Monthly Archives: April 2023

4/30/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week:

  • Staff received their contracts for ’23-24 late last week, and have ten days to sign and return them. There was no talk of a performance-based pay scale, no changes there.
  • Amy Ryan started work in the newly-created CFO position; longtime Business Manager Mona Larsen submitted her resignation.
  • HB23-1065, a Colorado bill to create ethics oversight of government bodies like school boards, made it out of committee and is advancing.
  • We published the latest email obtained under CORA of Illingworth belittling a parent.
  • We published a resignation letter obtained under CORA, baseball coach and HS teacher Kyle Crawford signing out the board’s actions as his reasons for resigning.
  • We published an anonymous letter from another WPSD teacher.

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • No board meetings are currently scheduled for this week.
  • The board is expected to review the preliminary ’23-24 budget in its May 10th board meeting.

HB23-1065 – Local Government Independent Ethics Commission

Please reach out TODAY with your support for this bill! The Appropriations committee meets tomorrow to discuss it. The Woodland Park school board is a great example of why this ethics commission is needed in Colorado!

UPDATE – if you want some help drafting an email, check out THIS DOCUMENT.

Under current law, the independent ethics commission created in article XXIX of the state constitution does not have jurisdiction over officials or employees of special districts or school districts. The bill gives the independent ethics commission jurisdiction to hear complaints, issue findings, assess penalties, and issue advisory opinions on ethics issues concerning a local government official or local government employee. 

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Please email all the members of the Appropriations committee asking them to support this bill. Include your own personal stories of how you feel our school board has acted unethically. Committee members are:

Illingworth’s latest belittling email to a parent

David Illingworth has a long history of hostile language towards parents and teachers in the district. His latest tirade was directed towards Nate Owen, as much a part of the WP community as anybody. Nate is a popular high school teacher who clearly cares greatly for his students, has taught in the district for eleven years, and has four kids growing up in WP schools (he’s also sponsored Key Club, part of the Kiwanis family service organization, for all those eleven years).

Here’s what David Illingworth emailed Nate:

Nate, you are union president and nothing you say has any credibility with me. You seem to only care about creating division, despair, and a climate of doom amongst teachers and parents for your wealthy union bosses. Don’t even pretend to guilt parents and teachers that focusing schools on academics means abandoning our kids. That’s disgusting.


Parents run this district now, not the union. The schools exist for the kids, not the union and their politicians. Your grandstanding for the cameras does not fool me. You work for the union, not parents and certainly not kids.


DAVID W. ILLINGWORTH II
Director

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The board had adjourned to executive session in their board meeting earlier in the day; the meeting livestream continued to run. Nate took the opportunity to speak to those still present in the room; you can watch his speech below. Nate forwarded the text of his speech to the board; Illingworth’s email was in reply to that.

Director Illingworth is up for re-election this fall.

A High School teacher’s resignation letter

One of the many teachers leaving the Woodland Park school district this year is Kyle Crawford, a high school social studies teacher and basketball coach (both the boys and girls teams qualified for State this year for the first time since 2008). Teachers are limited in what they can publicly say (some have been fired for doing so), but when there’s any written communication to district employees, that becomes public record. Below is the resignation letter Mr. Crawford submitted to the district, in which he singles out the board, superintendent, and American Birthright standards as his reasons for leaving. Click here for the original PDF if the image is too small to read.

Anonymous letter from a WPSD teacher

An anonymous letter from a Woodland Park school district teacher was recently posted to the Concerned Parents of Teller County Facebook group…I’m reposting here:

I could write a novel about the things I didn’t know I was signing up for when I became a teacher. I didn’t have a clue that I’d spend nights awake worrying about my kids, or that I would have days that I would leave work too physically and mentally exhausted to function. I didn’t know how extensive the paperwork, planning time, and meetings would be. We are always working overtime and we often skip lunch/bathroom breaks because there is not enough time. Teachers turn the other cheek constantly and give students, co-workers and parents fresh starts everyday. Most of these things are not typed up in the job description when you apply for a teaching job. A job that starts out at around $40,000-45,000 a year for the record.

This job is hard. It is exhausting under normal circumstances. BUT it becomes impossible, infuriating, and quite frankly, DEGRADING when unqualified officials take over and use their power to destroy a school system.

It’s clear to most rational community members that the board has a political/religious agenda and wants to profit off of Merit. However, what is less apparent is how it is affecting the students lives. Teachers have to follow confidentiality rules. We can’t share heartbreaking stories about the students that will get left behind in public school. Not every student has parents to fight for them and not every family has the ability to choice their kids into other districts. We also can’t share information on the amount of kids that have come back to public schools after attending Merit. Some of which are students whose IEPs haven’t been served correctly. The kids that will be left behind in the public school system after all this will largely be the students that live in poverty, have behavior needs or IEPs.

What drew me to this profession was making a difference in kids lives. You get to show up for kids in really tough situations. I fell in love with reading books to students, sharing laughs about the silly things they say and watching the progress they make- not just as learners, but as humans. In this job, you get to share moments with kids at the most magical time of their lives. At this point in their lives they are still quick to forgive, they are incredibly resilient, they love to have fun, and they build relationships based on nothing other than how you treat them. The kids are what makes it worth it.

As teachers, we learn to be solution oriented. I am struggling to find ways to fix the mess that has been created by Ken Witt, the board, and Charis Bible college. If they respected teachers enough to ask, these would be the solutions I would share.

To the parents of students in the school system and the community members:

Please keep speaking out on social media and at board meetings.

Vote them out in November!!

File complaints to CDE

https://www.cde.state.co.us/spedlaw/statecomplaint

If you have kids with special needs research your rights and speak up. Check out this link if you want more information on how charters affect kids on IEPs. https://exceptionalchildren.org/…/Public%20Funds%20…

You can write to government officials and speak to the press.

To the board members and superintendent:

I challenge you to spend time in the classrooms. Sit with students and talk to them about what they like about their schools.

Shadow a teacher and see what they do in a single day while you spend an absurd amount of money on lunch.

Try going to counseling. Some SEL could teach you a lot.

Please understand your political agenda may help your career but it is RUINING kids lives.

Keep in mind there’s separation of church and state for a reason.

Ask yourself, do you truly think what you are doing is in the best interest of the kids in Woodland park? Because they are pretty important to our future.

To the teachers that are staying:

Keep fighting for kids. I thank you for what you are doing for the people in this community. You have one of the hardest jobs in the world and I am in awe of you.

4/23/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week:

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • No meetings are currently scheduled. However, if the board was going to schedule a work session or special meeting, this is the week it would typically be held, in between two regular meetings, and with 1-2 days advance notice.
  • While final numbers aren’t in, data shows staff turnover is around 40-50% (we’re told 15-20% is more typical). Considering the controversy surrounding this board, it’s unclear if the district will be able to attract qualified candidates to fill those positions, and what impact this may have on next year.
  • The board is expected to review the preliminary ’23-24 budget in its May 10th board meeting.

WPSD policy changes affecting staff

The district has made updates to a couple policies impacting staff. They’ve been publicizing these updates on their website.

First up is policy GBEBA – STAFF DRESS CODE. This policy has been changed to state that, “Hair coloration must be natural hues.” It’s not clear how a teacher’s hair color impacts a student’s learning environment, though it might make students more comfortable with expressing their inner self…a dangerous thing as far as this board is concerned.

The other policy recently updated is GBEB – STAFF CONDUCT (read previous version here). The district has added this new section:

It is a breach of conduct for an employee to use District or school equipment (including without limitation, computers and District email accounts) to communicate or correspond on behalf of any organization other than the District, including to recruit or schedule meetings for another organization. It shall additionally be a breach of conduct for an employee to use District facilities for any non-District related activities or on behalf of any other organizations unless such use is approved in accordance with Policy KF.

link to source

This seems to be an effort to prevent the local teacher’s union (WPEA) from using district equipment to email teachers and organize meetings. It doesn’t appear to prevent teachers from receiving emails from the WPEA at their district accounts.

The district also updated policy GBK-R1 – GRIEVANCE PROCEDURE. The new policy (link) greatly weakens any recourse teachers have via this policy. There is no longer any arbitration period; there is no longer a grievance committee, the board gets to choose whether or not to review a grievance, and there are no group grievances. Compare that new policy with the previous policy here.

4/20/2023 City Council public comments

Last Thursday, ten public school supporters spoke up in the public comment period of the Woodland Park, Colorado city council meeting. They did a fantastic job of explaining many of the community’s concerns about this school board and interim superintendent. Check out the video below:

Gag orders on teachers, cutting mental health support, operating in the dark — what’s happening in Woodland Park? | Colorado Public Radio

By most accounts, the school district in Woodland Park in Teller County was doing well. 

Test scores were up, more students were participating in activities, the school climate was better than ever. There are schools with gardens. Good athletic programs. A fine drama program.

But two years ago, voters swept in a new school board with new and different ideas for the district. They enacted a series of lightning-speed policy changes — big ones that include mental health staffing and social studies curriculum and a gag order on teachers.

Now, many educators are feeling demonized and quitting, and parents are feeling demoralized and leaving. They say the nationwide culture war has come to roost in Woodland Park, just northwest of Colorado Springs, home to about 8,000 people.
— Read on www.cpr.org/2023/04/20/woodland-park-school-board/