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Outgoing Director Kristen Allen says she skipped June budget vote to protest limited virtual participation
Summary
At the Cherry Creek School District Board meeting on Nov. 10, 2025, Director Kristen Allen delivered her final remarks and explained that she withheld participation in the district's June budget meeting because she believed virtual attendance options were not meaningfully supported for a vote involving roughly $1.76 billion in resources.
Kristen Allen, who said Nov. 10 would be her final board meeting, told residents she chose not to attend the board's June budget meeting to avoid lending legitimacy to a process she considered insufficiently inclusive.
"I communicated that under those circumstances where virtual attendance was allowed but not supported and where participation was unnecessarily limited, I would not attend and confer legitimacy on a process I believed was wrong," Allen said during her remarks. She told the board she had urged the June meeting be rescheduled or that virtual options be used so more members could participate.
Allen framed the decision as an ethical objection rather than a political maneuver and stressed the board's fiduciary duty. She said the June budget session involved "decisions of extraordinary scale," placing them in the context of stewarding about $1.76 billion in district resources and "over $100,000,000 in expenditures," language she used during her remarks.
Allen urged stronger ongoing governance training and called for the board to engage with the Colorado Association of School Boards to build clearer norms and expectations. "Quorum is the legal floor, not the ethical standard," she said, calling for processes that allow broader participation on critical financial decisions.
Her remarks closed with a pledge to public service and an appeal to center students and transparency in future decisions. The board did not take formal action on Allen's account at the meeting.
Context: Allen made her comments during the board communications portion of the Nov. 10 meeting at Fox Ridge Middle School, where the board discussed several routine items and heard a separate presentation on instructional coaching and professional learning communities.
