Monthly Archives: May 2023

5/28/2023 Weekly Update

Last week:

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • School wraps up! The board will be focusing next month on finalizing a budget for next year. Within that budget, we expect to hear a proposal to outsource building security, most likely to Teller County Sheriff Mikesell’s private security company. Also, mentioned in the DAC meeting was that the board is looking to use $1 million from the reserves account to pay for building security upgrades (one-time expenses, not recurring like salary).
  • After the next board meeting on June 14th, we should have a better estimate of exactly how many staff are leaving.

RN and special education staffing levels

I’ve learned that both of the nurses in our district are leaving at the end of the year, yet there is only one job opening posted. Perhaps the district will post a second opening eventually, but this is concerning, as five schools would be a lot for only one RN to handle. Note that each school DOES have its own full time health aide and it’s expected those will be kept. But having only one RN would be too much, especially when it comes to immunization compliance and health screenings. Again, they may yet post a second position…but this is something parents should watch.

The other bit of news concerns our special education program. Insiders say that those staff levels are being severely decimated by staff leaving the district after this year, with some special education programs losing all staff, reportedly because of this board and superintendent. The question is, will the district be able to attract new employees to fill those positions? We can and must do better than this, especially for these most vulnerable children.

Fact check – Letters to the Editor

Board Director David Illingworth II, up for reelection this fall, submitted this letter to the editor in the Courier…let’s do some fact checking:

Many have complained about not enough space at the May 10 Board of Education meeting (in fact my own wife was unable to get in). These complaints are either misinformed or misleading.

First, the overwhelming majority of our meetings are held in that meeting space, and it is exceptionally rare that there is not enough room for everyone. We can’t know when that will happen, but we do know that there was very heavy attendance at this meeting due to the presence of NBC News and the coordination and organizing by well-known local activists whose goal was to swamp the meeting and get on TV. They were there for the cameras and the attention, not the schools or the students.

Second, we cannot change the fire code or the weather. Everyone who could not get into the meeting room was offered the chance to watch the meeting from the WPHS auditorium, rather than stand in the rain. They all declined and decided, of their own free will, to stay outside and shout where the TV cameras just happened to be.

Finally, everyone was able to sign up for public comment, and many of those who addressed the BOE that night were escorted in from outside, so they had the same opportunities as those who had arrived earlier.

Let’s be clear: anyone who stood in the rain did so of their own choice after refusing staff offers to come inside WPHS where it was warm and dry. No one was denied the opportunity for shelter or to publicly address the BOE.

Dave Illingworth, Woodland Park Board of Education

source

I don’t think we can quantify whether it’s ‘exceptionally rare that there is not enough room for everyone’, but the board commonly opened up an overflow area outside of the main conference room for those occurrences. At other times, they held the board meetings in either the high school auditorium, or the middle school commons area, to accommodate larger crowds.

Both the pro-board side, and the anti-board side, encouraged heavy attendance by their respective followers. The board had no reason to expect that a 90 person room would provide sufficient space for everyone, not when all indications were that turnout at this meeting would be extraordinary.

No one was offered a chance to watch the meeting from the auditorium. Towards the end of the public comment portion, I was offered a chance to take shelter in the commons area (not the auditorium), with no promise of any livestream in there.

The NBC TV camera was inside the conference room, not outside as he claims. A local TV reporter had her camera outside.

He claims ‘no one was denied the opportunity for shelter or to publicly address the BOE.’ That second part is false. The BOE cut public comment off at 30 minutes as has been their custom for a while now. Not everyone who signed up to publicly address the BOE was given that opportunity. Further, they were asked to wait outside in the rain to see if their name would be called (the commons area wasn’t opened up as shelter until public comment was almost over).

What about the claims that fire code meant they couldn’t open up the overflow area? We have not found any evidence to support that claim. Yes, the main conference room has a 90 person capacity limit sign posted, and that seems reasonable for that size of a space. However, our inspection of the overflow area revealed no posted capacity signs. A CORA request (#446) requested the fire department documents listing the maximum occupancy for those rooms:

I am requesting the official Fire Department documents listing the maximum occupancy for the WPSD District Office, the Distric Office Large Conference room and the two district office rooms that have traditionally been used to accommodate overflow for the WPSD BOE meetings.

This was met with the district’s response of, “There are no responsive documents to this request.”

Not only did the BOE recruit Charis students to pack the conference room, but they encouraged those students to show up early – an hour ahead of time, the line was already long enough that those showing up after did not get in to the building. As evidenced by audience reactions during the meeting, the room was clearly packed with BOE supporters. The BOE knew there would be a large crowd, did not choose to move the meeting to a larger space, and took steps to actually reduce the number of people that would be allowed to attend the meeting (when compared to previous meetings).

Teacher residency program in WPSD

Our district intends to establish a teacher residency program in partnership with Public Education and Business Coalition (PEBC), as outline in this MOU. This would bring in student teachers to the district, working along side mentor teachers for their first year, before transitioning to classroom teachers for a subsequent two year commitment to the district. PEBC provides some training to the student teachers for two days a week. It’s not clear whether mentor teachers receive any additional compensation for this work. Student teachers will be with their mentors four days a week; Thursdays will be in-person training with PEBC.

Cost is $2,500 per student teacher, with an additional $6,000 once that student teacher completes their third year (one year training plus two years classroom). Sounds like an interesting program. I’m not thrilled with the classrooms being live-streamed to the PEBC and their subcontractors, though COVID kinda shattered that privacy expectation already.

A quote from the MOU:

In order to increase retention of excellent teachers in schools and elevate the teaching profession, PEBC has created a teacher residency program, in which each participant (a “Resident”) receives training and education while he or she completes a residency year and two subsequent years of teaching within the Resident’s hiring school district

November election can return normalcy to the district

Woodland Park, Colorado, is a great example of what CAN happen with an extremist conservative board takes over and starts making changes.  This board is driving teachers and students out of the district, but voters have a very real chance of shifting the balance this November when three of the five board director positions are up for election.  There’s so much going on, that to get up to speed, check out the article and TV story NBC News did on us, and also the most recent one from Colorado Public Radio.

A wonderful slate of three candidates has announced their intent to run for school board this fall and I support them completely.  At this point in the race, the candidates are focused on fundraising and working on messaging.  If you’d like to help us take back control of this school board this fall, please consider donating to support their campaigns and send a message that we value traditional public education in this country. Any amount, no matter how small will help! Better yet, consider a small recurring monthly donation to help them between now and November. We need to get all three of these people elected!

Read more about the candidates in this article.

You can donate using these links:

Mike Knott: https://electmikeknottwpsd.com

Seth Bryant: https://sites.google.com/sb4wpsd.com/sethbryantforwpsd

Keegan Barkley: https://keeganbarkley4wpsd.com

Thank you for your support!

Podcast: Will This be on the Test? Teacher Pod. Part 2

This is Part 2 of our two part story about Woodland Park, Colorado, a bucolic little town in the shadow of Pikes Peak. A place where the schools have been overtaken by a group of people who know little to nothing about education. They also give zero f*cks about the faculty and staff of the school district.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Part 1 and 2 both feature Logan Ruths (former employee) and Matt Gawlowski (parent of a student in the district).

If you missed part 1, you can catch it here on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Three candidates step forward for the school board elections this fall

Three candidates have announced their intent to run against Illingworth, Kimbrell, and Bates in the school board election this fall. I’ve talked to these people and support them 100%, I’m convinced they can bring civility and unity back to the WPSD school board! Read about them here:

https://gazette.com/pikespeakcourier/three-announce-candidacy-for-school-board/article_952a2e50-f69f-11ed-813c-739bcc65ba3c.html

5/21/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week:

  • After that May 10th board meeting, we were all anxiously awaiting NBC’s primetime segment on us, and they finally aired it on Thursday.
  • Ken Witt was interviewed on local radio station KOA. Quote of the day: he “knows” the CEA and WPEA “hate America.”
  • Ken Witt loaned a US flag to the district to be put on display, and used almost $600 of district money to have it framed. Turns out it’s not a valid US flag, it’s the ’42 star’ version that was never made official.
  • We found some more recent resignation letters in a CORA request. These help shed some insight into what’s going on with staff.
  • We received a copy of an email that a job applicant sent to the district, after withdrawing from the application process. This board and superintendent’s actions are impacting our district’s ability to attract candidates.
  • The district has a new email filter…your freedom of speech to the board no longer extends to words such as ‘crap’. Emails contain that and, presumably, other words will be automatically rejected.
  • We published a few small things learned in recent CORA requests. Including the fact that Witt’s contract with ERBOCES has been modified to reduce his salary, presumably since he’s not working there full-time anymore (his WPSD contract has not been similarly modified).
  • CNN had a crew out in Colorado Springs, checking in on what Moms For Liberty is up to down there.
  • The District Accountability Committee (DAC) held their regular monthly meeting. In it, Illingworth mentioned they’re looking at spending $1 million from district reserves on security upgrades (this would be for one-time costs, not recurring things like personnel). They’re also working on a plan for security personnel but not providing details yet. The discussion on budget was brief and unfortunately, no new detail that wasn’t shown in the 5/10 board meeting. Lastly, there was a productive conversation about how to improve school crosswalk safety, specifically the one in front of the Middle School that everyone agrees is dangerous.

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • Class of 2023 graduates Saturday! Congratulations!
    • We’re told Ken Witt will be speaking at the graduation ceremony.
    • Please don’t disrupt the ceremony during Witt’s speech; this is the seniors’ special day and we should not do anything to spoil that. However, it might be a good opportunity to actually speak to Witt one on one, either before or after graduation.
    • As is customary, members of the board may be present; this event is being classified as a ‘work session’ so that they all may attend without being in violation of Open Meetings Law.

Various tidbits from a recent CORA request

…modeling professionalism is important, and blue or green hair is not a good model for success in today’s workplace, if we wish leadership opportunity for our students.

Ken Witt, in reference to a new staff policy requiring only natural hair hues.

So does this mean purple hair is OK?

Here’s some insight into the hiring process:

I appreciate the chance to review our top two candidates for the open HS math position. Both seem reasonable candidates. However, Mr Hornbeck-Kaiser, having an exemplary education background as a long-time Colorado rural teacher, likely has a lot more commitment to this area than a Texas transplant. Let’s go with Mr Hornbeck-Kaiser, unless a superior Colorado HS Math teacher has presented him/herself.

Ken Witt, intervening into the hiring process in the High School

In March, Ken Witt signed an updated contract for his other job, Executive Director at ERBOCES, reducing his salary from $155,000 to $112,750 – presumably because he’s not working there full-time. There has been no modification to his contract with WPSD, apart from the one year extension.

We were tipped off to one interesting fact about the flag that Witt used $600 of district money to frame (Witt owns this flag personally and it’s just on loan to the district). It’s a design that was never made an official US flag, having only 42 stars. With the star count being made ‘official’ on July 4th each year, this flag was never an official US flag as our 43rd state, Idaho, received statehood on July 3rd, 1890. Given that Witt is more of an engineer than an educator, his fascination with this 42 star flag may have more to do with the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference, or just a love of the asterisk, than any concern about historical merit.