Incumbent misses deadline, leaving challenger unopposed in PSD school board election

DJ Anderson, a member of the Poudre School District Board of Education since 2019, missed a filing deadline and will not be on the ballot to run for reelection this fall, he said Thursday.

As a result, challenger Scott Schoenbauer, who Anderson defeated by more than 3,000 votes in 2019, will run unopposed for the District A seat representing southwest Fort Collins.

Three other seats on the seven-member board that governs the majority of public schools in and around Fort Collins will have contested races on the November ballot, including two that are being vacated by members who are term-limited and cannot seek reelection. Jessica Zamora, who holds the District G seat representing central Fort Collins, is now the only incumbent up for reelection to the PSD board.

Candidates are also on the ballot this fall for four of the seven seats on the Thompson School District Board of Education and four of the five seats on the Weld RE-4 (Windsor-Severance) School District board.

PSD incumbent 'feeling really bad' about missing deadline

Anderson said he and a lawyer who has helped him with his campaign filings in the past both thought he had until Tuesday of this week to complete his petition to PSD. He found out Sunday that the deadline had been Friday, Sept. 1, and has since learned that there is no recourse to get on the ballot for the November election.

“I’m feeling really bad about it,” Anderson said. “There are a bunch of people I’m letting down. I was trying to juggle too much at one time, maybe.”

Larimer County Clerk and Recorder Tina Harris said PSD is responsible for certifying candidates for the Board of Education and forwarding them to her office by Sept. 8 to be included on the ballot, which will be mailed to voters beginning Oct. 16. Anderson was not on the list of confirmed candidates Thursday on the PSD website. District officials declined to respond to a direct question about whether Anderson had missed a deadline.

Anderson had filed his paperwork confirming his candidacy with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office July 31, a day before that office's deadline, and had filed monthly campaign finance and expenditure reports on time each of the past four months.

Schoenbauer was not aware Anderson would not appear on the ballot until he was contacted Thursday by a Coloradoan reporter.

“That’s really unfortunate,” he said. “I was looking forward to a good campaign.”

Schoenbauer, a Fort Collins resident for 33 years and the parent of two graduates of PSD schools and one child still in school, said he’s far more qualified for a seat on the school board now than he was in 2019. And for that, he credits Anderson.

“In 2019, I didn’t really know what I was getting into,” Schoenbauer said. “At the time, I even told (Anderson) he was a well-qualified candidate. I actually followed his model, and I volunteered for several different committees myself.”

Schoenbauer served on PSD’s advisory board for the past four years and just finished his term as the board’s chair. He also serves on the district’s budget advisory and accountability committees.

“Now, I feel I’ve done the work to get to know the district and really be qualified for this position,” said Schoenbauer, a general manager for Alumicolor, a company that makes precision tools and promotional products.

Although Schoenbauer has aligned himself with three other candidates — Andrea Booth, Kurt Kastein and Caleb Larson — running on parents’ rights platforms, he said they are each running individually for their seats on their own merits and not on a unified slate.

“I know some of the other people that are running for different seats,” he said. “They’re people that I think are really well-suited for this, as well, but really bring a fresh perspective. I’m definitely associated with those people hoping to bring a new, fresh look at things.”

Candidates can only run for the four-year volunteer seats in the specific geographic district in which they live in the local school board races, but their positions are voted on by voters in the entire school district.

Here’s a quick look at who is on the ballot in our local school board races, with information from the candidates, their campaign filings and/or campaign websites:

Poudre School District

District A (southwest Fort Collins)

Note – Incumbent DJ Anderson missed a filing deadline with PSD and will not be on the ballot.

Scott Schoenbauer – The general manager of a company making precision tools and promotional products is running unopposed. The Fort Collins resident for more than 33 years has two grown children who graduated from PSD schools and another still in school. He recently completed his term as chair of PSD’s advisory board and currently serves on the district’s accountability and budget committees.

District B (west Fort Collins)

Note – Incumbent Nate Donovan is term-limited and cannot run for reelection.

Kevin Havelda – The attorney is a former Teach for America Corps member who worked in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and was a founding teacher at a charter school in Brooklyn, New York. The former college soccer player and his wife have two children, and the oldest is now in kindergarten at Olander Elementary School.

Kurt Kastein – The two-time Fort Collins city councilman, serving from 1999-2007, is a director of engineering lead teams in the high-tech industry. He and his wife have three children, including two PSD graduates.

District F (southeast Fort Collins, Timnath and west Windsor)

Note – Incumbent Rob Petterson, currently the PSD Board of Education president, is term-limited and cannot run for reelection.

Andrea Booth – The statistician working in the medical research industry has lived in Fort Collins for 13 years. She and her husband have two daughters who were born in Colorado and attend PSD schools.

Conor Duffy – The managing director at Range Analytics, a business consulting and software development firm, previously worked in the energy industry for more than 20 years. The Timnath resident ran unsuccessfully for city council in 2022, mayor in 2020 and Colorado House District 49 in 2018.

District G (central Fort Collins)

Caleb Larson – The accountant is a former PSD student who graduated from Rocky Mountain High School and played soccer at Regis University. His parents and grandparents still live in the area.

Jessica Zamora (incumbent) – The former chair of the district’s advisory board was appointed to the school board in August 2021 when Naomi Johnson resigned while moving away from Fort Collins and was elected to remain in the seat that fall. She and her husband have two children in PSD schools.

Thompson School District

District A (west Loveland, Masonville, Big Thompson Canyon, Drake)

Dawn Kirk (incumbent) – The Loveland native is a learning and development professional with 18 years in the public service industry. She was first elected to the school board in 2019.

Ryan Wilcken – The Loveland native and graduate of Thompson Valley High School is an electrician with 24 years of experience now working as a project manager. Two of he and his wife’s three children attend TSD schools.

District C (northwest Loveland, southeast Fort Collins)

Briah Freeman – The senior change management program director with Banner Health previously spent 14 years in early childhood education. She has a daughter who will start school in TSD in the fall of 2024.

Nancy Rumfelt (incumbent) – The U.S. Navy veteran has worked most of her professional career as a chief financial officer/controller. The Longmont native and her husband have lived in Loveland for 23 years and have a blended family with three children, including two daughters who graduated from Mountain View High School.

District D (southeast Loveland)

Note – Incumbent Pam Howard is term-limited and cannot run for reelection.

Denise Chapman – The product portfolio manager and her husband have four adopted children. She has served on the board of directors for the Heritage Camps for Adoptive Families for 10 years and Project Self-Sufficiency of Loveland-Fort Collins from 2016-19.

Yazmin Pena Navarro – The former worker at U.S. embassies in Italy and El Salvador is a substitute teacher in TSD this fall after working the final four months of the 2022-23 school year as a paraprofessional at Riverview PK-8 in Johnstown.

District G (Berthoud, southeastern Larimer County and west Johnstown)

James “Stu” Boyd (incumbent) – The teacher and administrator in TSD schools for 36 years and substitute teacher and teacher mentor for the past 14 years was first elected to the board in 2019.

Elizabeth Kearney – The second-generation Berthoud resident is an attorney who has practiced last for more than 30 years. Her mother was a science teacher at Bill Reed Middle School in Loveland, and she and her husband have three daughters, all graduates of Berthoud High School.

Weld RE-4 (Windsor-Severance) School District

District A (southwest Windsor, north Johnstown and southwest Greeley)

Raymond Ruth, incumbent – The executive for Danaher Corp. with two children in Weld RE-4 schools was appointed to his seat in January following the resignation of Aaron Smith. He is running unopposed.

District B (central Windsor)

Note – Incumbent Regan Price is term-limited and cannot run for reelection.

Karen Trusler – The former Weld RE-4 superintendent, teacher and administrator who served as interim superintendent for the Weld RE-5J (Johnstown-Milliken) District in 2022-23 is running unopposed.

District D (north Windsor, west Severance)

Mark Leach – The U.S. Army veteran worked with astronauts at NASA for eight years, was a regional senior practice manager in cardiology for Banner Health in Northern Colorado for 12 years and now teaches college courses to high school students in Greeley through Aims Community College’s Early College Academy. He and his wife, who is a professor at Colorado State University, have a son in a Weld RE-4 elementary school.

Patrick Miller (incumbent) – The controller of the North American Division of Hach in Loveland was appointed in January to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of Jennifer Lieber. He has two children in Weld RE-4 elementary schools.

District E (east Severance and northwest Greeley)

Note – Incumbent Russell Smart, currently the Weld RE-4 Board of Education president, is not running for reelection.

Jennifer Hansen – The Windsor resident since 2000 has served as a volunteer and substitute teacher in Weld RE-4 schools for more than 15 years. She and her husband have three children — one who graduated from Windsor High and another still there, and one who graduated from Severance High.

Helen “Kathy” Ulrich – Retired teacher of foreign languages for 38 years at schools in Niwot, Greeley and South America has lived in Windsor for the past four years. She spent most of her teaching career in Greeley-Evans School District 6.

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, twitter.com/KellyLyell or facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. 

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Incumbent misses deadline, leaving school board challenger unopposed