Author Archives: Matt G

Baby We Were Born for War: To Dominionist Christian Groups, No Election is Too Small — and Colorado is Just the Beginning | Religion Dispatches

What had been, until recently, sleepy school board races across the state and the country, this year became political hot potatoes. The Colorado media generally cast these contests as battles between conservative groups and teachers unions, and that the results were mixed. But lost in this framing was the quiet electoral pilot project of the Truth and Liberty Coalition, the other arms of Wommack’s political and educational empire—and their out-of-state partner, the Texas-based Wallbuilders organization. 
— Read on religiondispatches.org/baby-we-were-born-for-war-to-dominionist-christian-group-no-election-is-too-small-and-colorado-is-just-the-beginning/

Liberals push back on Republican activism in school board elections

“There’s going to be more book bans, there’s going to be a broader pushback and they’re going to demonize LGBTQ-plus kids more than they already have,” Cousins said. “It’s an absolute right-wing radicalization of public education, and their mission is to make public education fail.”
— Read on www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/democrats-republicans-school-board-elections-parents-rcna52698

Here in Colorado, this right-wing effort is led by graduates of the Leadership Program of the Rockies like Brad Miller, Ted Mische, Bob Schaffer, Curt Grina, and Ken Witt.

WPSD Student Mental Health – 12/21 presentation

In December of 2021, Laura Magnuson (WPSD Mental Health Supervisor) and Josh DeSmidt (Restorative Practices Coordinator) gave a presentation to the board titled, “WPSD Student Mental Health.” While it’s a little more than a year old at this point, this report did a fantastic job of outlining some of the grants that the district receives, and exactly how that grant money is spent. There’s been a lot of talk lately about interim superintendent Witt’s policy of rejecting any grant money (due to ‘strings attached’), but I think most of us don’t really understand how that grant money is used. This presentation goes a long ways towards explaining that. As you read it, keep in mind that Witt is declining every grant…the positions and programs outline here will not be funded through grant money and are expected to be cut at the end of this ’22-23 school year.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rDts0w-zbfLH2YAgBoKr-frr7dEfR0Sb/view?usp=share_link

Witt’s latest – firing staff, and violating CORA

Ken Witt’s latest efforts to destroy the Woodland Park school district include firing two people last Friday (Logan in IT, and Morgan in payroll), and watching on the sidelines as the district is in violation of the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA). Specifically, on that last point, the district is not complying with the mandatory three day response period for single-document inquiries, or up to 10 days for others. They’re violating both. Much of the their delays have been due to the board choosing to have Brad Miller’s office review all CORA results for redactions. Miller drags his feet, results get delayed, and the board doesn’t care.

The district is even facing a new lawsuit alleging violation of CORA, refusing to turn over records from December.

Despite having a backlog of overdue CORA requests, Witt decided that the position of the person responsible for managing this process (Logan) was unnecessary, and eliminated that position. No word yet on who will be taking up this role…but the sort of transparency provided by laws such as CORA has never been a priority for this board.

Is the Middle School overcrowded? A look at the numbers.

When discussing his decision to move sixth grade out of the Middle School, Ken Witt has consistently referred to overcrowding in that school. So let’s visit that point, and see what the facts say about space in the Middle School.

Last year, the board used a study from Cooperative Strategies to justify partitioning the Middle School into two schools, making room for Merit Academy. According to that report, the Merit Academy side of the school has capacity for 471 students, while the Middle School side has capacity for 432 students. These numbers do not take into account present or potential future modular buildings on the north side of the school build (Merit’s side).

The Colorado Department of Education (CDE) has data available on their website for attendance in all schools in the state. Merit Academy has 331 students, of which only 292 are onsite (the rest are homeschool enrichment); the Middle School has 391. The data shows Merit is at only 70% capacity; the Middle School is at 91% capacity (which is a bit below the 94% capacity the board predicted it would be at when it made the decision to split the building for Merit). The data does not show overcrowding at present.

Enrollment numbers for the ’23-24 school year are unknown, so nothing to base any decisions upon. However, we’ll look at what we know. Merit shows 27-41 students per grade. They are new to high school, and really only have a 9th grade this year. Assuming all their kids ‘bubble up’ into higher grades, they’d potentially be adding around 40 kids. Maybe they’d flush out some of the other grades closer to that 41 number. I consistently read that 90% facility usage is a nice target to shoot for, so let’s assume that (and ignore that our board wanted to put the Middle School at 94% capacity). Merit has a capacity of 423 students at 90% capacity, or an increase of 131 students (not counting the homeschool enrichment enrollment) – an increase of 45%! Perhaps they’ll hit that number, we just don’t know at this point.

I know the board is applauding Merit for ‘growth’ in the school district, but as page 17 of this presentation shows, 293 district students chose to go to ERBOCES (which Merit Academy was a part of at that time) in the ’21-22 school year – part an increase of 352 students opting out of the district compared to the previous school year. It’s clear, Merit pulled students from the district when they opened, then brought them ‘back’ into the district once the district absorbed Merit. This was not some radical growth in the district, it was just shuffling kids around, and to assume that Merit can now find 131 new students? Perhaps they’ll draw some from the Public Schools, but considering they’ve already been around for two years now, I question how many there left to get that haven’t already made that switch.

How does enrollment look for the Middle School? If we assume all current fifth graders move on to the Middle School, that’s 113 students being added, while 121 eighth graders leave for the High School. This bumps Middle School capacity down to 89%.

Actual attendance numbers for next year are unknown. What IS known is that the ‘overcrowding’ argument is based on very ambitious recruitment goals for Merit Academy; whether they’ll succeed is a bit question. If they needed more capacity, they do have existing modular structures on the north side, with space to add more. Perhaps they’ll need more space in the Middle School in the future, but for the ’23-24 school year, the data does not support any radical changes to the makeup of that building.

What this analysis is lacking – firsthand reports, that boots on the ground perspective that only the staff at the school can provide. Given the hostility Witt has shown towards them, I felt it best to not approach staff with questions and to just lay out the facts here instead. I also realize this doesn’t not take into account things like classroom size or number of rooms per grade, though when it comes to analyzing Merit, since they have control over those factors (they can limit enrollment, unlike the Middle School) I felt it OK to leave that part out.

School board and Ken Witt move to restrict free speech in Woodland Park

The Woodland Park school board, and interim superintendent Ken Witt, have made several moves to clamp down on the speech of teachers and other staff in the district.

First was last December…the board blamed Sara Lee, a teacher at the High School, for the student-led protests. After placing her on administrative leave for about a month, they finally just cut her position at the highs school and moved her to Gateway Elementary (but then had to hire someone to do the position she was cut from…).

In January, the board adopted the American Birthright Standards. The Colorado Sun reached out to social studies teachers to learn more about this; one Middle School teacher asked district administration if it’d be OK if he talked to the Sun about this and Witt used policy KDDA to prevent him from doing so. Later, Witt used the newly adopted American Birthright standards to ban a book from a high school elective class.

What does policy KDDA say? Or rather, what did it say in January (it later changed…)? Here’s the January copy:

Also in January, the board reduced the public comment section in regular board meetings from 60 minutes, to 30 minutes.

Next up was the news about moving sixth grade to the elementary schools. After the middle school teachers protested this by staging a sick day protest, following by a massive public protest the following morning, Witt took charge. First, he fired a Middle School staff member, again citing policy KDDA and seeming to point blame at her for the sick day protest:

Next, Witt sent an email to Middle School staff warning of further retaliation if staff were to do something like this again:

Finally, we received word that policy KDDA had been updated…or rather, expanded, to silence teachers from saying just about anything about the district. Here’s the latest copy (we’re not sure if the 2/28/23 revision date is accurate or was back-dated; no announcement of this policy change was made):

So if a teacher has a kid in the district…they can’t talk to the press about their own kid even.

Is this legal? There are, naturally, differing opinions on this topic. If you read about the Supreme Court’s decision in Pickering v. Board of Education, though it really makes this seem like an unconstitutional move on the part of the board and Witt. The Brechner Center studies this issue more in this link. It’ll be interesting to see if our board ends up in the courts over all this.

Update on Curriculum Review

With Tina Cassens leaving the district, it raised the question of, who will be reviewing the curriculum as dictated by our board to make it comply with the American Birthright Standards?

The answer is Lis Richards, who is charging us $4700 for this work. You can read the description of the work to be done in this proposal (note, only phase one has been authorized at this point). Or read the highlights here:

Attend an introductory and organizational meeting at the district in regard to
the curriculum alignment to the American Birthright Standards.
• K-6 Review – Evaluate the vertical alignment of curriculum to the American
Birthright Standards, their relation to the Colorado Academic Standards thus
assisting the District in demonstrating that they are following the prescribed
educational program approved and are meeting or exceeding state standards.
• 7-12 Review – Evaluate the vertical alignment of curriculum to the American
Birthright Standards (ABS), their relation to the Colorado Academic Standards
thus assisting the District in demonstrating that they are following the
prescribed educational program approved and are meeting or exceeding state
standards.
• Provide a report to the Superintendent which would include:

• Grade level report on social studies curriculum providing a matrix of
completion toward vertical alignment and any lacking content (Some content
may be covered in different grade levels and this may be noted.)
• Recommendations to the Leadership provided in writing.

This work is being done through Lis’ consulting company, Helping Schools Thrive.

But wait, there’s more!

Lis Richard is also the president of the board for ERBOCES, the company for which our interim Superintendent Ken Witt works for as Executive Director.

Protests, staff ‘sick-out’ over Woodland Park Middle School decision – Sixty35Media

Staff members and families in Woodland Park School District are protesting after the district announced on Feb. 28 it would move sixth graders from its middle school and expand three elementary schools to preschool through sixth grade by the 2023-2024 school year. 
— Read on sixty35media.org/news/protests-staff-sick-out-over-woodland-park-middle-school-decision/

Parents stand up for middle school staff

Thursday morning, around 80-100 parents, students, and concerned citizens showed their support for staff at the Middle School by lining the sidewalk as teachers arrived for a scheduled meeting with interim superintendent Ken Witt. This comes a day after nearly two dozen middle school staff members called in sick in protest of Witt’s decision to move the sixth grade classes back to the district elementary schools. This was NOT a decision the board had discussed with the public, though surveys in November did ask this question…with the answer (on page 5) clearly showing the public did NOT support the idea of splitting sixth grade off from the middle school like this. This was not a decision made in collaboration with staff at any of the schools, and elementary school staff has expressed uncertainty about how to fit the extra kids in place. There are also unanswered questions about less opportunity for sixth graders with this move, especially band and forensics.

Wednesday, in response to the staff’s sick day, Witt sent this following email threatening action if this were done again:

The teachers appreciated this show of public supported, though ultimately the day ended on a sour note as Witt fired one middle school staff member for alleged interactions with media, as explained (without much detail) in this letter below:

So, what’s next? Well, when the middle school was partitioned last spring, a feasibility study showed Merit being given a bit more than half the space when viewing student capacity…theoretical capacity of 471 students, vs. the Middle School’s theoretical capacity of 432 students. With 331 students enrolled this year, Merit did not seem to need more space. The middle school, at 391 students, was full but not quite capacity. So how does this change make sense? Especially since it will leave the Middle School at around 270 students (based on current 6-7th grade enrollment).

This screenshot shows the division of the school between Merit (top) and the Middle School (bottom):

Witt said this change was being made to provide more space for Merit…and looking at this map, it’s not clear what will change to accomplish that, easily. What we actually expect to happen next is 7-8 grades to be moved to the high school, and the entire Middle School building to be given to Merit.

And therein lies one of the biggest complaints about this school board…they are not up front about their plans. They are not telling the whole story here, there are blanks yet to be filled in, as their story about moving sixth grade to the elementary school buildings just doesn’t add up on its own.