After attending the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6, 2021, parent and beauty stylist, Schumé Navarro, said she is running for a seat on the Cherry Creek Schools Board of Education.

“I think people who make [the] decisions are a little too far removed from the people they’re making decisions for and I think it’s important that there’s a range of personalities and backgrounds on the school board,” she said. “I offer a totally different view.”

Navarro says if she is elected, the mask mandates will have to change, even though the school board does not influence COVID-19 guidelines, as they are enforced by the tri-county health department.

“I’m [fighting] because of the stories that we’re hearing with the mask stuff that’s happening, with the discrimination with the exemptions and stuff like that,” she said.

Navarro has such issues with the mask mandate that she took her daughter out of school because of it. 

“She had a really hard time with the mask stuff so we have taken her out [of school],” she said. “It was just her only knowledge of school and it was really difficult.”

Although she has no experience in education, Navarro believes she is qualified to be on the school board because her children attend school in the district, and she can bring certain skills to the board.  

“I think a qualified aspect is having kids in the district…you have skin in the game when you have your kids in the district,” she said. “I might not be qualified with a long list of academic stuff, but I know I can bring my people skills and problem-solving skills to the table.”

Navarro also plans to bring more parent involvement into schools to build better support systems for students if she wins the election.

“I truly know that family input and family involvement really helps the student and I think you have to start that young,” she said. “If we can make an environment where parents have buy-in at a young age and still have that as they go to middle school and have them involved in high school, it just sets kids up to be so much more supported.”

Navarro believes that being raised by a military father who went on to become a history teacher greatly influenced her desire to be active in the community. 

“I’m an active person and I think if you believe strongly in something you should go be there…he raised me to care and be active and be about the change, it was an awesome thing,” she said. 

In fact, Navarro went to Washington D.C. for the January 6th insurrection because of this.

“I felt like I was supposed to go there,” she said. “It was about as lively as a football game, but if you went off of the information that the media tells you, then you would think it’s completely different.”

Navarro also said that her participation in the January 6th insurrection will affect her ability to win the election, but she believes people who use critical thinking will see past that.

“After a certain amount of time, you’ve just got to look at how the news portrays things and use critical thinking in that space,” she said. “[…] it totally will [impact my ability to win]. Some people might hate me because of it too.”

Navarro’s Resume