Boasberg’s inner circle: The latest changes to Denver Public Schools’ top leadership team

The cabinet of Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg, one of the longest-serving urban superintendents in the country, is changing.

Boasberg’s inner circle has undergone several shifts in the eight years since he became superintendent in 2009, taking the helm after his predecessor Michael Bennet was appointed to the U.S. Senate. Boasberg continued the reforms begun by Bennet and has built the state’s largest school district into one nationally known for embracing school choice and autonomy.

He enjoys the full backing of the seven-member school board, who support his “portfolio strategy.” But a group of challengers wants to change that in November, when four board seats are up for election. If candidates who disagree with Boasberg’s vision sweep the contest, they would have enough votes to change the course of the district.

The latest cabinet shifts involve Boasberg’s chief of staff and the head of community engagement. Eddie Koen, who served as chief of staff for a year, left DPS Sept. 20 for a job with the Mile High United Way. The district announced last month it had hired a replacement: Tameka Brigham, a former teacher and Teach for America official.

But last week, it announced that Brigham would be taking a different position instead: chief of family and community engagement. The person who previously held that job, former Aurora Public Schools chief communications director Georgia Duran, has been on leave recovering from injuries and decided not to return, according to district officials.

The district has hired an interim chief of staff while it conducts a job search. Read more about who will be filling that position, as well as the rest of Boasberg’s cabinet, below.

But first, some background on the superintendent.

Boasberg began working for DPS as the district’s chief operating officer in 2007. Before that, he served as vice president for corporate development at Broomfield-based multi-national telecommunications company Level 3 Communications.

His current salary is $236,220. He was the fifth highest paid superintendent in Colorado in 2016-17, according to state data.

Last year, Boasberg took six months of unpaid leave to live in Argentina with his wife, Carin, and their three children. The kids attended local schools, and he and his wife took Spanish language and literature classes. Already a speaker of Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese, he said he wanted to improve his ability to communicate with the thousands of Spanish-speaking DPS families.

Here are the eight DPS officials who report directly to Boasberg, their duties as described by district human resources documents, their salaries and a bit about their backgrounds.

Susana Cordova (John Leyba/The Denver Post)

Susana Cordova, Deputy Superintendent
Salary: $200,212
Duties: Communicates to the superintendent the requirements and needs of the district as perceived by staff members; assists the superintendent in developing and recommending long-range plans to the school board; formulates and encourages innovative curricular programs to improve instruction; fosters professional growth and staff morale throughout the district; monitors and responds to legislation that may affect DPS programs or policies.
Her story: Cordova is a lifelong Denver resident and DPS graduate who has worked at nearly every level in the district, serving as a teacher, principal and administrator. She began her career as a bilingual teacher and has taught English as a second language. When Boasberg was on sabbatical last year, Cordova served as acting superintendent. She has two children: one is a DPS graduate and the other is a DPS high school student.

Jerome DeHerrera

Jerome DeHerrera, General Counsel
Salary: $145,000
Duties: Ensures DPS business practices, policies and dealings meet regulatory requirements to protect the organization from legal action; manages the organization’s defense and interpretation and preparation of legal documents; provides counsel on legal matters.
His story: DeHerrera, who grew up in Aurora, joined DPS in 2013. He was previously in private practice, where he specialized in education law. He also took cases pro bono, “including representing the plaintiffs in one of Colorado’s longest-running disputes over land grant rights established in the San Luis Valley during the 1850s,” according to his bio on the DPS website. He and his wife are the parents of two DPS elementary school students.

Nina Lopez, Interim Chief of Staff
Salary: To Be Announced
Duties: Serves as the principal aide to the superintendent and supports him in dealing with administrators, staff, students, the school board and the public; provides policy analysis and consultation on major issues affecting the district; interacts with industry, government, legislative interest groups and community officials regarding DPS’s strategic initiatives.
Her story: Lopez is a consultant with her own practice, advising foundations, nonprofits and government entities connected to K-12 education. Her clients include DPS, Jeffco Public Schools and the Broomfield-based Charter School Growth Fund. She previously worked for the Colorado Education Initiative and as special assistant to the state education commissioner overseeing the initial rollout of a law that governs how teachers are evaluated.

Debbie Hearty

Debbie Hearty, Chief of Human Resources
Salary: $171,091
Duties: Leads the management and expansion of teacher and principal residency programs, performance management systems for feedback and growth, teacher leadership programs and performance-based compensation; oversees maintaining relationships with the district’s employee unions; supports efforts to attract, develop and retain educators.
Her story: Hearty has held many jobs within DPS, including math teacher, instructional coach, teacher training leader and assistant principal. Before taking her current position, she was head of the district’s Culture, Equity and Leadership Team, where she led initiatives aimed at making DPS more inclusive. She and her husband have two elementary school-aged sons.

Tameka Brigham, Chief of Family and Community Engagement
Salary: To Be Announced

Tameka Brigham

Duties: Oversees an 80-person team responsible for engaging families and students proactively and to resolve disputes; provides leadership to a small team responsible for engaging communities affected by changes such as school turnaround; oversees development of culturally sensitive and results-driven strategies for outreach and communication.
Her story: Brigham was most recently managing director of research for Teach For America, a nonprofit that recruits college graduates to teach in low-income school districts. She is also a teacher, having taught at many different levels from kindergarten to college. In addition, she served as education chair of the Denver branch of the NAACP, an education outreach liaison for Great Education Colorado and an education specialist for the Urban League of Metropolitan Denver. She has three boys who are in elementary, middle and high school.

Nancy Mitchell, Chief Communications Officer
Salary: $132,056
Duties: Directs all facets of media relations, responding to daily media inquiries; coordinates crisis communications during emergencies; leads the vision and management of the DPS homepage and intranet; leads the district’s internal communications efforts; leads the DPS office that serves families with a native language other than English.
Her story: Before joining DPS in 2014, Mitchell was a journalist who covered public education for many years, including a long stint at the now-closed Rocky Mountain News. She also worked for Education News Colorado, which was one of the online news organizations that merged to form Chalkbeat. After leaving journalism, she directed communications for the Colorado Department of Higher Education and the Education Commission of the States.

Allen Smith

Allen Smith, Chief of the Culture, Equity and Leadership Team
Salary: $145,000
Duties: Provides vision and leadership to make the district a diverse, inclusive and equitable organization; develops strategic plans and measurable outcomes and reports on the status of that work to the district, the school board and the community; works with the Family and Community Engagement and Chief of Staff teams to ensure community voices are heard.
His story: Smith is a DPS graduate who became an educator and served as principal of three DPS schools, as well as executive director of a network of schools undergoing the district’s biggest turnaround effort in far northeast Denver. He left the city to take administrator positions in Charlotte, N.C. and Oakland, Calif. before returning to work in DPS last year.

David Suppes

David Suppes, Chief Operating Officer
Salary: $187,035
Duties: Develops objectives and performance goals for each operational department, such as budget, facilities and transportation; establishes, plans for and carries out district initiatives and priorities; evaluates effectiveness of operational policies and makes recommendations for revisions or new policies; works to improve services for schools, students and parents.
His story: Before joining DPS in 2009, Suppes worked in financial and business leadership positions at Staples and Level 3 Communications, where Boasberg also worked. Suppes has been a volunteer tutor in DPS for several years and served as board treasurer for Metro Caring. He was also a member of the Governor’s Early Childhood Leadership Commission.