Monthly Archives: June 2023

6/18/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • The next regular board meeting will be in August. The board met in executive session on 6/14 to discuss security arrangements though, so it wouldn’t be surprising for them to schedule a meeting before the end of the fiscal year to implement a new program, if they reach consensus on one and if it will affect the budget. So we’ll be watching for a last minute meeting scheduled in June.
  • School may be out, but this is a time to dig deeper to check into some things the district is doing. So stay tuned for more.
  • Three people have announced their intention to run for school board against the three incumbents up for reelection. I haven’t heard much since that original article in the Courier, but expect that as the summer goes by, their campaign efforts will ramp up. I’ve looked into these candidates and think they’ll be great board members!

Moms For Liberty in Woodland Park?

In the last board meeting, one of the public comments, by a gentleman named Drew, mentioned the threat that some extremist groups can present to school boards. Moms For Liberty is one such national group that was recently labeled as ‘extremist’ by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The question whether Moms For Liberty has any influence in Woodland Park could perhaps be put to rest by this tweet from Woodland Park school board director Cassie Kimbrell:

Darcy Schoening is the chair of Moms for Liberty down in Colorado Springs:

Gateway Elementary wins Colorado Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award

I stumbled upon a bit of a surprise today…the CDE’s website shows Gateway Elementary received the Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award for 2022! Congratulations, Gateway! Great job! The press release from the CDE came out on May 18, 2023, and can be read here. As I understand it, this award is given out in the spring for test scores from the previous year (hence it’s listed as 2022).

What’s puzzling is why I find zero mention of this on the district’s website. Here’s their press release section as of today:

Best guess, is that with the press release in May, the district probably found out much sooner than that…I’ll submit a CORA request to try to learn more and will update this post with what I find. We know they’ve been trying to downplay Gateway and even tried handing it off to be operated by a charter school business earlier in 2023. It’d be hard to convince the community to hand off Gateway like that if it was known to be recognized by the Governor for its accomplishments.

Open Meetings Law case in Denver mirrors WPSD

There’s an ongoing court case in Douglas County, alleging the board violating open meetings laws by discussing the firing of their superintendent in private one on one discussions. This had previous been a gray area of Open Meetings Law…seeming to violate the spirit of the law while not actually being prevented by the law. This latest case though might be setting legal precedent in this area, as a Judge is ruling one on one discussions is a violating, saying “Circumventing the statute by a series of private one-on-one meetings at which public business is discussed and/or decisions reached is a violation of the purpose of the statute, not just its spirit.”

Interim Superintendent Ken Witt even admitted that he has one on one and one on two meetings with board members, though there’s never been any doubt prior that this is what the board was doing. Maybe the best documented case was their total lack of deliberation when deciding upon a new board member to replace a vacant seat.

With the law still not black and white in this matter, it doesn’t mean we can expect any change in WPSD’s board behavior. But hopefully it’ll lead to clarification of the law and improved government transparency statewide.

Politics and education clash as Texas district sees teachers leave

As school districts grapple with teacher shortages, NBC News’ Antonia Hylton takes us to a Texas town where frustrations over banned books, restrictions on race and identity lessons have contributed to a 40 percent increase in staff resignations and retirements.
— Read on www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/politics-and-education-clash-as-texas-district-sees-teachers-leave-182508101519

The turmoil in WPSD is happening elsewhere, too. Watch this story about events in a Texas school district.

6/11/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week:

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • The next school board meeting is Wednesday, 6/14, 6:00, in the district office conference room. We’ve asked the board and superintendent if they will move the meeting to the auditorium or elsewhere with greater capacity, but have not received any replies. Note that since the budget will be discussed in this meeting, Colorado Law states that any taxpayer in the district is entitled to attend this meeting. It’s not clear if watching via a one-way video conference (livestream) would count as ‘attending’. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ‘attend’ as ‘to be present at’ or ‘to go to’. The law suggest they would not be allowed to refuse entry to taxpayers like they did in the 5/10 meeting.

WPHS class of 2024 sets all-time high SAT score for district

The SAT scores are in, and the WPHS class of 2024 has set a new district record! They achieved a mean score of 1022, which is 33 points higher than the state average and 67 points higher than the national average. This is the fifth year in a row of improved test scores and a testament to the improvements put in place by previous board and administrative teams. With the administrative team mostly changed for next year (district-level admin staff is mostly new, MS and one elementary principals are new), and the mass exodus of high teachers leaving the district this year (plus the adoption of the ‘low level learning’ in the American Birthright standard for social studies), it’s unclear how this upward trend in test scores will be affected.

You can read the email that Principal Burr sent to staff below:

I am pleased to report to you that WPHS SAT scores have been shared with the school, and the class of 2024 continued the school’s remarkable trend of substantial increases in Cohort Scores (year over year).  As well, the WPHS Class of 2024 set an all time high SAT mean score of 1022. 

The 1022 score is 33 points higher than the state average and 67 points higher than the national average. For the fifth year in a row, each class cohort continued to improve (year over year) in comparative data.  Cohort growth is a hallmark of school improvement.  And each cohort continues to exceed previous cohort accomplishments as WPHS sets new achievement benchmarks each year.

Most remarkable of all, the  Class of ’24 SAT Math mean score is just 4 points shy of meeting the Colorado Benchmark for Career and College Readiness.  Comparatively, the State Mean is 16 points lower than the CACR Math benchmark and the WPHS Class of 2019 was 24 points lower than the CACR Math benchmark. 

The Class of ’24 has an Evidence Based Reading and Writing mean score of 525 (which is 55 points higher than the Colorado Benchmark for CACR).

Five years ago, we embarked on a journey to embed the philosophy of Standards Based Learning and Grading.  With the help of Marzano Resources,  the school improvement skill-set within the HS Admin Team and Tina Cassens, the school staff made a commitment to improve post-secondary opportunities for our students.   Substantially enhanced curriculum standards, the use of the Summit Platform (and now, Illustrative Math), and increased Rigor / Academic Expectations all have paid remarkable dividends for WP students.  

Where once, just 22% of our students were meeting Career and College Readiness expectations (2017), the class of 2024 now has 68% of its students meeting EBRW and 44% meeting Math CACR benchmarks (comparatively – state percentages = 59% meeting EBRW CACR and 35% meeting Math — national percentages = 51% meeting EBRW and 29% meeting Math).    Looking ahead, the class of 2026 is currently on pace for 77% to meet the EBRW benchmark and 54% to meet the Math benchmark. 

We are eager to share this outstanding news with our WP Community.  Teachers and administrators across the district have worked hard and contributed much to this incredible outcome.  Celebrating our success is a fundamental tenet of the High Reliability School framework.  We look forward to seeing the reaction of our stakeholders.

Kevin Burr,  Principal

Woodland Park High School

Moms For Liberty Claiming Credit For School Districts Opting-Out of State-Funded Student Mental Health Services

According to a May 15 Facebook post from Darcy Schoening in the “Moms For Liberty — El Paso County” Facebook group, the author is “The infamous attorney Brad Miller, who’s been working hard around the state to urge conservative boards to adopt common sense policies such as the Parental Bill of Rights, a HB23-1003 opt out, and a resolution to oppose the anti-capitalist teachers unions.”
— Read on coloradotimesrecorder.com/2023/06/moms-for-liberty-claiming-credit-for-school-districts-opting-out-of-state-funded-student-mental-health-services/54024/

Brad Miller has been running the show in Woodland Park since day one…

DAVIS: The Small Colorado Town at the Center of Far-Right Plans for American Schools

One thing is already clear: what is happening in Woodland Park is not an organic political movement. At every turn, it has ties to deep pockets and long-term ideological projects. It may have been the voters of Teller County who elected the ideological school board at the heart of the matter, but it’s not the voters of Teller County formulating and executing a legal strategy to consume the public school system from within and transform it into something unrecognizable. Someone else is doing that.

But who? And why Woodland Park? 
— Read on coloradotimesrecorder.com/2023/06/davis-the-small-colorado-town-at-the-center-of-far-right-plans-for-american-schools/53934/