Author Archives: Matt G

More than two dozen Woodland Park teachers and staff call out sick protesting school changes | Colorado Public Radio

Twenty-five middle school teachers and staff in the Woodland Park school district northwest of Colorado Springs called out sick Wednesday to protest sudden changes in district schools. It’s the latest turmoil in the small district since a controversial new interim superintendent was selected in December.
— Read on www.cpr.org/2023/03/01/woodland-park-teachers-sick-out-protest/

Woodland Park School District makes big change for 6th graders, more than 2 dozen teachers call out sick

Some of the parents reaching out explained teachers called out sick on Wednesday to protest the decision. Lindsey Prahl, the Communications and Marketing Director for the district, is reporting Woodland Park Middle School had 25 unexpected absences on Wednesday. It isn’t clear if all 25 people who called out were tied to the protest.
— Read on www.kktv.com/app/2023/03/01/woodland-park-school-district-makes-big-change-6th-graders-more-than-2-dozen-teachers-call-out-sick/

Ken Witt’s contract details

In the interest of transparency, we wanted to make available Ken Witt’s contract with the district, and to summarize some key points here.

  • Salary: $155k (on an annual basis) from our district (Neal was compensated at $152k)
  • Cell phone allowance: $100 per month
  • Auto allowance: $500 per month
  • 15 days of paid vacation per year
  • Termination without cause requires 120 days advance notice and financial compensation equivalent to four months of base salary.
  • Contract allows Witt to continue to work as Executive Director of ERBOCES.
  • $4000 annually provided for professional growth/development

In addition to Witt’s contract with Woodland Park RE-2, his contract with ERBOCES remains in effect. Under the terms of that contract, Witt receives:

  • Salary: $155k (annual) plus up to 12% bonus (his bonus paid in May 2022 was $15,500).
  • Auto allowance: $500 per month
  • Cell phone to be provided at ERBOCES’ cost
  • 22 days of paid vacation per year, plus 10 days of paid sick leave per year
  • Termination without cause requires 30 days advance notice and financial compensation equivalent to 90 days.
  • $2400 annually provided for professional growth/development

So combined, taxpayers are paying Witt:

  • $310k annual salary, plus a bonus of up to $18,600
  • Free cell phone, plus $100 a month
  • $1000 monthly auto allowance
  • $6400 for professional growth/development
  • 37 paid vacation days per year (though it’s not really 37 total days, as it’s combined between two full time jobs…), plus 10 sick days

Sources:

2/26/23 Weekly Update

With the district being on winter break of most of this past week, things were pretty quiet. However, the one piece of news that broke was significant…Tina Cassens is leaving the district after being here 28 years. This is shortly after Del Garrick made a similar announcement a couple weeks ago. The loss of these two well loved and experienced educators is a huge blow to this school district and undoubtedly a sign of more to come.

In other news:

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • The next scheduled board meeting is next week, March 8th. It wouldn’t be surprising for them to schedule a work session for this week to further some policy change plans, so be on the lookout for that.

Tina Cassens is leaving!

Tina Cassens is moving on from the district, see her email to staff below. She’s been a valuable member of the staff and will be sorely missed.

This comment was posted to a Facebook group…I think it’s worth reposting here to help people understand what this all means:

Unless you’ve personally seen Tina in action, I don’t think you can grasp how big of a loss this is for our district. She’s an amazing educator, maybe the best, who EARNED the respect of her peers through consistent authoritative inclusive leadership, a constant growth mindset, creativity in solving incredibly difficult problems, and a truly giving heart. I’m so grateful I had the opportunity to work with her.

Elizabeth School Board meeting reveals tensions in district | Elbertcountynews.net

The Elizabeth School District, a generally conservative district in western Elbert County, is experiencing extreme turmoil that is radiating through the entire Elizabeth community. Members of the school board are feuding over the perceived threat that critical race theory (CRT) and social emotional learning (SEL) might appear in district classrooms.
— Read on elbertcountynews.net/stories/tense-elizabeth-school-board-meeting,422282

Report: Colorado’s education system is in crisis, and teachers are feeling it | Colorado Public Radio

Colorado’s education system is in a state of crisis, leaving many teachers feeling overworked, underpaid, not respected and worried that large, systemic issues connected to underfunding are hurting their students.

That’s according to the annual State of Education report from the largest teacher’s union in the state, the Colorado Education Association.
— Read on www.cpr.org/2023/01/31/colorado-teachers-report/

District statement on NCAA class eligibility

A parent in the district recently noticed that because of the district’s adoption of the American Birthright standards, some classes at the high school no longer met NCAA eligibility requirements. The district’s response is below, in an email sent to parents today. In summary, they’ll be submitting the new class info for review this summer, and also note the timeline for that review is uncertain. It doesn’t sound like parents will get an answer in time to decide whether to enroll their student here or elsewhere for this next school year, though it’s expected there will be online classes offered that would meet NCAA requirements.

Yet another example of the avoidable chaos that this school board and interim superintendent seem to embrace.