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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.

January 25, 2023 board meeting

This board meeting was more of the boards usual shitshow. You can read KRDO’s coverage here, or watch it for yourself at the link below.

The budget discussion seemed to have some good news about revenue, but we’ll need to dive into that more later.

The board approved Witt’s proposed policy changes that would allow the district to bring on new charter schools at any time of year, instead of following the state schedule around fall applications. They skipped the (legally required?) second reading of the policy and just jumped to the vote, eager to get on to interviews for the board seat vacancy!

Out of the list of applicants, the board selected three candidates and interviewed them one at a time in this meeting. Each was asked the same questions. The candidate they chose, Mick Bates, had some polarizing answers to the questions. Watch it for yourself below (he’s the second candidate to be interviewed). And stay tuned here as we explore his words and background further.

Book Banning has begun in Woodland Park schools

High School parent Bridget Curran has a child in the ‘Civil Disobedience’ class in the high school. The BOE gave the teacher an ultimatum, remove the reading of the book “Between the World and Me” or the class would be eliminated completely. The teacher refused, the class is gone. We’ve submitted a CORA request for emails related to this.

posted 1/24/2023 to the Concerned Parents of Teller County Facebook group

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

Amazon

Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone)

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” 

Fiscal Recklessness in Woodland Park

Most of these board members are relatively new to town. Us that have been here a long time remember days not so long ago, when the Middle School roof was leaking. Trash cans were placed in classrooms to catch the drips. The district had no money for a new roof. I recall sitting in on a presentation by Superintendent Bowman at the time…he outlined the expenses on staff, district-wide, at a very detailed level. He convinced me the district was operating as lean as it could be…and yet…there was still no money for a new roof. In the spring of 2016, voters surprisingly stepped up to help! We passed a 1.09% sales tax coupled with a property tax reduction! This has made a huge difference to our schools, and yes, the Middle School got their new roof. 🙂

This current school board has been completely reckless with spending and an insult to taxpayers who deserve more from our elected officials. Let’s look at some examples.

The board spent around $100k of district money to bring Merit Academy into the district. The feasibility study for the middle school cost our district $51,596.53. Caplan and Ernest, lawyers brought on solely for closing the deal with Merit, cost us $32,268.50. Brad Miller incurred some uncertain amount of legal fees until he stepped away from the deal at the end (his legal fees for the first five months of 2022 were about $66k and he was very involved with this beginning in January). The board was not required to give Merit any of the sales tax revenue…they could have withheld enough of that sales tax revenue to reimburse the district for expenses incurred bringing in Merit.

Miller’s legal advice to the board led to them violating Open Meetings Law in January, leading to a preliminary injunction and subsequent legal fees incurred by defending themselves in court. The exact cost is unknown, as Miller did not invoice separately for this court case and he redacts details from the invoices we request through CORA.

In June, Illingworth called for a special board meeting, where they decided to remove Superintendent Neal from the district. Having no cause for doing so, it cost the district $275k to break his contract (plus whatever legal fees were incurred by Miller for this).

Having put in place two very competent co-superintendents, Del Garrick and Tina Cassens, the board then proceeded to hire a new temporary interim superintendent, Ken Witt. Which on the surface is not necessarily financially bad, this board found a way to really screw taxpayers over on this one. They’re paying Witt an annual rate of $155k, plus a $500 car allowance and $100 cell phone allowance. The contract makes it very difficult to remove Witt, as doing so would require 120 day notice or comparable financial compensation! To top it all off, Witt is allowed to keep working at ERBOCES, where is also being paid $155k, gets a $500 car allowance, and a cell phone provided to him. Taxpayers are paying Witt more than $310k to work two fulltime jobs. You can read Witt’s contract with Woodland Park here, or read his ERBOCES contract here (that contract has been extended). Our district alone is paying a full time salary to someone that’s barely working here part time.

Response to Jan. 4 letter to the editor by Curt Grina | Guest Column (Gazette, 1/17)

The follow letter was written by Rodney Noel Saunders (link)

It is sadly pathetic that Curt Grina believes it is acceptable to demean and discredit other U.S. citizens the way he does without evidence or proof.

Ken Witt was “pushed out” (his words) of Jeffco schools not by communists (no proof whatsoever), but by concerned parents whose students staged several walkouts because he wanted teachers to teach what was not and is not authentic American history, and Witt lost that recall vote 64.25% to 35.75%. Surely you are not suggesting all of that overwhelming percentage of good American citizens are communists! And also because he reportedly publicly tried to humiliate a student to the point it was evaluated as bullying. And the student had not engaged in racist comments as Witt claimed. Just because you don’t like what others believe and practice, Curt, doesn’t mean they are communists or that you should call them communists.

Continue reading →

Opinions vs. facts and the school board (Gazette, 1/18)

The following letter to the editor is written by former board director Carol Greenstreet (link)

A strong public school system is one of the things that sets our country apart. It is certainly where we invest in our future as a nation. All of us invest tax dollars, some of us invest volunteer time and others choose it as a career.

In the past year, many have spoken out against the actions and decisions of the current Woodland Park Board of Education. There have also been many letters to the editor in support of this current board. It seems impossible to miss the extreme contention that has arisen over the governance of our schools in the past year, yet I have discovered many that are happily unaware.

Continue reading →

New charter school coming to Woodland Park?

Mike Miles, the founder of the Third Future network of charter schools in Texas and Colorado, appears to be considering opening another charter school, this one in Woodland Park. On Saturday 1/15, Illingworth and Witt gave him tours of several district buildings – Columbine Elementary, Gateway Elementary, and the Middle School (well, what’s left of it after it was carved up for Merit Academy). Board President Rusterholtz was unaware of this and no announcement was made, and it was only through keen observation by community members that we were even made aware of it.

His two local schools are Coperni 2 and Coperni 3, both in Colorado Springs. Witt helped bring Coperni 2 to that district through his work at ERBOCES (though back then it was called Colorado Digital BOCES).