Monthly Archives: September 2023

Letter to the Editor: Wommack Ministries Responds To ‘Onward Christian Soldiers – A Woodland Park Investigation’

This letter is in response to the opinion article, “DAVIS: Onward Christian Soldiers – A Woodland Park Investigation,” dated August 24, 2023. As a senior executive at Andrew Wommack Ministries and Charis Bible College, I am in a unique position to respond to the allegations made throughout the article. 

— Read on coloradotimesrecorder.com/2023/09/letter-to-the-editor-wommack-ministries-responds-to-onward-christian-soldiers-a-woodland-park-investigation/55850/

9/6/2023 Letters to the Editor

From the 9/6/2023 Courier:

Grassroots support for school board candidates

Which candidates are the choice of the parents and taxpayers in Teller County for the RE-2 school board? Interesting question. Looking at each of the candidates’ publicly available contributions, Barkley, Bryant and Knott each have over a hundred local donors while the incumbents have just a handful. Events put on by Barkley, Bryant and Knott are wildly successful with turnout from community members from across all walks of life…a nice representation of our community. Collectively, the new candidates have raised over $30K, mostly from local parents and taxpayers. What an impressive grassroots effort for three parents wanting to remove partisan politics from the school board.

Looking at all the candidates’ data, the incumbents appear to be beholden to a small group of big money donors while Barkley, Bryant and Knott appear to be beholden to the families and taxpayers of the Woodland Park School District as a whole. What’s also interesting is the number of teachers that feel safe to have their contributions publicly reported for the incumbents. Begs the question, would there be more teacher donations to Barkley, Bryant and Knott if there was no gag order or concern about retribution if the incumbents win in November? Who do you think represents our community more? The choice seems clear to me.

Elizabeth Douglass, Florissant

FACT CHECK – did the teachers union supply vans to the challengers?

Marvin Logan wrote this in the 9/6/2023 Courier Letters to the Editor:

Big omission

I want to believe Seth Bryant but his words do not ring true. Calling the Teachers Union support he, Barkley and Knott received in his column a “website login” while leaving out the Teachers Union also supplied him and the other candidates “platform vans to perform canvassing and communications scoping” is a big omission. Who helped him knock on doors in those Teacher Union supplied vans?

The Teacher Unions in this country kept our children out of school during Covid 19, and wasted years of their education on indoctrination efforts.

They’re one organization I would not want support from if I were running for school board as a conservative, but he and the other 2 have accepted their help anyhow.

Marvin Logan, Woodland Park

This highlights just how crazy social media is these days, especially the online platform Nextdoor, where Marvin and other have been quite vocal in their anti-union rhetoric.

But to the point – this is FALSE. ‘VAN’ is the computer system the candidates were given access to, a voter database that helps them more efficiently target their outreach efforts like door to door canvassing. NOT this:

Braver Angels group tackles community divisiveness

The Braver Angels, a national organization attempting to decrease divisiveness in communities, met last week at the library. Turnout was fantastic, with around 70 people attending a standing-room-only meeting intended to kick off a longer series of community meetings to bring people together in discussion instead of division. You can read more about it in the Courier. Next meeting will be a workshop on September 23rd.

9/3/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week:

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • This Friday, Bryant, Knott, and Barkley are hosting a fundraising dinner at the Cultural Center to support their school board election campaigns.
  • It’s a short week for students, who get Monday and Tuesday off!
  • Next school board meeting is Wednesday, 9/13.
  • I’m still trying to get school enrollment numbers from the district via CORA. Merit Academy was very helpful with this request; Ken Witt’s organization has not been as forthcoming.

Library updates for sixth graders

With the sixth graders being moved from the Middle School building to the three elementary schools, some of us were wondering, what will be done to give them access to library books in these new locations? We’ve learned a bit here so thought it’s worth sharing.

Columbine – 6th grade students were given the opportunity to create a 6th grade library wishlist last year. [Columbine staff] used their list as well as several 6th grade book lists, including one from the National Library Association to create a higher level library. 80% of the books in the 6th classroom are new this year and only available to 6th graders.

Gateway – parents were given the chance to sign a permission slip to allow their sixth graders to walk (as a group) to the public library every other Friday to check out books there.

Summit – we have not heard of the plan there.

It’s great that something is being done though allowing the kids to peruse the shelves of the public library, while simultaneously creating a ‘controversial topics’ section in the high school library requiring specific parental approval to check out, is odd.