School Board Recognition Month: Meet Board of Education member Angela Garland

Angela Garland
Director, District C

One of the reasons Angela Garland is dedicated to serving the children of Cherry Creek, is because meeting their needs benefits the entire community.

"Providing an excellent education to our young people is an investment in our future that produces infinite, abundant, high-yield returns," she said.

Garland may be one of the newer members of the Cherry Creek School District Board of Education, but she’s not unfamiliar with the most pressing issues facing the district.

Garland, who started her term in the board’s District C Director position in November, 2019, is the mother of four children who are currently enrolled in CCSD. Her résumé includes positions with the Cherry Creek Schools Foundation, district P.A.S.S. (Partnerships for Academically Successful Students), Cherry Creek’s District Accountability Committee and parent teacher organizations. All of this work with district organizations caps a career spent working closely with nonprofits and other community organizations in Colorado, Missouri and her native Nebraska.

Combined, all of this experience has offered Garland a unique perspective on the most pressing issues related to public education in general and those facing Cherry Creek Schools specifically.

“I worked in the nonprofit and social services world for about 10 years, and that was my first foray into education. I saw a lot of students who were highly impacted by poverty, divorce, incarceration or other issues that made school that much more difficult for them,” Garland recalled of her work immediately following her graduation from the University of Nebraska with a degree in political science and English. “I often served as an intermediary for families who’d had negative experiences in public schools. I saw firsthand the needs of various schools and the needs of various students.”