Poudre School Board to Pick Director F Successor, Rule on Expulsion Appeal; Lobbying Records Close Out District's Year at the Capitol

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The Poudre School District Board of Education will choose who fills its vacant Director District F seat — a pick that decides who holds the seat for more than a year before voters get a say — and rule on a student expulsion appeal when it meets Tuesday, August 11¹.

The board declared the District F vacancy on July 20 under the state law that requires school boards to fill their own empty seats, C.R.S. § 22-31-129(2)². Applicants submitted written applications, and the board plans to interview them during Tuesday's meeting and vote on an appointment the same night¹. Whoever is appointed serves the remainder of the term until the November 2027 biennial school election, when the seat next goes before voters² — meaning the board's choice, not an election, determines who casts District F's votes on budgets, policy, and personnel for the next fifteen months.

The board is also scheduled to act on the superintendent's decision to expel a student, identified in the agenda only as Student 27-01. Before that vote, the board will meet in executive session — closed to the public under the Colorado Open Meetings Law — to discuss the appeal, review records protected under the Colorado Open Records Act, and receive legal advice from its attorney¹.

Also on the agenda: a consent slate bundling the routine personnel action report, June and July meeting minutes, and participation in the State Treasurer's interest-free loan program; an emergency-succession policy for the superintendent and executive leadership; and a first reading of revisions to the district policy governing authorized signatures on district checks¹.

Away from the boardroom, state disclosure records filed this summer close the books on the district's year at the Capitol. Poudre School District R-1 paid its lobbying firm, Mendez, Barkis and Associates, $12,952.43 in June, per the firm's income report due July 15³. Over the 2025-26 session the firm reported watching seven bills for the district, logging every position as "monitoring" — never support or opposition⁴.

Most of what the district was watching became law. Five of the seven bills were signed by the governor: HB26-1191, opening school district records to examination⁵; HB26-1027, redefining boards of cooperative services and their executive directors⁶; SB26-125, on disability rights protections in public schools⁷; HB26-1318, on traffic safety near schools — the one bill the firm's disclosures flagged as monitored "to ongoing" rather than through a fixed end date⁸; and HB26-1282, eliminating duplicative regulation of school child care centers⁹. The other two died in committee: SB26-139, which would have addressed workforce housing for local education providers, was postponed indefinitely in Senate Education in March¹⁰, and HB26-1292, on scholarship granting organizations, met the same fate in House Education in February¹¹.

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