Cherry Creek school board director Terry Bates resigns after racialized-comments allegations

AURORA, Colo. — Cherry Creek School District Board of Education Director Terry Bates resigned at a special meeting Friday, April 24, after the board said it had received credible information that he made racialized remarks toward staff and others affiliated with the district. The board accepted the resignation unanimously following a closed-door executive session, Denver7 reported.

Bates represented District D and had been in office four months. He defeated Amanda Thayer in the November 4, 2025 general election with 54.7 percent of the vote and was sworn in December 3, 2025, the Denver Gazette reported. His four-year term was set to run through 2029. Bates was serving as the board’s treasurer; member Mike Hamrick has assumed that role, according to Denver7. The five-member board met at 4 p.m. Friday and immediately went into executive session to discuss legal matters related to board policy, then reconvened roughly an hour later, when Bates announced his resignation and the board accepted it.

In a statement read aloud after the resignation, Board President Anne Egan said the board had “credible information that Board Director Terry Bates made racialized remarks that were unacceptable and inconsistent with our values” and that “others reported concerning interactions.” The statement said the district would not release further details “to protect the privacy of individuals involved.” Egan added that the board had “been recently made aware of inappropriate remarks made by Mr. Bates before his election to the Board” and concluded, “We cannot overlook these actions. For that reason, we join together in accepting his resignation from the board.”

Bates publicly addressed his resignation in a Facebook statement on Sunday, April 26, Sentinel Colorado reported. “I accept full responsibility for offending others by my comments, and I regret that my apology was not acknowledged in the board’s press release,” Bates wrote. He said he had called Egan the previous Wednesday to discuss the matter and did not get a return call, and that he distributed a written apology to each board member during Friday’s meeting. “I asked whether my apology would be considered, and I was told it was ‘too late.’ No one asked me a single question about what occurred,” Bates wrote. He added: “I believe in accountability, and I took that step. I also believe in fairness and due process, and I do not believe those principles were extended to me in this situation.” Bates did not return a call from the Denver Gazette seeking comment.

Cherry Creek parent advocate Molly Lamar told The Kim Monson Show on Friday that the resignation followed complaints by district administrators and that the board initially sought to handle the matter privately. “We had administrators who felt unsafe enough to file complaints,” Lamar said on the May 1 broadcast. “And yet, of course, the board’s first instinct was to handle it behind closed doors.” Lamar described the comments as “racist and sexist” and said some occurred at the district’s Golden Heart Awards, which she described as a ceremony honoring those who serve students with special needs. The board’s published statement does not characterize the comments as sexist and does not name a venue, and the district has not corroborated either claim.

District spokesperson Abbe Smith told the Denver Gazette that the process for filling the seat had not yet been finalized. “We are working on a process and can share that info as soon as it’s available,” Smith said. Under Colorado Revised Statutes 22-31-129, a school board must appoint a replacement within 60 days of a vacancy; if the board fails to act, the board president appoints. Because the vacancy occurs more than 90 days before the next regular biennial school election and more than two years remain in Bates’s term, an appointee will serve until the November 2027 election, when voters will elect a successor for the remainder of the unexpired term. The Colorado Association of School Boards describes the same procedure in its 2025 vacancy memo.

Bates won the District D seat previously held by his wife, Kelly Bates, who served on the board from December 2017 through December 2025 and was board president from 2021 to 2023. She was term-limited and did not seek reelection, a Chalkbeat Colorado and Aurora Sentinel voter guide noted before the November race. No public reporting tied to Friday’s resignation alleges any role by Kelly Bates, who is not a party to the matter.

Cherry Creek is the fourth-largest school district in Colorado, with nearly 52,000 students. The resignation comes during a turbulent stretch for district leadership. Former Superintendent Chris Smith resigned in January amid public allegations that he and his wife, Brenda Smith, the district’s chief human resource officer, had created a toxic work environment, the Denver Gazette reported. Brenda Smith was placed on paid administrative leave less than a week later, and Assistant Superintendent Tony Poole was placed on leave in mid-February and has since separated from the district. Jennifer Perry is serving as interim superintendent, and the board has launched an independent audit of internal controls and tightened contract approval rules.

The district has not said when it will open the application window for Bates’s seat.