Author Archives: Matt G

Your tax dollars for their private school? More states are saying yes – Los Angeles Times

We get caught up in our fight with our local school board, but it’s important to remember that there is a nationwide effort to privatize the educational system in this county, and that once we win our local fight, we need to shift focus to the national level.

This opinion piece from the Los Angeles Times talks about this more and is a good, quick primer on the topic.

— Read on www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-02-12/school-vouchers-private-public-school-iowa-kim-reynolds-lgbtq-parental-rights

If you have the time, it’s also worth listening to this podcast on the subject, as it talks more about where voucher programs may lead the educational system and a future for charter schools that wish to operate more like private schools.

https://soundcloud.com/haveyouheardpodcast/charter-schools-go-private?si=e27543d8678d44b2891e1be43e0a5e4e&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Enforcement of Social Studies standards in Colorado

Unless you’re new to this website, you already know that the Woodland Park school board adopted the American Birthright standard for social studies last month. Colorado Public Radio published a great article about this, and talked about how the state board of education rejected these standards last fall. These standards have already been used to censor one class, so naturally parents are concerned.

So, what’s a concerned parent to do? Well the state mandates that each district implement standards that meet or exceed the state standards.

Surely the American Birthright standard, which the state already rejected, wouldn’t meet these criteria?

I contacted the Colorado Department of Education. They in turn reached out to the Woodland Park school district about this issue, and received this reply:

So, they’ll be taking a non-compliant standard, picking and choosing sections to ensure compliance? On the surface this sounds bad but possibly compliant. But in the end, who will judge whether the district has pulled off this tightrope act? Turns out the answer is…the district themselves. The state does not review districts to actually ensure they’re complying with the state standards! This is what the Colorado Department of Education told me:

So there you have it.

Is there no government body overseeing our school board? Hey, what about the Colorado Association of School Boards! Sounds promising, right? Umm…no:

News Literacy Project

It seems I hear about “fake news” almost as much as credible news; sorting fake from real is a challenge in American society these days. It’s nice to see efforts being made to help with this, such as the News Literacy Project. They work with educators and journalists to give students the skills they need to discern fact from fiction and to know what to trust.

They also offer Checkology, a free online learning platform for educators to use in their classrooms.

Read more about this at The Washington Post

House committee approves bill to add school and special districts to ethics commission oversight | Subscriber Content | gazette.com

A bill is advancing at the state level that would put school boards under the oversight of the state ethics commission! This is exciting news for, I think, both sides in our town, as both sides have accused board members of unethical behavior yet had no recourse as complaints have gone unanswered. It’ll be interesting to see if this succeeds in becoming a law.

House committee approves bill to add school and special districts to ethics commission oversight | Subscriber Content | gazette.com
— Read on gazette.com/colorado_politics/house-committee-approves-bill-to-add-school-and-special-districts-to-ethics-commission-oversight/article_661613be-78ed-505d-b5dd-16d743f59946.amp.html

2/8/2023 School Board Meeting

The public comments in the 2/8 meeting were really inspiring and worth watching…you can view this segment below. Lots of new voices at this meeting and some great speeches, word really is spreading.

In the meeting itself, Witt proposed a change to GP-5, to change from:

Board must represent the interests of the citizens of the entire school District

To:

Board must represent the educational interests of the students and their families as first priority, as well as the citizens of the entire school District

This change is expected to come into play with any decisions regarding social issues with students (LGBTQ+, etc) – we expect less tolerance for anything like that (especially after Illingworth’s questions in the 1/25 meeting!). We have CORA requests open to learn more about what discussions may be going on behind the scenes. This was a FIRST READING of this policy, so has not yet been enacted. Be sure to email board members if you have concerns about this (see the district contact info page).

The board also voted to modify the district calendar for next year…I expect they’ll publish that soon.

Here’s the entire meeting: