The WPSD board and superintendent have put limits on freedom of speech for voters in this district. If a voter wants to speak up at a public board meeting, they may or may not get a chance, as total public comment period is limited to 30 minutes max, and names are drawn at random. If someone doesn’t get selected they’re encouraged to email the board instead, but did you know the board applies a filter to incoming emails? If your email contains one of the ‘Blocked Words’, it will be bounced back to you and the board will never see it (same goes for emails to the superintendent.
If you’d like to call Witt a ‘turd’, well, that’s not allowed. Want to call Illingworth a ‘prick’? Not allowed. All sorts of classic mild profanity is included in the list, which thanks to CORA, the public can now peruse…click ‘more’ to see the list at the end of this post (unlike them, I DO believe in freedom of speech).
This was a quiet week, with the focus on wrapping up the school year. The only thing I reported on was the teacher appreciation bags at two of the schools…not just the quantity, but that the district took down a post from the High School’s Facebook page showing the large number of bags there.
I’m seeing an increase in the number of letters to the editor at the Courier that parrot the same pro-board talking points. I dove into one here, fact checking what I could.
Here’s what’s coming up this week:
The district is officially on spring break, but we expect some activity this month on a few fronts. First, the preliminary budget needs to be presented and discussed, in the June 14 board meeting. As part of that, we’ll be hearing the board’s plans detailed for improved security, including $1 million from the reserve fund to be spent on one-time infrastructure improvements, and money to be spent on security personnel in our schools (presumably, but not confirmed, to be through Sheriff Mikesell’s private security company).
In the budget overview last month, the district predicts per-pupil funding to increase about 11%, and district enrollment to remain flat. Given these numbers and the increased revenue it suggests, will the board be giving teachers a raise? They made (and continue to make) a really big deal last year about using extra revenue to give teachers a raise so it’d be odd for them to not once again take advantage of this opportunity, especially considering the large numbers of staff leaving the district.
There’s a tradition in the schools, at the end of the school year, teachers not returning the next year are given Teacher Appreciation Bags. What’s made this year different is the large number of staff choosing to leave the district, with the reason cited typically being this board and superintendent. The WPHS posted a picture of the teacher appreciation bags to their Facebook page last Thursday, as shown below:
That post has now been taken down from their page. No reason was given, but I suspect it’s because this image helps make clear just how many staff are leaving the district (this picture shows 22 teacher appreciation bags, though some other teachers have already left in the past few months so are not represented here).
Gateway Elementary had an even larger sign of internal trouble, with twenty seven bags:
I’m working to get some exact numbers for how many staff are leaving; please be patient as I want solid documentation to back up the numbers and that takes time. You can expect me to publish a list in the second half of June, though there may be some additions as the summer goes on so the final tally would be August, before the new school year starts.
Parents almost universally loved our teachers here, and it’s a real shame to see so many driven away by this board and superintendent. There is no way this will not disrupt the learning environment this fall…best case scenario is a large number of new teachers that need to be integrated into WPSD; worst case is a potential failure to fill open positions, which I imagine would be addressed by increasing class size or, in the case of high school electives, eliminating those classes altogether.
The amount of disinformation being published in the Courier is disturbing…and I’m not sure how best to counter that. For now, I’ll just use this blog to address some of what I’m reading. First there was David Illingworth’s letter to the editor (see my review here). This time, it’s Aaron Helstrom, one of the District Accountability Committee members hand-picked by this board last fall, writing his own Letter to the Editor. I’ll pick some of his comments to review, and include his entire letter at the end here.
The article also makes it seem as if the school board is pulling all mental health funding. Fortunately, in a recent interview, School Board Member David Illingworth mentioned the rejected grants had conditions attached that went against the school’s standards and parent’s desires for their children.
In ’22-23, the district received 30 grants; they’ve applied for only a few for ’23-24. The board has never given any examples of any conditions attached to any specific grants to explain the reason not to pursue them again.
…has slowly been adapting a new, and superior, set of standards, which they have been forthright in discussing publicly.
The board never discussed the American Birthright standard, they adopted it with little public input and the public only had about one day advanced notice due to my seeking clarification of a board agenda item.
They also omitted the fact that parents and others were offered the gymnasium as an overflow room (which they did not accept).
We were never offered the gymnasium. We were told we could seek shelter in the Commons Area. Those wishing to participate in public comment needed to stay close to the doors, in the rain, to see if their name was called.
…the board granted teachers the biggest pay raise in the district’s history
Yes, per-pupil funding and sales tax revenue have greatly increased the budget allowing for this, that has nothing to do with the board and it remains to be seen if this was a sustainable move. For example, per pupil funding next year is increasing about 8%; will the board pass along that increase to teachers in the form of another raise?
has helped to offer transportation services to students to attend classes
They have approved funding for meal services so any student in the district who needs a free meal is able to get one
The funding comes from the state, via the free lunch program funded by Proposition FF. The board did not approve funding. The board and superintendent vocally opposed this program, until presumably public opposition made them change their mind.
The board also started the first charter school in the district, giving parents greater choice.
Merit Academy was started by Ken Witt and Brad Miller, under the umbrella of ERBOCES in the ’21-22 school year. The board did not start the charter school, the transferred Merit from ERBOCES to WPSD.
Most notable, for the first time in over a decade, enrollment grew by an astounding 15%, placing Woodland Park district in the Top Five for student growth in Colorado.
This ignores the massive decrease in the district with Merit opened up under ERBOCES. If you count those students as always being in WPSD, the actual increase is around 3%. Considering the COVID trends of people moving to rural areas, it’s impossible to assign credit for that increase to any one factor. Read more here.
I’ve learned that both of the nurses in our district are leaving at the end of the year, yet there is only one job opening posted. Perhaps the district will post a second opening eventually, but this is concerning, as five schools would be a lot for only one RN to handle. Note that each school DOES have its own full time health aide and it’s expected those will be kept. But having only one RN would be too much, especially when it comes to immunization compliance and health screenings. Again, they may yet post a second position…but this is something parents should watch.
The other bit of news concerns our special education program. Insiders say that those staff levels are being severely decimated by staff leaving the district after this year, with some special education programs losing all staff, reportedly because of this board and superintendent. The question is, will the district be able to attract new employees to fill those positions? We can and must do better than this, especially for these most vulnerable children.
Three candidates have announced their intent to run against Illingworth, Kimbrell, and Bates in the school board election this fall. I’ve talked to these people and support them 100%, I’m convinced they can bring civility and unity back to the WPSD school board! Read about them here:
The latest incident of fiscal recklessness in our district comes via a recent Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request. We’ve learned that superintendent Ken Witt spent $593.76 from the district Facilities Account to frame a flag that he owns personally (click here for the source). The plaque on this frame says, “On Loan From Ken Witt”.
On May 10th, the board unanimously voted to extend the contract of Interim Superintendent Ken Witt by one year and remove the ‘interim’ from his job title. Is he qualified? Let’s review the original job posting from November and see where Witt stacks up.
The following qualifications have been identified by the Board of Education to be of particular importance:
Excel in communication with District Stakeholders
Grade: F. Parents report lack of email replies, and an inability to schedule in-person discussions. I’ve also had zero luck getting an answer from him in person before or after school board meetings. He didn’t even stick around after the last board meeting to talk to stakeholders present in the room.
Exceptional executive skills with experience in building effective relationships
Grade: F. He has not demonstrated an ability to build effective relationships with staff. Quite the contrary.
Ability to work with leadership team to execute strategic plan
Grade: A. He’s working very closely with the WPSD board to execute their plan.
Inspire a culture of greatness, innovation, and growth throughout the district
Grade: D. He avoids an ‘F’ on this one due to his (failed) attempt to get Third Future Schools to take over Gateway Elementary, I’d call that innovative (though not a ‘culture’ of innovation).
Courageous in making tough decisions for the district
Grade: C. He has absolutely made tough decisions for the district (like moving sixth grade out of the Middle School), but should we really be calling that ‘courageous’ instead of stupid? “A courageous person knows the possible danger and acts anyway. A stupid person, on the other hand, has no knowledge of the consequences and thus feels no fear in action” (quote citation).
Knowledgeable of Colorado school finance, law, and assessment
Ability to cultivate a positive and motivated work force
Grade: F. Can I give him an F-? 40-50% of district staff are leaving this year. I suppose one could argue he motivated them…to leave!
Student-focused
Grade: F. Eleven high school juniors were inducted into the National Honors Society…Witt was not there to congratulate them. I don’t believe Witt has ever been sighted at any after-hours school event.
Sound financial skills
Grade: C. He’s siphoning money from our traditional public schools to the charter school…he understands the finance side enough to accomplish his goals of undermining traditional public education.
Ethical
Grade: F. Where do I start?!
Prior superintendent/assistant superintendent or comparable administrative experience preferred
Grade: C. he has a bit of administrative experience from his executive director role of ERBOCES, where he still works today.
It’s not clear by what criteria the board was judging Witt, as a CORA request for evaluation results yielded no records.
The May 10th Woodland Park RE-2 school board meeting was absolutely crazy. With schools earlier being on ‘shelter in place’ status due to a tornado warning (later downgraded to a tornado watch), a record crowd still turned up for this meeting. An hour ahead of the meeting’s 6PM start time, there was already an estimated 90 people in line (doors typically open 30 minutes prior)! I showed up just after 5:00, found some friends, and we very quickly ascertained what was going on. The common thread with the people we saw and talked to was a connection with Charis Bible school. We all gathered in a huge line, waiting in the rain for the doors to open.
But I need to take a step back…why the fuss? We knew that in this meeting, the board would vote to extend Ken Witt’s contract for another year, and change his job title from Interim Superintendent to Superintendent. The crowd was not there for that though…the board had caught wind that NBC Nightly News was sending a camera and crew to cover this meeting. A Fox21 reporter was told that a board member had told the Charis students to come (by the time of the meeting, I’d estimate about 200 people had showed up). That NBC camera crew was joined by cameras and reporters from two local TV stations, KOAA and Fox21 (follow those links for their stories of the evening).
What followed was…unprecedented for this small town.
So, the board knew to expect a crowd. The main conference room, the planned location for this meeting, had a 90 person capacity. In the past, they’d often open up overflow rooms, other conference rooms in the same office, where those people watched the livestream on TV. Larger past meetings have been held in the Middle School commons room, or the High School auditorium (which is the building adjoining the district offices hosting this meeting).
Given the anticipated record crowd, what would you expect the WPSD RE-2 board of education to do? This board chose to handle that crowd by, for the first time ever, reducing capacity and limiting participation to only the 90 people that could fit in the main conference room. Once those people had entered the building, the doors were locked with around a hundred people waiting outside in the rain.
While refusing to open the overflow rooms, move to the adjacent auditorium, or even reschedule the meeting, the board allowed people outside to sign up for public comment, though those people still had to wait outside to see if their names would be called (this board chose to limit public comment to 3 minutes per person which is fine, but only 30 minutes total, so typically a LOT of people do not get a chance to speak). Sometime around the middle of public comment, the board opened the doors to the high school for people who wanted to seek shelter from the rain in there (it’s still not clear why we couldn’t enter one of the vacant other conference rooms in the district office).
The meeting moved into executive session at the end; this is done in private and most of the audience shuffled out. At that point, myself and other parents were able to escape the rain and go inside to await the board’s return from executive session (they need to return to the conference room to officially adjourn the meeting). We had the chance for a brief interaction with board president Rusterholtz after the meeting (the others all fled immediately after the meeting was adjourned, none of them would talk to us).
The board put on a show for the cameras…rants about socialism, capitalism, prayer, guns, etc. They passed a resolution about economic freedom, and of course approved Witt’s contract.
At the 26:55 mark, you can hear Rusterholtz ask Kelly how many people signed up, she said 30 had. 9 were given the chance to speak and be heard.
My first stab at writing about this topic ended up being a bit long – read it here – so I thought I’d try to do a better job of summarizing this (see that link for source material for data here)
Transportation Costs in Woodland Park RE-2 School District – ’22-23 school year
Expenses
$1,563,177
Source of funds to cover expenses
Carryover fund balance from RE-2 previous year: $104,758
Transportation fees collected from parents: $20,000 ($50 per kid)
State Reimbursement: $235,000
Grants: $1,000
Money to be used from RE-2 General Fund: $1,202,419
The point here is, the bulk of the money comes from the RE-2 General Fund – and Merit Academy is not being required to share that portion of the cost when they participate in this program next year.
