Monthly Archives: July 2023

District hires Gessler Blue to appeal CORA lawsuit

As a followup to my earlier post about District Legal Expenses, it has come to light that in March, the district hired law firm Gessler Blue LLC, and as the contract states, this is for the express purpose of appealing the CORA case where the court ordered the district to release surveillance video (which was leaked to NBC here). Principal Partner Scott Gessler bills his time at $425/hr (other lower staff billable rates are mentioned in the contract). Gessler is a former Colorado Secretary of State, was an attorney on Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, and was also the target of an ethics investigation which ended up costing the state over $515,000 in legal fees (Gessler was found guilty).

Thanks to the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA), you can read his contract with our district here.

Information about PSAT scores in the district

We need to set the record straight on PSAT scores.

To start with, congratulations WPHS! Our 9th graders scored great, as a recent CORA request revealed! Their mean score of 937 far surpassed the state’s mean of 890, as did all other benchmarks. Well done, Panthers!

Merit Academy also scored great, slightly exceeding WPHS with a mean of 954 vs. 937! They published their school’s PSAT scores on their website, as shown below:

Now, the numbers are good, and the students and teachers deserve credit for a job well done! But there’s some misinformation here which I’d like to straighten out.

For starters, their comparison to the District scores is completely incorrect – I don’t know what district they’re comparing themselves to, but it’s definitely not Woodland Park RE-2 (as our WP data show above). I suspect this error may lie at the CDE level and that this form was generated there, as its style matches the WPHS one. I hope they correct this error quickly so the public is not misled about their academic performance vs. the high school’s.

The other important piece of information to look at is the participation rate – what percentage of 9th graders actually took the test. Using data from the CDE (here, or original source website here), Merit Academy has 27 9th graders. Merit says that 19 took the test, which means only 70% of their students took the PSAT. The district high school has 142 9th graders per the CDE (not 257 as Merit’s data shows), of which 124 took the test, for a participation rate of 87%. Almost one third of Merit students didn’t take this test…it’s hard to say how indicative these test results really are of the student population as a whole. Overall, a good, solid effort, but difficult to draw conclusions from if you ask me.

UPDATE – Merit has corrected their website to show that District scores are pending, and they also claim a 100% participation rate, saying that the ones who didn’t test were home school programs. I’m working to get details to confirm homeschool enrichment numbers.

Transportation Costs for ’23-24 school year

Using data from the district’s FY24 adopted budget from June, I put together a simple graphic showing how the board has decided to split transportation costs between Merit Academy and the five traditional public schools. They are not splitting it based upon enrollment as one might expect.

I had previously written about this topic here and here. I think everyone in the district loves and supports the idea of including Merit Academy students in the school bus program. No one debates that. The only debate is whether those Merit Academy students should be paying the same out of their budget that the other kids do. The board feels they should not, as this graphic shows.

7/16/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week:

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • Next Saturday, July 22nd, the three candidates challenging the board incumbents this fall are hosting a ‘meet and greet’ and fundraiser in Memorial Park from 12:30-3:30; they’ll be serving up free hot dogs and answering questions. If all three of these individuals get elected, that will leave only two of the current board, Rusterholtz and Patterson, in place and the balance of power will shift.

Woodland park woman acquitted of all charges tied to calling police on school board member’s wife

During the school board recall effort last August, one of the recall organizers, Samantha Peck, was gathering petition signatures in the Safeway parking lot when she called 911 over concerns about a possible drunk person about to leave the store. That person was board member David Illingworth’s wife, and when police arrived, they did not detect any signs of alcohol or other concerns with that woman. After investigating further, Peck was arrested and charged with two counts of attempting to influence a public servant and filing a false police report with the Woodland Park Police Department.

Peck finally had her day in court last week, where a jury quickly found her not guilty on all three counts. The story linked to above contains video of board member David Illingworth being interviewed by police and contains further analysis of that, it’s worth reading and watching the video for yourself.

Peck later posted this to the Concerned Parents of Teller County Facebook group:

We live in a country with problems, just like the rest of the world. Our systems need work. However, our process still has the ability to provide justice if you are strong and patient enough. 12 everyday citizens heard all facts of this case and decided in mere minutes not only am I innocent on all charges, but they took the time to talk with both parties to tell them this was the grossest abuse of power they have ever seen. That says it all. I could write pages sharing with you each and every detail of this case. But, I would rather focus my efforts on using this to help our community move forward. This case has proven that David Illingworth is willing to use his position for personal and political gain, even if it is unethical. I hope that isn’t what this community wants as a quality in our representatives. Please, vote this November. Spend time learning about the candidates. Make a difference for students whether you are a parent of a school age child or not. Leave politics out and vote based off of character. I’m proud because our country has prioritized the ideology that ALL children have a right to access education. Let’s protect a foundation of true values. Please vote.

In honor of my tribe I will include a few highlights that will live with me forever:

-Mr. Lane proving Officer Humphrey lied and forcing him to admit it

-The prosecution’s own witness testifying Humphrey lied about what she said

-The strength of Rachel and Jill to tolerate the prosecution trying to attack them. Yet these brave women never faltered and got to share the truth

-After the prosecution tried to attack me for my facebook post returning to Mr. Lane (arguably the great human I have ever met) and having him say to me your post was good, you ARE like those people you wrote about

-Mr. Lane casually reminding the jury Katie Illingworth wasn’t honest

-The jury’s faces when Humphrey had to admit he taped the conversation when David Illingworth tells him how to falsly charging me, but didn’t record my conversation with him showing just how innocent I am

-The jury almost falling out of their seats when Mr. Lane asked Humphrey what did the witnesses say when you interviewed them, and Humphrey had to say he never did and never has interviewed the witnesses

-The prosecution cross examining a war hero and offering to call him COL and his response: just call me Lee❤️

And now that I type those moments I realize just how bad corruption is in Woodland Park…help end it. Get involved, write letters, ask questions, but above all, VOTE.

It’s nice to finally have this all behind us. The past year has seen several references to this incident, with people jumping to conclusions rather than waiting for the facts to come out in court. For example, Andrew Wommack, in May, described this incident as ‘swatting’ (he got the facts wrong but this is the incident he was talking about at time stamp 2:00 of this video). In June’s board meeting, one of the public comment speakers likewise talked about this ‘swatting’ incident. The verdict is clear and Peck’s innocence has been established; I hope those individuals apologize to her.

Woodland park woman acquitted of all charges tied to calling police on school board member’s wife | KRDO

A Woodland Park woman, who was a leading member of the effort to recall members of the Woodland Park Park School District Re-2 board, has been acquitted of all charges by a Teller County jury. Samantha Peck, 42, was previously charged with two counts of attempting to influence a public servant and filing a false police report with the Woodland Park Police Department.
— Read on krdo.com/news/2023/07/14/woodland-park-woman-acquitted-of-all-charges-tied-to-calling-police-on-school-board-members-wife/

District Legal expenses

The current board has greatly expanded the use of outside legal counsel, compared to previous boards. Here’s the data:

  • In the ’19-20 fiscal year, the district spent $15,608.48 on legal expenses (link).
  • In the ’20-21 fiscal year, the district spent $63,532.14 on legal expenses (link). This was the year the district reviewed the charter school application from Merit Academy.
  • In the ’21-22 fiscal year, 7 months of which were under this current board, the district replaced legal counsel with Brad Miller’s office and spent $145,872.56 on legal expenses (link1, link2).
  • In the ’22-23 fiscal year, the district spent $171,250.21 on legal expenses (link1, link2).

What is the board spending our money on? It’s hard to say, they’re pretty secretive as the attorney invoices get heavily redacted. Here’s one from April of last year. What sort of information is being hidden from us? A bit of insight can be gained by looking at the invoice from May of last year, which is the only one received in unreacted form. That will show you the sort of information the district is choosing to keep secret. Judge for yourself if it’s appropriate. One thing you’ll note is soon after Miller came on, the board started using lawyers to redact CORA requests, something done by district employees previously. That’s just a small portion of overall legal fees, but does raise the question of why the board felt necessary to include lawyers in all of those documentation reviews.

DAVIS: American Birthright: A Woodland Park Investigation

For the past month, I have been investigating a concerted effort by national groups to use the Woodland Park School District as the testing ground for a radical new right-wing approach to public schools, where the goal is no longer to strangle the system and cut taxes, but to seize the system and train up conservative voters. While much has been reported about what is happening in WPSD, little has been documented about why it is happening in Woodland Park specifically, or who is ultimately behind it. 

The Woodland Park school board’s first-in-the-nation decision to adopt the American Birthright standards brings us closer to answers for those questions.
— Read on coloradotimesrecorder.com/2023/07/davis-american-birthright-a-woodland-park-investigation/54661/

If you care about public education, go to the polls – The Durango Herald

In the last such elections, in numerous Colorado school districts – e.g., Douglas County, Woodland Park, Colorado Springs, Montezuma-Cortez, Grand Junction and Garfield RE-2 – a group of far-right conservative candidates took over the majorities of those Boards of Education. These individuals sought those positions not because they are committed, genuinely, to improving the quality of public education. Instead, they are part of a political movement, launched in the wake of Glenn Youngkin’s defeat of Terry McAuliffe to become governor of Virginia that demonizes the supposed “indoctrination” of public school students by exposing them to “woke” concepts like equity and inclusion.
— Read on www.durangoherald.com/articles/if-you-care-about-public-education-go-to-the-polls/

7/9/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week:

  • The three candidates challenging the board incumbents in this November’s election have scheduled a meet-and-greet in Memorial Park for July 22nd...more info here. It should be a good opportunity to talk to them one on one.
  • Woodland Park’s old fashioned Fourth of July celebration in Memorial Park saw the board incumbents drift further into making school boards partisan, with their appearance at the Teller County Republican’s booth. Keegan, Knott, and Bryant were seen walking around the part talking to people, sticking to a more traditional non-partisan school board philosophy.
  • In their July 6th meeting, the Woodland Park city council recognized Gateway’s accomplishment of earning the Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award. A few public speakers spoke up about that as well as the High Schools’ recent SAT score success, and pointed out how this board’s actions have led to the resignation of large numbers of the teachers partly responsible for these accomplishments.

This coming week should be a quiet one, with no scheduled board meetings for July and the district on a four-day work week for the summer.