27J Board of Education seats on November ballot

Three of the seven School District 27J Board of Education seats are up for election on the Nov. 3 ballot. The expiring seats are in Districts 2, 4, and 5. The positions are for four-year terms.

Individuals interested in possibly running for a seat may pick up a board election packet beginning Aug. 5. Candidates have until Aug. 28 to circulate their petitions and collect a minimum of 50 signatures of eligible voters from within the school district.

The packets are to be picked up and returned to Teresa Jacobs, School District 27J, 11850 E 160th Ave., Brighton, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

To be qualified to run for the School Board, a candidate must be an eligible elector of the school district and a resident of the school district, as shown on the books of the county clerk and recorder, for at least 12 consecutive months before the election. A candidate also must be a resident of the director district that will be represented. A person is ineligible to run for school director if he or she has been convicted of committing a sexual offense against a child.

School board members are elected by a vote of the electors of the entire school district. No candidate may run representing a political party. School board elections are nonpartisan.

Current school board members whose terms expire are:

• District 2 Director Valerie Espinosa Martinez, who is eligible to run for Director District 2 for another four-year term.

• District 4 Director Ernesto Lopez, who is term limited.

• District 5 Director Joan Kniss, whose boundaries have changed and she is now in District 4. Kniss is eligible to run for reelection for another four-year term in Director District 4.

Director District 5 is the new area created in the Commerce City area.

See accompanying map for districts. For more information, go online to www.sd27j.org or call Teresa Jacobs in the 27J Superintendent’s Office, 303-655-2952.

The new boundaries were approved by the board at its December business meeting and will take affect with the November election. Reapportioning to ensure that each director district contains substantially the same number of residents is required by Colorado State Law every four years.
While each of the seven director districts has grown since the last redistricting in 2004, the greatest population growth in 27J has been in the Commerce City, Henderson and Thornton areas.

Overall, the district has grown from 39,265 to 67,975 residents in the past four years. In 2004, each district had about 5,500 residents. Each district now will have a population of about 9,500.