Author Archives: Matt G

Illingworth’s latest belittling email to a parent

David Illingworth has a long history of hostile language towards parents and teachers in the district. His latest tirade was directed towards Nate Owen, as much a part of the WP community as anybody. Nate is a popular high school teacher who clearly cares greatly for his students, has taught in the district for eleven years, and has four kids growing up in WP schools (he’s also sponsored Key Club, part of the Kiwanis family service organization, for all those eleven years).

Here’s what David Illingworth emailed Nate:

Nate, you are union president and nothing you say has any credibility with me. You seem to only care about creating division, despair, and a climate of doom amongst teachers and parents for your wealthy union bosses. Don’t even pretend to guilt parents and teachers that focusing schools on academics means abandoning our kids. That’s disgusting.


Parents run this district now, not the union. The schools exist for the kids, not the union and their politicians. Your grandstanding for the cameras does not fool me. You work for the union, not parents and certainly not kids.


DAVID W. ILLINGWORTH II
Director

source

The board had adjourned to executive session in their board meeting earlier in the day; the meeting livestream continued to run. Nate took the opportunity to speak to those still present in the room; you can watch his speech below. Nate forwarded the text of his speech to the board; Illingworth’s email was in reply to that.

Director Illingworth is up for re-election this fall.

Gag orders on teachers, cutting mental health support, operating in the dark — what’s happening in Woodland Park? | Colorado Public Radio

By most accounts, the school district in Woodland Park in Teller County was doing well. 

Test scores were up, more students were participating in activities, the school climate was better than ever. There are schools with gardens. Good athletic programs. A fine drama program.

But two years ago, voters swept in a new school board with new and different ideas for the district. They enacted a series of lightning-speed policy changes — big ones that include mental health staffing and social studies curriculum and a gag order on teachers.

Now, many educators are feeling demonized and quitting, and parents are feeling demoralized and leaving. They say the nationwide culture war has come to roost in Woodland Park, just northwest of Colorado Springs, home to about 8,000 people.
— Read on www.cpr.org/2023/04/20/woodland-park-school-board/

4/12/2023 School Board Meeting Recap

If you missed the 4/12/2023 school board meeting, you can watch it here:

Highlights:

  • There was some interesting public comment (including a reference to the ‘rich and powerful teachers unions’, LOL), though only a handful of those who signed up actually got to speak, due to the board limiting public comment to 30 minutes total.
  • The board included an amendment to Merit Academy’s contract in the consent agenda. The public was not informed of the content of this amendment until the district sent an email out on 4/14 stating, “The board also approved the Merit contract amendment to eliminate charter school liaison charges.” This amendment was not discussed nor read in the 4/12 meeting.
  • The board announced a $1500 retention bonus for teachers, and approved a resolution declaring May 8-12 Teacher Appreciation Week. It’s nice to see them mirroring the declaration of the National PTA group.
  • Witt gave a few updates on the transition of sixth grade to elementary schools, though they still haven’t worked out all the details.
  • The board approved a resolution opposing Colorado House bill HB23-1003, School Mental Health Assessment. Interestingly, it is virtually identical to the resolution that D49 in Colorado Springs passed the next day at their board meeting.
  • Interim Superintendent Witt talked briefly about the Academic Achievement report previously shown to the DAC. He didn’t show any slides in this meeting; if you want to view the report you can see it here.
  • The board hired Amy Ryan as CFO, and Bill Phalen was promoted to be the new Middle School principal for next year.
  • There were two professional photographers taking pictures at the meeting, and more than one reporter observed in the room.

Grant info for the ’23-24 school year, compared to previous

I’ve been working to better understand what effect refusing grant money will have on our district (see this story). New data has been received via CORA, all grant applications for the ’23-24 school year as of 4/2/2023 (links to applications are included). I’m not sure if programs like the Title 1A funding would be secured later in the year; it’s possible the actual ’23-24 grant picture will have additional funds added beyond what’s shown here.

WPSD grant applications, ’23-24 School Year:

For comparison, WPSD grants, ’22-23 School Year:

  • Newmont CC/V Goldmine Grant – Bldg Level Educational Programs ($ 47,017)
  • Summit Elem. NLK Security Grant – Bldg Security ($ 2,019)
  • Project Lead The Way HS-Lockheed Martin – HS PLTW ($ 2,200)
  • Child Care Relief Grant – Preschool ($ 7,772)
  • Colo. Ed. Initiative SERN Grant – Social Emotional Redesign Network ($ 15,413)
  • Jadenator Donation Grant – Student Needs-Athletics ($ 2,150)
  • CDHS Child Care Oper Stabil Grant – After School Care ($ 60,688)
  • Colo. Health Foundation – Student Wellness ($ 11,376)
  • CDHS Workforce Sustain – After School Care ($ 13,144)
  • Local Donations/some Dist. funds – Auditorium Upgrade ($ 55,000)
  • School Counselor Corp Grant – Counseling ($ 489,989)
  • State Library Grant – School Libraries ($ 5,000)
  • School Health Professionals Grant – Cohort 5 (Elem) – Substance Abuse Prevention ($ 266,618)
  • School Health Professionals Grant – Cohort 6 (Sec) – Sustance Abuse Prevention ($ 216,786)
  • WPHS Advanced Placement Pilot Program – HS AP ($ 4,558)
  • Career Development Incentive Programs – HS Instructional ($ 32,944)
  • Kindergarten Furniture, Fixtures & Equipment – Kndg. Fixed Assets ($ 19,485)
  • Read Act Grant – Literacy ($ 53,409)
  • AP Exam Fee Reimbursement – AP Exams ($ 1,500)
  • Concurrent Enrollment – Concurrent Enrollment ($ 10,000)
  • WPHS SWAP – School to Work alliance Program ($187,606)
  • Suicide Prevention Grant – Suicide Prevention ($ 5,000)
  • URHN-Substance Abuse Prevention Grant – Sustance Abuse Prevention ($ 169,999)
  • Title IA – Language Arts and Math ($ 401,234)
  • Carl Perkins Consorsium – Vocational ($ 11,115)
  • Title III ELL flow Through – ELL ($ 4,151)
  • Title IIA (combined with Title IV for budgeting) – Instructional Resource ($ 92,846)
  • Title IV (combined with Title IIA for budgeting) – Combined with Title IIA ($ 25,133)
  • Supply Chain Assistance Grant, School Food Svc. – School Food Service ($ 32,178)
  • Summit Elem. Distinctive Schools Award – Title I Educational Program ($ 10,000)

Also in the ’22-23 school year were federal Covid relief funds; these are expiring on their own so I’m separating them out:

  • ESSER 3 Grant (Instr Impact) – Covid Pandemic ($ 320,436)
  • ESSER 2 Grant – Covid Pandemic ($ 306,592)
  • ESSER 3 Grant – Covid Pandemic Loss of Learning ($ 1,173,946)

Regarding those ESSER funds, the district’s Use of Funds Plan for that money can be viewed here (thanks to CORA).

Update on Middle School / 6th grade changes

In the board meeting on Wednesday, April 12th, Ken Witt will be providing an update on the changes to the middle school, moving sixth grade down to the elementary school buildings and reconfiguring the remaining space to give more to Merit Academy.

So, what should the parents be concerned about? The reality is, we don’t know the inner workings of these schools, we’re really in the dark here. We can shed some light on this situation, by looking at the words of someone who is (was…) one of the experts on the impact of this change – Tina Cassens, outgoing Chief Academic Officer. A recent CORA request revealed an email she sent to Witt detailing her concerns about restructuring the grade levels in each school. Read these, and keep them in mind when Witt gives his presentation Wednesday, see if they’re being addressed and how.

At the Elementary level:

  • Classes at the elementary are sitting at 30 – 45 students per grade level. Financially, staffing models would call for 1.5 teachers per grade level, which is not logistically possible. We have been watching this for years and discussing building primary (PK-2) and intermediate schools (3-5). The alternative will be multi-age classrooms across the board, i.e. a 1st/2nd grade combo, 3rd/4th grade combo, 5th/6th grade combo. Another alternative is hiring above staff formulas, which would greatly impact the district.
  • SPED center-based programs are currently sitting at capacity. Sending 6th graders back into the programs will send them over staffing allocations, requiring the hiring of additional part-time special education teachers, which are hard to find.

At the Middle School level:

  • Running a middle school with less than 300 students will essentially strip the enrichment opportunities. Under the current staffing model they would have less than 3 full time enrichment teachers. Finding part-time enrichment teachers is tough.
  • Most of the 6th grade teachers are not certified for elementary, thus the middle school would need to enact our reduction in force policy, which affects both middle and high school.
  • SPED center-based programs will run under capacity with 6th graders moved down.
  • Shifting Merit down in the building will result in displacing specially designed classrooms that serve our SPED center-based programs. This adds costs again to the District. One of these areas includes a specially designed bathroom/changing room and kitchen. I am not sure how these would be redesigned.
  • Shifting Merit down would also remove the family and consumer studies room, which then eliminates this program for the Middle School.
  • Redesigning the building for a 2nd year would result in additional expenses for the District. This includes redesigning the bells and announcement system which took over 9 months to reconfigure and adding/relocating separation doors which were extremely expensive.

Listen in Wednesday, her experience with this district is extensive and we should take these concerns seriously.

Interim Superintendent expenses

I guess one of the perks of being an interim superintendent is eating out frequently at taxpayer expense?

January started out slow. Witt didn’t have a district credit card, so submitted an expense report for the Pantry ($28.03) and Peak BBQ ($50.99).

For February, Witt enjoyed a couple meals at Mountainara ($51.07 and $71.68), Fortune Dragon ($34.31), and a whopping $121.44 at Ted’s Montana Grill (source). He went on to spend $29.39 at the Pantry, $44.64 at Rosie’s Diner (in Monument), $37.19 at Grandmother’s Kitchen, $64.05 at Wines of Colorado, $42.75 at Fusion Japan, $65.32 and $72.90 at Mountainara (gotta admit, I love that place too), and then $50.14 at the Pantry (curious, how many people joined him for that meal to push the bill so high, and how many of them were board members?). (source)

So, from 1/1-3/14/2023 (his credit card billing cycle ends at the middle of the month), Ken Witt has incurred $763.90 in expenses dining out.

Truth and Liberty Coalition – School Board Candidate Academy

Interested in running for school board? A friend in a neighboring community tipped me off to this…Andrew Wommack’s Truth and Liberty Coalition is hosting a Candidate Academy at Charis from 9:00-4:30 on Saturday, April 15th. It’s not open to just anyone though…you do need to fill out an application, which asks for things such as what church you attend, your pastor’s name and phone number, and an additional character reference. The training is being presented by the “National School Board Coalition”…an important-sounding group but one that, when you dig, isn’t really a coalition, it’s one guy, Ted Mische, a graduate of the Leadership Program of the Rockies (LPR) (Mische previously led the ‘Colorado School Board Coalition’).

Some excerpts from the invitation, which you can read in its entirety below, are:

At Truth and Liberty, we want every school district in this state to teach only edifying and morally upright curriculum with an accurate and patriotic view of American history.

…

We are facing a crisis in our times as our nation seems to be abandoning biblical teaching, morality, and even common sense at a pace and depth that is alarming. Can you imagine the positive long-term impact that biblically minded Christians could have as members of 178 school boards in this state?

Our Interim Superintendent Ken Witt (also an LPR grad) hired Mische to do some consulting work for ERBOCES in early January (Witt works two jobs, if you recall, his interim superintendent position in Woodland Park and his executive director position at ERBOCES). This candidate academy appears unrelated to that work but there appear to be close ties between Wommack and the LPR grads (such as Bob Schafer, Curt Grina, Tim Farmer, Bryce Carlson, Ken Witt, Mick Bates, Dan Williams, Trevor Miller, Brad Miller, Ted Mische).