A Denver Public Schools board member under investigation by his colleagues for racial discrimination alleged Friday that the district has repeatedly retaliated against him because of previous attempts to raise alarm about school safety concerns.
John Youngquist in an interview alleged the retaliation first began two years ago when the district sent him a cease-and-desist letter regarding the use of the “lamp of knowledge” from the DPS logo in his campaign signs and culminated in Superintendent Alex Marrero accusing the director of wanting his job and asking the school board to censure the former East High principal.
Marrero’s allegations, which were made in an email to board President Carrie Olson earlier this year, spurred the racial discrimination investigation now taking place. The results of the investigation — which the board has spent more than $78,000 on — are expected to be released by the end of next week, Youngquist said.
“I don’t have any concerns about the results of the investigation, with the understanding that there’s a much bigger picture here that relates to retaliatory behaviors,” Youngquist said.
DPS spokesman Bill Good denied Youngquist’s allegations.
“The accusations made by Director Youngquist are without merit,” he said in a statement. “…We find it convenient that these accusations are being made when the investigative findings are expected to be released in the coming weeks.”
Good acknowledged DPS leaders requested Youngquist to change his campaign lawn signs during the 2023 election, but said the request was made because they featured the district’s logo without permission and DPS can not favor or endorse candidates.
Youngquist said he sent Marrero five letters in the fall of 2022 about his concerns regarding school safety after the DPS Board of Education removed armed police from schools two years earlier. The letters, he said, went unanswered.
Months later, in March 2023, a student shot and injured two deans inside East High School.
Youngquist was acting as a high school mentor principal when he sent the letters in 2022. He was also commissioned by DPS to author a study about principal perceptions on school safety, according to notes he provided to The Denver Post.
“If DPS were targeting him, why would he be given a contract to support the district after the shooting?” Good asked.
As a result of his work, Youngquist said he has been identified as a potential witness in three lawsuits against DPS related to the shooting and the aftermath. (He has not testified in the cases nor has he been deposed.)
Two of the lawsuits were filed by the deans injured in the East High shooting. The third lawsuit was filed by former McAuliffe International School Principal Kurt Dennis, who alleged DPS retaliated against him for speaking publicly about safety policies after the East High shooting.
Youngquist alleged DPS leaders have retaliated against him in other ways as well since his tenure on the board began, including directing an educational firm called The Impact Team to fire Youngquist in 2024 or risk losing their contract with the district.
The Post was unable to independently verify Youngquist’s employment and termination with The Impact Team. But Youngquist said in his interview that DPS leaders viewed the job as a conflict of interest to his board duties, despite the director working with another district — Colorado Springs School District 11 — instead of DPS.
“It felt like a significant act of retaliation,” Youngquist said.
Good denied that DPS officials asked The Impact Team to fire Youngquist, but confirmed the district viewed his employment with the firm as a conflict of interest.
“…(T)he district informed the Impact Team that it could not renew the contract because Secretary Youngquist was a paid board member,” he said.
DPS, in response to this story, provided The Post with a copy of Youngquist’s resignation letter that Good said showed he was not fired. In the letter, Youngquist notified The Impact Team that he was resigning to “prioritize work within my own consultation organization.”
But Youngquist, who confirmed he sent the document, said the resignation letter was not proof that he was not fired. “That’s not what I was told by my employers,” he said.
Youngquist said that a January meeting in which board members publicly criticized him was also another form of retaliation by the district. His colleagues scolded him during the meeting after he accused them of violating the state’s open meeting law, but also took him to task for his treatment of DPS employees.
At the time, other board members hinted at conflict between Youngquist and DPS staff but did not specifically say how his behavior was improper. Youngquist said then that he was aware of offending at least two senior administrators.
“..(B)oard members must first have a private conversation with an offending board member,” Good said about the January meeting. “All board members (except the sole Black board member) spoke with Secretary Youngquist regarding his treatment of staff.”
Youngquist said there wasn’t a specific point in time when his relationship with DPS leaders, including Marrero, took a turn for the worse.
“There’s been a tension there,” Youngquist said. “Part of it was because I sent letters (in 2022) that weren’t responded to.”
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