Tony Ryan
From Ballotpedia
Tony Ryan is running for election to the Douglas County School District Board of Directors to represent District D in Colorado. He is on the ballot in the general election on November 4, 2025.[source]
Ryan completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Tony Ryan was born in Englewood, Colorado. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Denver in 2015 and a law degree from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2022. His career experience includes working as a teacher, artistic director of a theater company, and attorney. He has been affiliated with Office of the State Public Defender and Another Trapdoor LLC.[1]
Elections
2025
See also: Douglas County School District, Colorado, elections (2025)
General election
The general election will occur on November 4, 2025.
General election for Douglas County School District Board of Directors District D
Keaton Gambill and Tony Ryan are running in the general election for Douglas County School District Board of Directors District D on November 4, 2025.
Candidate | ||
| Keaton Gambill (Nonpartisan) | ||
 | Tony Ryan (Nonpartisan)  | |
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Endorsements
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Campaign themes
2025
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Tony Ryan completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Ryan'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 a proud former student of Douglas County schools, where I spent all 13 years of his K-12 education during what many remember as Douglas County School District’s “golden age.”
I attended Larkspur Elementary, Castle Rock Middle School, and was among the first graduating classes at Castle View High School. My educational journey shaped my values, inspired my leadership and career choices, and even led me to meet my wife, Amelia — also a K–12 DCSD alum. In August 2025, Amelia and I welcomed our first child, and are eager to raise our family in Douglas County and entrust our son’s future to the same school system that forms the bedrock of our own lives.
I am a practicing attorney with a Juris Doctor from the University of Colorado, following a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre with a Directing Distinction and minors in Chemistry and Film Studies from the University of Denver. Before pursuing law, I taught the performing arts in both camp and classroom settings. My academic and professional background gives me a unique lens on how creativity, rigor, and support from great teachers shape student success.- I want to make sure that all students in DCSD schools feel safe and supported through their careers as students. I would use evidence-backed ways to ensure safety including providing mental health support to every single student, educator, support staff member, and administrator in the district. I would make sure that students know about reporting programs like Safe2Tell and when to speak up about struggles they or their peers are having. I want to ensure that Douglas County is a welcoming community that makes students feel like they belong. When students are made to feel like they are part of something, the chances of their acting against that community are greatly reduced.
- I want students to have access to robust extracurricular activities no matter their individual interests. We need to make sure that girls' sports are supported in the same way as boys' sports both financially and with provision of equipment. We need to make sure that students whose families are struggling financially have opportunities to participate with some sort of subsidy for the costly portions of activities. The Board needs to send a message that when the district is struggling financially, cutting extracurriculars should not be seen as a first step; it should be one of the last in only the most dire straits.
- The Board of Education needs to be scrupulous in its management of taxpayer dollars. With my legal background, I can identify when issues require consultation with the attorneys on staff for the district. Board members should be acting in conformity with the law rather than wasting funding on lawsuits. Insurance premiums continue to rise as districts continue to break the law, and at some point, our district will no longer have insurance protection. Our district needs to funnel money to pay our educators, to make sure that our buildings and supplies remain state-of-the-art, and we need to fund programming which prepares students for their future whether through concurrent enrollment or career and technical education.
As an attorney, I am deeply interested in legislative activity whether that be through making sure that I stay informed of legal changes and how that will affect our district or drafting policies which support as many students as possible. Our district needs an updated discrimination policy which aligns with Colorado law. Our administrators and educators need procedural guidance on how to deal with bullying and harassment which is occurring in our schools at a disproportionate rate among some minority student populations. The board needs to set measurable guidelines for district goals as it concerns students' feelings of safety and belonging within the district.
An elected official needs to be able to represent the entirety of their electorate. For too long, elected officials have been representing solely those individuals who agree with them personally. If I were elected, I would make sure that all stakeholders in Douglas County Schools would have the ability to get redress for their problems regardless of my personal feelings on the matter. I would make sure that my decisions were based on the very best possible outcomes for students rather than personal or political beliefs.
Elected officials also need to stay informed about issues which come within their purview. I will continue to remain abreast of the most recent information about schooling and how best to serve students in public education. It reflects poorly on the represented populace when an elected official shirks their duty to keep learning about what is needed.
A school board director needs to be concerned about how to improve the district for students. Directors should not get bogged down in party politics or issues which receive national attention without applying to their individual districts. A director needs to be answerable to the community when students and educators are experiencing problems. The board's sole responsibility needs to be improving schools.
The first historical event which made a big impact in my life was the Columbine school shooting when I was in first grade. Both of my parents were graduates of Columbine and the tragedy had immense impacts on my entire family.
I worked at the Dairy Queen in Castle Rock and worked there for a year before moving into doing maintenance at Bear Dance Golf Course in Larkspur.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Marquez's story-building and weaving of mystical aspects with realism are beautiful. The story is compelling and will stand the test of time for generations just as it did for the Buendia family in the novel.
A school board director functions as the equivalent to a legislator for a school district. The job revolves around policymaking that instructs the superintendent on how to best serve the students in the district. School board directors should be engaged in setting measurable goals with clearly defined outcomes and assessing whether those goals are being met. If not, then the board needs to change policy or assess implementation to see if there is a newer, more creative way to address the issue. A board director also needs to listen to constituents when making decisions on how to structure board meetings. All of the issues raised at those meetings need to come from parents, educators, or students rather than outside interests.
Everyone in Douglas County. Even if someone does not have children in school or children who do not attend public school, the decisions of the school board directors directly affect property valuation and the future of students within district schools. While the voting populace makes the determination of a director, the board directors are answerable to students, educators, parents, and community members regardless of whether they voted for that director or not. Good governance means making sure to bring all problems before the board regardless of personal belief on those problems. I would work to support everyone in Douglas County through my decisions as a board member.
I would make sure that everyone has a seat at the table. We need to make sure that parents have a say in their children's education and we also need to make sure that we turn to experts in education when making decisions on how to address the issues raised by parents. While the board of directors only directly oversees the superintendent, policy should reflect that staff has a say and should be able to ask for redress if they are experiencing issues with policy implementation. The wellbeing and advancement of students should always be at the fore of any decision made by a school board member, so students need to have a say in identifying the issues most pressing in their schools. Only by coming together as a cohesive whole can problems be addressed in the most effective way, and I would want to pave the way to make sure that all voices are present in decision-making.
I will make sure that concerns which are raised are brought to the attention of the board when making decisions on which to bring to the fore in meetings. I want everyone in Douglas County to feel comfortable with bringing up any issues they are facing in the school district in order to try and make DCSD the best district possible. I would put some focus on our educators at the outset because great educators bring about the best outcomes for all of our students. Our district needs to be competitive in attracting and retaining the very best staff and faculty so that our schools can thrive. We also need to make sure that communities which are currently lacking a neighborhood school are put on track to fill that need. To that end, Crystal Valley is underserved in our district and deserves their own set of neighborhood schools. I want to hear from every single person in Douglas County about the issues they are seeing in our district in order to attempt to allay as many concerns as possible through policymaking.
Good teaching takes students' individual strengths and needs into account. We need to have continuing availability of professional development to all of our educators so that they can continue to improve as the education landscape changes. We need to allow flexibility in practices so that each classroom caters to its individual students. There is no one-size-fits-all approach with education and our teachers should not feel constrained to teach everything in exactly the same way from class to class. Our students will need varying levels of support and will have varying interests throughout the years. Our educators need the ability to cater to those needs rather than strictly adhering to a course strategy crafted by individuals outside of their classrooms.
I will make sure to discuss issues before the board with legal counsel when there is a possibility of wasting funds on lawsuits instead of using those funds to support students and educators. Our district is also spending far too much on outside consultants who seem to only supply information on how the district is performing well. If we are going to be spending money which could be allocated to classrooms on consulting firms, we need to be sure that the information they are providing is focused on addressing issues rather than patting our district leaders on the back for a job well done. I would also like to look into the possibility of providing our principals with continuing education in accounting practices since we entrust their schools' funding to their judgments.
All students should feel safe and supported in their schools. Our district has a strong relationship with our law enforcement partners and a robust staff of school resource officers in connection with the Douglas County Sheriff's office. We are also lucky to have increased security staff and systems at all of our school buildings as a result of the recent mill levy and bond measures approved by the voters. Because we have made strides in physical security, we should turn to ensuring stronger mental health supports for everyone in our school buildings. Our school counselors should have much lower caseloads than those they are carrying currently. By providing more individualized mental health supports, we can better identify issues before they come to a head. We also need to make sure our students know about reporting programs like Safe2Tell so that we do not have blind spots on information related to the safety of all of the children in the district. Finally, our schools need to cultivate a sense of belonging for all students. As the leader of our mental health programming recently reiterated, students who feel like they are part of a greater whole are much less likely to act out against that group. By focusing on making children feel like they belong, all children are made safer and can focus on what matters: their schooling.
Our district needs to look into provision of mental health services to our employees. It is very possible that there are mental health providers who would be willing to provide direct service to members of our school communities and our district could look to paying a group of providers to give such a service. This would ensure that the providers are uniquely poised to address issues common to those working in the district and would hopefully result in expert mental health supports catered to those individuals.
We need clear procedures for how schools should be addressing harassment and bullying in the district. As it stands, each individual school has differing policies that result in disparities of treatment throughout our district. A district-level policy which is clear and direct about how accusations and events involving harassment and bullying are to be handled provides protection to educators when they follow the policy to reduce the issues we are seeing in those areas. We also need to ensure a strong flow of data and set goals which can be measured in terms of desired outcomes. By setting a clear guideline (such as a reduction in bullying of 5% over one year), the district can focus its energy on making that outcome a reality. Without clear guidelines, we are left with a multitude of differing approaches that are not measured in a way which forces growth.
Everytown for Gun Safety; Douglas County Parents; Douglas County Federation; Denver Area Labor Federation; Kathy Bannister (my 4th and 5th grade teacher); Gregory Ungar (one of my undergraduate professors); HD61 Colorado State Representative Eliza Hamrick; a growing number of Douglas County community members
Classrooms should be welcoming areas where students can focus on the curriculum being taught while feeling safe. We need to get back to a point as well as we can where students are not overly concerned with social media and their phones. Educators should not be competing for student attention with apps that are proven to have extreme detrimental mental affects on our children. We also need to foster a community of mutual respect between students and between students and educators. No one should be made to feel outside of their school's community based on factors outside of their control. We also need to set up clear policies to allow teachers to address issues before they arise and respond to problems in a consistent way. Teachers should have guidance on how to handle most possible issues which could arise in their classrooms and should have the support of administration when navigating a solution to tough situations. Ideally, students have gone through enough schooling with an environment fostering respect that many concerns are allayed through social interaction rather than through more involved intervention.
I have lived in Douglas County for most of my life, so I already have fairly robust connections to our community. However, I would like to continue to build relationships with families to find out exactly what parents believe would be the best direction forward for our students. Collaboration with parents and educators can only benefit the children in our district and we need to make sure parents stay involved in their kids' schooling. I would hope to have an open avenue for communication with parents in the district and would then hope to bring their concerns before the board regardless of my own feelings on the matter raised.
We need to make sure that employees have a say in their employment. The board should be answerable not only to parents of students but to those who work with those students every day. We need to continue the forward progress we have made recently toward paying our educators competitive wages, but we also need to be checking in with all of the district employees to keep on top of what changes they need to continue to thrive. Our schools can only benefit our students so far as the people teaching our kids can afford to continue doing so. Douglas County should strive to get back to the point where we are nationally acclaimed for the relationship between teachers and district leadership as we were while I was attending DCSD schools.
We need to continue to challenge students. Only through rigor and learning to deal with failure can our students grow into the best possible versions of themselves. We should not be solely focused on testing outcomes when it comes to serving children. Curricula should be focused on how to improve critical thinking in all areas and teaching children to have a curiosity for furthering their own knowledge. We should be teaching kids to come up with creative solutions to disparate issues in order to best prepare them to navigate the future with all of its unknowns.
We need to embrace the reality that AI is here and it's a tool that our students will need to be able to use going forward. We need to work with our educators to come up with solutions which incorporate AI use to make sure that kids are not falling behind in this rapidly-changing technological landscape. We need our leaders to have a robust understanding of AI in order to track and respond to changes as they come, as well. It is likely that lesson plans will need to shift in order to incorporate the instruction of AI, and district leadership should work with all community members to come up with the best fit for our students.
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See also
2025 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on September 17, 2025
