Detailed information on the effect of refusing grant money this year

The school board and interim superintendent Ken Witt chose not to apply for most grants for the upcoming school year. We’ve struggled a bit to really and truly quantify what this means for the district…how to translate grants into job positions and benefits for the students. Thanks to the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA), we’ve learned quite a bit. There are some outstanding CORA requests for more information, but for now, here’s what we’ve learned.

  • the grants received by the district for the ‘21-22 school year;
  • here’s the ‘22-23 school year info. Note the ‘ESSER’ grants are what’s often referred to as Covid money…temporary federal grants that are going away this fall.
  • Here’s a conversation via email about what grant topics are to be pursued for next year.

The real treasure trove of useful facts though, comes from an email exchange between Ken Witt and Laura Magnuson, the district mental health supervisor and a co-author of the mental health presentation given to the board on 12/21. Laura outlines how grants are being used, and later in the email summarizes a discussion she had with Witt on this topic of grants. Read this email for yourself, there is a LOT of information in there, only some of which I’ll be summarizing below.

  • The Substance Abuse Block Grant funded two social work positions and had additional funding for prevention. This grant was up for renewal; it would have been easy to renew this and maintain that funding.
  • The grant money she expected to be lost was about $1.2 million annually, funding fifteen jobs.
  • The School Health Professional Grant currently funds five school social workers (‘with significant additional program funding’).
  • Witt’s approach to mitigation acts of violence is to rely upon campus security, rather than fixing this problem at its source (mental health).
  • When asked how the schools would continue their work to prevent youth suicide, Witt replied that WPSD will prioritize academic success.

Sadly, Laura closed her email by stating her intent to not return to WPSD next year. Her email makes clear her dedication and caring for the students, and the community should be greatly concerned at not only her loss, but the reshaping of our district which has pushed her and others like her out.

Please read her email in its entirety for yourself. It’s our best insight to date on the use of grant money for social programs in the school district, and what we’ll be losing out on next year due to this board and interim superintendent.