While conservatives are celebrating the victory and impending inauguration of Donald Trump, they are also preparing for 2025’s school board elections. Recent media appearances from some of Colorado’s most vocal conservative education activists indicate that the playbook for 2025 will focus on three tried and true issues — diversity programs, transgender people, and unions.
“What we’ve uncovered over the last four years, not only here in Colorado but across the nation, is that this is a direct attempt to undermine the future of our country,” said Colorado Parent Advocacy Network (CPAN) founder Lori Gimelshteyn during a Jan. 2 appearance on the Kim Monson show. “Quite honestly, [diversity, equity, and inclusion] is one of the most detrimental programs that we’re seeing in school systems. And what is so exciting as we roll into 2025, I mean, just this huge sense of hope and expectation that there will be accountability for schools that are implementing these really horrific programs.”
Gimelshteyn echoed the sentiments of Manhattan Institute fellow Chris Rufo, who has led multiple conservative media campaigns against critical race theory and LGBTQ inclusion in K-12 education. Gimelshteyn blamed the state of the Cherry Creek School District, one of the top districts in the state, on the teachers union.
“What’s so sad is that this current board of education, which is teacher union controlled — I mean, all of the school board members in Cherry Creek and most of the school districts across the state of Colorado are controlled by the teachers union,” she said. “I don’t think people realize the corruption in the teachers union that has occurred and the amount of control that they have over what our schools do and what they teach our children.”
Gimelshteyn’s claims about the power of unions in Colorado are a bit overstated. Only 38 of Colorado’s 179 school districts actually have a master agreement with a union. In Colorado Springs, School District 11’s conservative board recently ended the district’s 50-year master agreement with the Colorado Springs Education Association, a significant victory for conservative education activists.
“Oh my God, the unions have done so much behind our back in the last couple of years that we weren’t aware of,” said Darcy Schoening, the Colorado GOP’s director of special initiatives, during a Jan. 3 appearance on the Chuck and Julie show. “We’ve lost or we’re losing our children, we’re losing this generation. And so we have to get back to a place where we’re suspicious of the government. We don’t believe in big government.”
Schoening founded the El Paso County Moms for Liberty chapter, but left her position with the group in 2023. During the November election, Schoening used the Colorado GOP’s mailing list to send out emails attacking LGBTQ candidates.
Schoening and Colorado GOP Vice Chair Hope Sheppelman are currently threatening the Durango School District with a lawsuit over a proposed resolution to allow the Black Lives Matter \and LGBTQ pride flags to appear in classrooms under protections of the First Amendment.
“I think truly this is a way to indoctrinate our children, to have them hate their parents, hate the community, hate our flag, hate the United States,” said Sheppelman, who also appeared on the Chuck and Julie show. “This definitely is a mental illness. This teacher should be ashamed because what they are doing is they are weaponizing and really trying to look at these young kids and they are using their vulnerability to promote this awful thing. Again, I’m not about I’m not against gays, that is one thing I want to say specifically, but I am against the grooming of our children into these progressive transgender ideology.”
Gimelshteyn also discussed lawsuits CPAN has brought against school districts with help from groups like America First Legal, a conservative legal advocacy group led by former Trump advisor Stephen Miller.
“With these national supporters, we’re going to be holding school districts accountable,” she said. “We’re going to be holding superintendents, boards of education, principals, anyone that is pushing divisive ideology into the school.”
