Last week:

• Congratulations, class of 2023!
• The big news of the week was the announcement by Mike Knott, Keegan Barkley, and Seth Bryant that they would all be running for school board this November. There are three seats up for grabs; it has not been announced which one of these is going against which incumbent (Illingworth, Kimbrell, Bates). These three have each set up their own fundraising campaign; you can learn more about those at this link. All three would need to get elected to shift the balance of power on the board.
• The second part in the ‘Will this be on the test? Teacher Pod’ podcast is now streaming online, focusing on events in our district.
• We learned about plans underway to establish a teacher residency program in WPSD (we don’t know if the MOU or any contract has been signed by the district at this point).
• The May 10 board meeting continues to be talked about, with director Illingworth’s letter to the editor in the Courier receiving a bit of fact checking here.
• It’s not just teachers leaving…nursing and special education staff are also leaving the district.

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.