As the November school board election approaches, the Republican Strategy Forum gave voters a preview of what candidates Holly Tripp, Susan Payne, and Eddie Waldrep intend to bring to Academy District 20. For those considering whether to elect Susan Payne, the forum highlighted recurring themes: culture war talking points, legal battles with significant price tags, and a surprising lack of attention to the district’s core challenges.
Contradictions in the Slate
Holly Tripp framed her campaign around ensuring that every child receives a quality education. She emphasized the importance of school-parent partnerships, grade-level reading, and teaching communication skills. Yet she followed that with an insistence that Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) should not be part of schools at all and should be left solely to parents.
That stance is a direct contradiction. SEL is fundamentally about teaching students resilience, empathy, and communication, the very skills she placed at the center of her platform. Families rely on schools to reinforce these capacities alongside academics.
The five core competencies of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). While Holly Tripp rejects SEL as a school responsibility, her slate-mate Eddie Waldrep campaigns on resilience, which falls squarely within this framework.
The inconsistency deepens when considering their slate-mate, Eddie Waldrep. A psychologist with the VA, Waldrep has made “building resilience in students” one of his signature campaign priorities. Resilience, by definition, falls squarely within SEL. In short, while Tripp dismisses SEL as inappropriate for schools, Waldrep campaigns on it as essential. The slate itself is divided on what schools should teach children about navigating challenges.
The Undefined “Grooming” Standard
Tripp also told attendees that “grooming is a reportable offense to law enforcement.” Colorado already has clear mandatory reporting laws requiring educators to report suspected abuse or neglect. But “grooming” is not a defined legal category in state law.
In political rhetoric, the term has often been used as a cultural wedge, directed at teachers, librarians, or LGBTQ+ people in ways untethered from statutory definitions. Without clarity, such language raises troubling questions. Who decides what qualifies as “grooming”? Could it be applied to a teacher simply respecting a student’s pronouns, or to a book containing a gay character? The vagueness isn’t incidental; it leaves wide latitude for politicized accusations, which Susan Payne appears to support by association.
False Narratives and Local Control
Susan Payne emphasized what she called a battle for “local control,” declaring:
“We need to maintain local control; we have a battle on our hands, and it starts in our schools. We need to counteract the false narratives in our community.”
Yet the most persistent false narratives are the very ones being promoted on the campaign trail by Susan Payne. There is no surge of transgender athletes overwhelming girls’ sports in District 20. There is no new epidemic of “grooming” in schools that the law has failed to address. By repeatedly framing these as urgent crises, Payne and her allies shift focus away from real district responsibilities: staff turnover, budget pressures, facility maintenance, and declining enrollment.
Lawsuits Instead of Classrooms
One of Payne’s marquee points at the forum was that District 20 has joined District 11 in a lawsuit challenging state policies on transgender participation in sports. Proponents frame this as a fight for fairness. But there is no evidence that this is a widespread issue in D20.
What is certain is the cost. Lawsuits require legal counsel, filings, and months, if not years, of resources. Those resources come from the same budget that must cover books, transportation, and teacher pay. Litigation may generate headlines, but it also generates invoices, and taxpayers are the ones who foot the bill.
Recycling Old Policy as “New”
When asked about inappropriate books in school libraries, Payne described what she called a “new policy” that would allow complaints to be filed with the Board for investigation. But the policy on challenging instructional materials has not changed. The process remains the same: parents or community members may file a reconsideration request, which is reviewed under long-standing administrative procedures.
By presenting existing policy as a new initiative, Payne created the impression of decisive action where none occurred. It is a rhetorical move that reinforces the sense of crisis while obscuring the continuity of district governance.
What the Forum Revealed
The Republican Strategy Forum was intended to showcase vision. Instead, it highlighted contradictions, misstatements, and culture war priorities. The slate praised litigation over transgender athletes, while teacher turnover went unaddressed. They raised alarms about “grooming” without offering definitions grounded in law. They promised communication skills and resilience for students, while simultaneously dismissing the very tools schools use to teach them. They crowed about “safety” while ignoring the dangerous situations presented for students housed in portable buildings.
For those weighing whether to elect Susan Payne, the forum underscored a central question: Will District 20’s leadership focus on governing budgets, supporting educators, and solving practical problems, or will it continue to channel energy into national, ideological battles that cost more in legal fees than they return in solutions?