From the 3/20/2024 Courier:
Woodland Park School District’s fiscal exigency
On March 1, WPSD Superintendent Witt announced that Gateway will be closed next year without any prior communication to stakeholders and without a single school board discussion. Ken said “This is a fiscal exigency that we need to consolidate these three schools”.
Why is the superintendent declaring fiscal exigency instead of our school board?
When mid-year budget revisions were presented in January and February, why was there no mention of a financial crisis?
Why have the self-proclaimed ‘conservative’ school boards elected since November 2022, consciously chosen to engage in deficit spending for the last two years if we were facing financial crisis? (Note that between 2015 and 2022, the general fund budget had been more or less balanced year after year. During the 22/23 school year, we spent $3.2 million more than our revenue. During this 23/24 school year, we have budgeted to spend $2.1 million more than our revenue.)
Why did district administration just quietly spend a very large sum on a new elementary Language Arts curriculum, and discard 5 years of curriculum that was completely paid for (AND that was selected using a rigorous process, involving input from parents, teachers, administrators and community members)? The new curriculum was purchased without ANY stakeholder input and is what’s offered at Merit Academy. How is this offering families ‘choice’?
Fiscal exigency? Why did we give our superintendent a 9.7% raise, with promises of a 5% annual pay increase and potential bonuses?
This is painful to witness.
Khurshid Rogers, Woodland Park
