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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.

5/19/23 – Ken Witt interviewed on KOA

Ken Witt was interviewed on radio today; you can listen to it here:

Witt states that he “knows” the CEA and WPEA “hate America.” That’s just an awful thing to say about your fellow citizens, period. WTF. A new low for Witt?

A WPSD job applicant explains their decision to cancel their interview

We recently received this email, sent to the district from a job applicant who decided to cancel their interview at the last minute. The email explains their reasoning, and highlights a concern that parents in this district have – with 40-50% of staff not returning next year, how will the district attract qualified candidates to fill those vacancies?

The applicant’s name has been redacted for privacy; authenticity of this has been verified with school insiders.

The reply from director David Illingworth is below:

5/14/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week:

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • We expect NBC Nightly News to air their story about the Woodland Park RE-2 school district Monday evening.
  • The District Accountability Committee (DAC) meets Wednesday, 6:00PM, in the district conference room. We expect they will review the preliminary budget, though the details Amy Ryan (CFO) provided in the May 10th board meeting were incredibly sparse.
  • The next scheduled board meeting is June 14.

The cost of PACE membership

As previously reported here, next year the district will auto-enroll staff into  the Professional Association of Colorado Educators (PACE). PACE is a state chapter of the Association of American Educators (AAE); referred to by some as the ‘anti-union union’.

New details obtained via the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) shed some more light on this topic. This will be costing our district approximately $40,000. The discussions with PACE took place before contracts were sent out to staff, but the announcement was made after those contacts were sent. It’s possible (likely?) that contracts may have been signed and returned before the announcement was made.

Yet another large expenditure of taxpayer money made behind closed doors and without stakeholder input.

WPSD Enrollment Numbers – a closer look

It’s worth doing a deeper dive into enrollment numbers, as it’s something this board likes to frequently tout. We’ll set aside for now whether the quality of a school district should be judged by enrollment…and just evaluate this statistic.

The Claim

  • BOE has increased enrollment by ~15% for the ’22-23 school year

The Vedict: misleading

  • District enrollment did indeed increase 15.8% in ’22-23 compared to ’21-22.
  • Digging Deeper:
    • In the ’21-22 school year, Merit kids were not counted as being in Woodland Park RE-2, they were legally part of ERBOCES (their status was Contract School).
    • Merit kids were going to school in town in ’21-22, but not counting towards district numbers. Hence, the big jump when they were then reclassified as WPSD as a charter school.
    • When Merit opened for the ’21-22 school year, WPSD enrollment decreased by 11% as those kids shifted from WPSD to ERBOCES.
    • If we count Merit students as always being part of WPSD, the numbers are:
      • ’21-22 school year: 3.1% increase in enrollment (the first year Merit opened)
      • ’22-23 school year: 0.14% increase in enrollment
  • Given the chaotic COVID time and nationwide shift in population to more rural areas during that time, it’s impossible to say if that 3.1% increase was due to Merit or just nationwide trends.
  • The claim that district enrollment increased 15% this past school year is misleading, it uses a shell game to inflate numbers.
  • DATA: enrollment numbers, from the CDE (direct link to XLS)
    • 2018-2019: 2380
    • 2019-2020: 2284
    • 2020-2021: 2055
    • 2021-2022: 1832 (Merit’s first year)
    • 2021-2022: 2119 – if you include the 287 Merit students
    • 2022-2023: 2122
  • Student enrollment has been on the decline in Woodland Park prior to COVID, though demographics have also been changing.
    • Our population is aging, and the Charis bible school population is displacing young families due to rapidly increasing housing costs.
      • Student enrollment has also been on the decline statewide (story 1, story 2, story 3).
      • It’s difficult to use student enrollment as a measure of a school’s quality.