersection of education, business and the arts and I'm currently a consultant and executive coach for education leaders and entrepreneurs. In 2005, I was selected to lead William Smith High School in Aurora, which was known at the time as "Last Chance High". Using the foundations for creating that I had been studying through my work with Robert Fritz and Peter Senge, my team and I transformed the school into an award-winning program that has sustained success through two leadership changes. After passing the leadership baton to my assistant principal, I began work for a non-profit where I designed a leadership program that teaches principals and district leaders how to use the creative process as the foundation for strategic planning. In addition to my consulting work, my husband Dave and I are partners in a company called Rattlebrain Productions. In 2002 we opened a new theater in the basement of the D&F Tower and were honored to receive the Downtown Denver Partnership Award for significant contribution and positive impact in our very first year. Since then, we've gone on to write and produce several shows that have played in Denver and around the country. Our son Drew often gets roped into helping out with video shoots or running tech, making it a full family affair. Together, we are in the business of making people laugh and we take that very, very seriously. My Goal If elected, I will bring the knowledge, skills and wisdom I've developed over my 30+ year career, along with the full force of my passion, to work creatively and collaboratively with the Denver School Board to take bold actions toward what's possible.[2] |
” |
| —Jane Shirlely[3] | ||
See also
2021 Elections
External links
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Candidate Denver Public Schools Board of Education At-large |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 18, 2021
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Jane Shirley, "Qualifications," accessed October 4, 2021
