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2/12/23 Weekly update

As expected, this was a busy week

  • The Courier published a great letter from local resident Carol Greenstreet, read it here.
  • We received CORA results for emails related to Ken Witt’s decision to remove “Between the World and Me” from the curriculum in a high school elective class, read more here.
  • 107 people turned out for a school board meeting on Wednesday
    • We saw many new people speaking out in the public comments section
    • Witt did a first reading of proposed changes to GP-5, to change it to focusing only on the educational interests of students (examples of non-educational interests that would no longer be a priority would be things like bullying, LGBTQ+, pronouns, etc).
    • The board voted to modify the district calendar for next school year (when ready, it will be posted here).
  • The district announced it would halt withholding/processing of union dues from teachers’ paychecks, effective immediately.
  • An astute supporter put together a detailed ‘connecting the dots’ document helping explain the connections between some of the people in this saga.
  • A bill is advancing in the Colorado State Legislature that would provide state-level ethical oversight of local school boards.
  • We received clarification from the Colorado Department of Education on what they are will and able to do if a school district is suspected of not meeting state education standards, such as social studies.
  • Girl Scout cookies are now on sale! 🙂

Here’s what’s going on this coming week

  • Last week, we were expecting to be featured in a couple new media channels…that has been delayed, we’re hoping for this week. Stay tuned here.
  • We do not believe Witt and this board have abandoned plans to expand charter schools in this district after Third Future backed out; we’re watching this issue closely.

Connecting the Dots

The Thompson School District Reform Watch on Facebook does a really good job of detailed investigations with supporting evidence. They recently ‘connected the dots’, and it’s worth reading below.

“Connecting the Dots” proves the agenda in Woodland Park is MUCH BIGGER and much more dangerous to public education than anyone knows!

RW: Our post here is long but it has a story to tell that must be said.

One thing that is for sure is that the WPBOE & their supporters are on a mission to “Get Rid of the Woodland Park Teachers Association and the Colorado Education Association”. This was a major item on the agenda in Jeffco & Thompson back in 2013. The Thompson Education Association sued when their MOU was in major trouble and the courts ruled in with the teachers. The voters spoke loud and clear as well. Gone were Kerrigan, Rice, Langner and Brad Miller. Jeffco said bye-bye to Miller, Witt, Newkirk and Williams. Miller resigned in both instances.

The union IS our teachers and they work for all students & parents in a positive and fair manner. Not at all like the board members and their supporters that we have observed at board meetings and those who came disguised as teachers or pro-public ed supporters that were planted by the far right to disrupt, swear and threaten and give their masters something to blame on the education association. How about the public comment speakers who give false names?

The Woodland Park SD Bully Pulpit can be connected way back, to not only to the Independence Institute/Leadership Program of the Rockies/Americans for Prosperity, but higher yet.

Just some of the team that we find have been involved for years in this agenda are: Paul Lundeen, Brad Miller, Tim Farmer, Bryce Carlson, Barry Arrington, Gwen Benevento, Bob Schaffer, the Centennial Institute (Jeff Hunt), Colorado Christian University (Deborah Scheffel), Luke Ragland, Jon Caldara, Ben DeGrow, Ross Izard, Kevin Lundberg, Owen Hill, Tim Geitner, Ken Witt, Bob Gardner, the Neville family, Steve Schuck and many others.

Attorney Brad Miller’s actions during his tenure in Jeffco, Thompson, Falcon 49 and now other districts has often brought out concerns about his ethics, his knowledge of the law, his behavior behind closed doors and more. Some question whether he is a school attorney or a school entrepreneur because of how he appears to drum up business for himself and the Independence Institute agenda.

In reviewing other law firms that are legal counsels to school districts, that behavior is not observed. They are not out creating new charter schools, network schools, home school enrichment programs, online charter schools and more as Miller & Witt have been doing. The emails between Miller & Carlson with Mesa County 51 that were CORA’d speak volumes as to why the concerns should be addressed.

When a new conservative majority has been installed (and even before it has happened) Miller seems to have been the attorney who suddenly appears on the scene as new legal counsel. The Sup and current legal counsels are soon gone. And then it is chaos as we see happening in Woodland Park.

SOURCE: https://annelandmanblog.com/…/emails-between-d-51…/

This situation deserves an investigation from people who are much bigger than RW and the Woodland Park teachers, parents, students and community members who are working hard to SAVE THEIR WPSD!

The latest effort to take over our public schools and rid school districts of teachers unions doesn’t just exist in Woodland Park, Colorado.

If you come across organizations that include words like “freedom, patriots, guardians, liberty and conservative” beware!

Thompson saw it with Rumfelt’s ‘Liberty Watch’. Jeffco had several groups. In Northern Colorado and all across the state we are seeing Cain’s ‘Task Force Freedom’, The Front Range Patriots and the Northern Colorado Conservative Patriots. In Weld County it is “Guardians of Weld Re-4 and Guardians of Greeley Evans 6. In the Colorado Spring’s area we see ‘Liberty on the Rocks’ and ‘Pikes Peak Patriots’, ‘Truth & Liberty Coalition’, ‘FEC United’. At the national level we see the ‘Moms For Liberty’, ‘Parents Defending Education’, ‘Freedom Foundation’, ‘Freedom Watch’ and ‘Freedom Works’. We could list many more here. Americans for Prosperity and KOCH have their mitts in all of it.

But, do you know that ALL of these DOTS connect?

****************

Now we see “WP Families for Freedom” and their FB page ‘Freedom Watch News’.

These two new groups may sound new to the WP scene but the names behind them are not new at all. RW started digging and found plenty of cause for alarm and further investigation.

The web site – ‘WP Families for Freedom’ & and their FB page, ‘Freedom News Watch’ include some of the very same people that RW and Support Jeffco Kids has followed for years. At the top of the that ladder sits the Independence Institute & Americans for Prosperity and all of their created organizations like Ready Colorado, Advance Colorado and more.

‘FAMILIES FOR FREEDOM’ – Even the name tells you to run!

https://www.facebook.com/freedomwatchnewsonfb

A very important point about the current post on FWN needs to be made here regarding the ‘Families for Freedom’ fund raiser for the overdue school lunch accounts. Yes it is a great project and one badly needed, BUTTTTTTTTTTTT there is a catch here. ‘Moms For Liberty’ uses this project as a way to gain favor with the communities they are in and portray themselves as Good Guys who are there for the kids. It is a well planned image campaign. School supply backpacks are another one they are doing.

MFL have done this is Cheyenne, WY and other districts across the nation. Now we wonder if Moms For Liberty El Paso County has themselves involved in the Woodland Park school district as well.

FFF: “Freedom Watch News is a news source brought to you by a Teller County, Colorado based non-profit. Families for Freedom was started to promote school choice, access to classical education, parental rights and scholastic excellence. Families for Freedom will also pursue citizens right’s for transparency in government, free and fair commerce, and other pressing issues.

Families for Freedom and Freedom Watch News was created by Teller County residents to help provide fact-based news for pertinent issues in our community.”

RW: The founder of ‘Families For Freedom’ is Jameson Dion a well-known GOP activist in Teller County. Known for his numerous letters to the editor and more. Appears on the Kim Monson show (also II & LPR) with Jen Gibbons (Cherry Creek Parents Advocacy Network) – “Teachers unions are not focused on educating kids but is focused on power and control.” He is the latest feature in the book banning campaign.

CO ID #: 20228012078 – The address on the SOS document is Dion’s address although his name is not there. It is who his agent is that tells the real story here. She has a long history in supporting the far right extremist agenda. J Dion is, like Cain of Task Force Freedom, just another willing pawn in their game.

AGENT: Gwen Benevento (Maven Law Group) aka now as The ‘West Group’ (Name was changed Dec 2022) https://westgrouplp.com/professionals

Benevento:

• Agent for Cain’s Task Force Freedom & another Task Force Freedom Action.

• Agent for LPR’s Michael Fields & George Brauchler’s ‘Advance Colorado’. https://advancecolorado.org/ Brauchler is president of AC.

• Spouse of Doug Benevento, former controversial DougCo BOE member leading the school voucher cause, pay for performance and anti-union agendas with Ben DeGrow of the II as well as the controversial president of the Douglas County Board of Health with his anti-mask/mandate agenda.

https://www.denverpost.com/…/resignation-dougco-school…/

‘FREEDOM WATCH NEWS’ – FWN is not the ‘CREDIBLE SOURCE for educational news at all’ as they claim to be! Sharing posts from Epoch Times and the Freedom Foundation which are true fake news conspiracy sites proves that.

https://freedomwatchnews.com/

WHO do we find on the website and FB page?

NAMES & Posts THAT STAND OUT FOR GOOD REASON!

• Plenty of fake news site articles including many from the Epoch Times & the Freedom Foundation!

• Several names are fake as WP parents have found. How ethical is it for a board member to be doing (if he is)?

• Jameson Dion – Among the many complaints he has was the one that he and Illingworth pulled together to remove not only a book but the high school teacher as well. Witt was fully supportive. Dion hosted a conservative board candidate ‘Meet & Greet’ at his home prior to the November 2021 election for Illingworth, Rusterholtz, Patterson & Brovetto on 9.25.2021.

• Clinton Smith is believed to be either Dion or D Illingworth.

• Woodrow Parks aka Curt Grina – “How can we get the WPEA out of our schools here in Woodland Park?”

• Curt Grina aka Woodrow Parks – Very outspoken against the teachers and their union among other things. Check out the posts by both C Smith and W Parks on the FB age.

https://gazette.com/…/article_2bda2f9c-87b7-11ed-8d91…

https://gazette.com/…/article_acd880b0-9047-11ed-8c6d…

• Andrew Wommack: ““We decided that we were going to take Colorado back,” Wommack said. “Colorado is a very liberal place, and so we’ve got a thing in place, and during the last election cycle we started with the school boards. We singled out five districts in Colorado, and we put out 417,000 voter guides. The GOP got incensed at us because we asked, ‘How do you feel about men competing in women’s sports? What do you think about critical race theory?’ They did not want those things to be public. So, we asked all the candidates—Democrat and Republican—and we put out these voter guides, and out of 178 people that we were supporting, we got … somewhere around 78 or 80 of them elected. So, we’re beginning to make an inroad, and we’ve got some big plans in place this year.”

“I sent a spy into our public school system to check out what the books are,” Wommack revealed later in his speech. “I got a list of I think it was 54 books in the Woodland Park School System—and this is a small place, 7,000 people in the community—and there’s 54 homosexual books that we know off. I’ve got a list of that, and I’ve got people that are on my staff that go to every school board meeting, and as soon as we get [the books] looked at so that we can defend what we’re saying, we’re going to stand up in the school board.”

“We now have a number of our Charis graduates that are on school boards, and we’ve got Christians in places,” he added. “Praise God, we’re seeing things change.””

RW: Other names that are common in this agenda include:

• Nicole & Derek Wagner – Merit Academy founders & also Florida residents.

• Katie Illingworth – Merit parent & now supposedly former Merit board member. Spouse of WP BOE member David Illingworth. How is it that he, as a board member didn’t recuse himself from voting on the Merit application? As the media has shown, he appears to enjoy being a controversial thorn directed at educators and their union. As a Deputy District Attorney, all should be concerned.

• Mary Sekowski – Merit board member. Her name shows up many times.

• Jen Gibbons – Cherry Creek Parents Advocacy Group aligned with J. Dion on the far right ‘Kim Monson’ (II & LPR) conservative talk show pushing conspiracy theories about the teachers unions.

• Bob Schaffer – Liberty Common Founder/Headmaster/LPR Chairman

• Tom Krannawitter – A very controversial guy (easy to Google him) that we find to be someone Rumfelt in TSD appears to admire as she posts links to his conspiracy agenda.

Please take time to browse the two Woodland Park conspiracy pages and note the comments by Woodrow Parks & Clinton Smith and remember as you do that they are fake names.

Sources:

Merit & ERBOCES: https://www.cato.org/blog/friday-feature-merit-academy

Liberty Common Newsletter, Oct 6, 2022 Bob Schaffer, Casey Churchill and Merit board members

https://www.denverpost.com/…/charter-school-liberty…/

The Federalist: https://thefederalist.com/…/no-politics-public-school…/

K. Illingworth ‘Go Fund Me for Merit Academy’ in May, 2021. Appears to have raised $9,000 of a $300,000 goal. https://www.gofundme.com/f/small-school-great-expectations

https://www.facebook.com/TSDReformWatch/posts/pfbid0Poxg6xbrcJ9jtY6WvEYXmXFjyLWvfr9HgyvmVVHLkDa1d3EbSZdamzLVvHBqF9mel?cft[0]=AZWCzqlKi_jIdDT1SVOG_V_WvqRH4_M6AvRdJJ6mAPX9rr-0ZPw_fBBf7WyhKNuMBjHQV-qzx-ncaQJrMIFktWXc9KVCMHIDwAMezskbcIgBpZeIrkwD69_AFSpmYjV64tPE3aatECdr0fGRVqYOwZ6h&tn=-UK-R

Is the Hillsdale Curriculum coming to Woodland Park?

The Hillsdale College 1776 Curriculum has created quite a bit of controversy, and you really should familiarize yourself with it if you haven’t already. Check out these links for a quick primer:

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/184718

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/30/hillsdale-affiliated-charter-schools-spread/

The Liberty Common charter schools in Fort Collins have been shown to have close ties to Hillsdale, though it does not appear like they use the 1776 curriculum at this point in time.

Our district’s first charter school, Merit Academy, visited LCS recently and seems aligned with their philosophy. It remains to be seen if Merit will drift more into the Hillsdale side of things, but that does seem like a strong possibility.

Ken Witt uses American Birthright standard to censor class

As previously discussed here and elsewhere, The Woodland Park school district recently removed the book, “Between the World and Me” from the high school election course, “Civil Disobedience.”

This action was taken after a resident, Jameson Dion, filed a complaint about this material on January 7. The district has a very clear policy for review of instructional material, policy KEC, and did not follow it in this case. Rather than form an appropriate review committee, Witt made a unilateral decision (which you can read here) to remove the book from the class on January 22.

So this is what we’ve come to. A single man making the decisions of what should and should not be used by teachers as instructional materials in class, disregarding policy and debate.

2/5/23 Weekly Update

Here’s what happened this past week

  • Third Future Schools submitted a letter stating their intent to apply to open a “partnership charter school” using the Gateway Elementary building. (link1, link2)
  • On Monday, the WPEA (local teachers’ union) held a meeting open to all teachers. A video of this meeting was obtained and promised to be leaked online. (link)
  • More news coverage of the district’s decision to remove the book “Between the World and Me” from the high school elective class “Civil Disobedience”. (link)
  • Colorado Public Radio published an in-depth article about high school teacher Sara Lee. (link)
  • MSNBC covered David Illingworth’s board interview question about the book, “Between the World and Me”, then interviewed its author, Ta-Nehisi Coates. (link)
  • Ken Witt sent an email to staff and parents saying that Third Future Schools has decided not to submit an application after all. (link)

Here’s what’s going on this coming week

  • Regular school board meeting Wednesday, 2/8, in the district offices. (agenda)
  • Look for our district to appear in multiple new media channels this week; we’ll post here when that happens.

Third Future Schools cancels plans

Interim superintendent Witt sent an email to staff and families Friday, saying Third Future Schools no longer intended to submit a charter application. It’s unclear what negotiations had been happening behind the scenes that may have led to this.

January 2023 summary

Here’s what happened in January:

Illingworth interviews board candidates about “Between the World and Me”

On Wednesday, the board interviewed three candidates for the vacant board seat. The video here is David Illingworth’s question, which he thinks is connected to the book “Between the World and Me” but really seems unrelated (I don’t think he actually read that book). This is the book that was removed (banned) from a high school class recently (read more about that here).

The board selected Mick Bates, the second person to be interviewed.