Author Archives: Matt G

6/11/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week:

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • The next school board meeting is Wednesday, 6/14, 6:00, in the district office conference room. We’ve asked the board and superintendent if they will move the meeting to the auditorium or elsewhere with greater capacity, but have not received any replies. Note that since the budget will be discussed in this meeting, Colorado Law states that any taxpayer in the district is entitled to attend this meeting. It’s not clear if watching via a one-way video conference (livestream) would count as ‘attending’. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ‘attend’ as ‘to be present at’ or ‘to go to’. The law suggest they would not be allowed to refuse entry to taxpayers like they did in the 5/10 meeting.

Moms For Liberty Claiming Credit For School Districts Opting-Out of State-Funded Student Mental Health Services

According to a May 15 Facebook post from Darcy Schoening in the “Moms For Liberty — El Paso County” Facebook group, the author is “The infamous attorney Brad Miller, who’s been working hard around the state to urge conservative boards to adopt common sense policies such as the Parental Bill of Rights, a HB23-1003 opt out, and a resolution to oppose the anti-capitalist teachers unions.”
— Read on coloradotimesrecorder.com/2023/06/moms-for-liberty-claiming-credit-for-school-districts-opting-out-of-state-funded-student-mental-health-services/54024/

Brad Miller has been running the show in Woodland Park since day one…

DAVIS: The Small Colorado Town at the Center of Far-Right Plans for American Schools

One thing is already clear: what is happening in Woodland Park is not an organic political movement. At every turn, it has ties to deep pockets and long-term ideological projects. It may have been the voters of Teller County who elected the ideological school board at the heart of the matter, but it’s not the voters of Teller County formulating and executing a legal strategy to consume the public school system from within and transform it into something unrecognizable. Someone else is doing that.

But who? And why Woodland Park? 
— Read on coloradotimesrecorder.com/2023/06/davis-the-small-colorado-town-at-the-center-of-far-right-plans-for-american-schools/53934/

How to email your board members and superintendent (how to avoid email censoring)

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).

Read more: How to email your board members and superintendent (how to avoid email censoring) Continue reading →

6/4/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week:

  • School’s out for summer! 😀
  • 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.

District takes down Facebook post about Teacher Appreciation Bags

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.

Fact check – Letters to the Editor

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

The board has extended transportation services to Merit Academy, without asking them to pay their fair share.

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.

Continue reading →

RN and special education staffing levels

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 step forward for the school board elections this fall

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:

https://gazette.com/pikespeakcourier/three-announce-candidacy-for-school-board/article_952a2e50-f69f-11ed-813c-739bcc65ba3c.html