Category Archives: News

Connecting the Dots

The Thompson School District Reform Watch on Facebook does a really good job of detailed investigations with supporting evidence. They recently ‘connected the dots’, and it’s worth reading below.

“Connecting the Dots” proves the agenda in Woodland Park is MUCH BIGGER and much more dangerous to public education than anyone knows!

RW: Our post here is long but it has a story to tell that must be said.

One thing that is for sure is that the WPBOE & their supporters are on a mission to “Get Rid of the Woodland Park Teachers Association and the Colorado Education Association”. This was a major item on the agenda in Jeffco & Thompson back in 2013. The Thompson Education Association sued when their MOU was in major trouble and the courts ruled in with the teachers. The voters spoke loud and clear as well. Gone were Kerrigan, Rice, Langner and Brad Miller. Jeffco said bye-bye to Miller, Witt, Newkirk and Williams. Miller resigned in both instances.

The union IS our teachers and they work for all students & parents in a positive and fair manner. Not at all like the board members and their supporters that we have observed at board meetings and those who came disguised as teachers or pro-public ed supporters that were planted by the far right to disrupt, swear and threaten and give their masters something to blame on the education association. How about the public comment speakers who give false names?

The Woodland Park SD Bully Pulpit can be connected way back, to not only to the Independence Institute/Leadership Program of the Rockies/Americans for Prosperity, but higher yet.

Just some of the team that we find have been involved for years in this agenda are: Paul Lundeen, Brad Miller, Tim Farmer, Bryce Carlson, Barry Arrington, Gwen Benevento, Bob Schaffer, the Centennial Institute (Jeff Hunt), Colorado Christian University (Deborah Scheffel), Luke Ragland, Jon Caldara, Ben DeGrow, Ross Izard, Kevin Lundberg, Owen Hill, Tim Geitner, Ken Witt, Bob Gardner, the Neville family, Steve Schuck and many others.

Attorney Brad Miller’s actions during his tenure in Jeffco, Thompson, Falcon 49 and now other districts has often brought out concerns about his ethics, his knowledge of the law, his behavior behind closed doors and more. Some question whether he is a school attorney or a school entrepreneur because of how he appears to drum up business for himself and the Independence Institute agenda.

In reviewing other law firms that are legal counsels to school districts, that behavior is not observed. They are not out creating new charter schools, network schools, home school enrichment programs, online charter schools and more as Miller & Witt have been doing. The emails between Miller & Carlson with Mesa County 51 that were CORA’d speak volumes as to why the concerns should be addressed.

When a new conservative majority has been installed (and even before it has happened) Miller seems to have been the attorney who suddenly appears on the scene as new legal counsel. The Sup and current legal counsels are soon gone. And then it is chaos as we see happening in Woodland Park.

SOURCE: https://annelandmanblog.com/…/emails-between-d-51…/

This situation deserves an investigation from people who are much bigger than RW and the Woodland Park teachers, parents, students and community members who are working hard to SAVE THEIR WPSD!

The latest effort to take over our public schools and rid school districts of teachers unions doesn’t just exist in Woodland Park, Colorado.

If you come across organizations that include words like “freedom, patriots, guardians, liberty and conservative” beware!

Thompson saw it with Rumfelt’s ‘Liberty Watch’. Jeffco had several groups. In Northern Colorado and all across the state we are seeing Cain’s ‘Task Force Freedom’, The Front Range Patriots and the Northern Colorado Conservative Patriots. In Weld County it is “Guardians of Weld Re-4 and Guardians of Greeley Evans 6. In the Colorado Spring’s area we see ‘Liberty on the Rocks’ and ‘Pikes Peak Patriots’, ‘Truth & Liberty Coalition’, ‘FEC United’. At the national level we see the ‘Moms For Liberty’, ‘Parents Defending Education’, ‘Freedom Foundation’, ‘Freedom Watch’ and ‘Freedom Works’. We could list many more here. Americans for Prosperity and KOCH have their mitts in all of it.

But, do you know that ALL of these DOTS connect?

****************

Now we see “WP Families for Freedom” and their FB page ‘Freedom Watch News’.

These two new groups may sound new to the WP scene but the names behind them are not new at all. RW started digging and found plenty of cause for alarm and further investigation.

The web site – ‘WP Families for Freedom’ & and their FB page, ‘Freedom News Watch’ include some of the very same people that RW and Support Jeffco Kids has followed for years. At the top of the that ladder sits the Independence Institute & Americans for Prosperity and all of their created organizations like Ready Colorado, Advance Colorado and more.

‘FAMILIES FOR FREEDOM’ – Even the name tells you to run!

https://www.facebook.com/freedomwatchnewsonfb

A very important point about the current post on FWN needs to be made here regarding the ‘Families for Freedom’ fund raiser for the overdue school lunch accounts. Yes it is a great project and one badly needed, BUTTTTTTTTTTTT there is a catch here. ‘Moms For Liberty’ uses this project as a way to gain favor with the communities they are in and portray themselves as Good Guys who are there for the kids. It is a well planned image campaign. School supply backpacks are another one they are doing.

MFL have done this is Cheyenne, WY and other districts across the nation. Now we wonder if Moms For Liberty El Paso County has themselves involved in the Woodland Park school district as well.

FFF: “Freedom Watch News is a news source brought to you by a Teller County, Colorado based non-profit. Families for Freedom was started to promote school choice, access to classical education, parental rights and scholastic excellence. Families for Freedom will also pursue citizens right’s for transparency in government, free and fair commerce, and other pressing issues.

Families for Freedom and Freedom Watch News was created by Teller County residents to help provide fact-based news for pertinent issues in our community.”

RW: The founder of ‘Families For Freedom’ is Jameson Dion a well-known GOP activist in Teller County. Known for his numerous letters to the editor and more. Appears on the Kim Monson show (also II & LPR) with Jen Gibbons (Cherry Creek Parents Advocacy Network) – “Teachers unions are not focused on educating kids but is focused on power and control.” He is the latest feature in the book banning campaign.

CO ID #: 20228012078 – The address on the SOS document is Dion’s address although his name is not there. It is who his agent is that tells the real story here. She has a long history in supporting the far right extremist agenda. J Dion is, like Cain of Task Force Freedom, just another willing pawn in their game.

AGENT: Gwen Benevento (Maven Law Group) aka now as The ‘West Group’ (Name was changed Dec 2022) https://westgrouplp.com/professionals

Benevento:

• Agent for Cain’s Task Force Freedom & another Task Force Freedom Action.

• Agent for LPR’s Michael Fields & George Brauchler’s ‘Advance Colorado’. https://advancecolorado.org/ Brauchler is president of AC.

• Spouse of Doug Benevento, former controversial DougCo BOE member leading the school voucher cause, pay for performance and anti-union agendas with Ben DeGrow of the II as well as the controversial president of the Douglas County Board of Health with his anti-mask/mandate agenda.

https://www.denverpost.com/…/resignation-dougco-school…/

‘FREEDOM WATCH NEWS’ – FWN is not the ‘CREDIBLE SOURCE for educational news at all’ as they claim to be! Sharing posts from Epoch Times and the Freedom Foundation which are true fake news conspiracy sites proves that.

https://freedomwatchnews.com/

WHO do we find on the website and FB page?

NAMES & Posts THAT STAND OUT FOR GOOD REASON!

• Plenty of fake news site articles including many from the Epoch Times & the Freedom Foundation!

• Several names are fake as WP parents have found. How ethical is it for a board member to be doing (if he is)?

• Jameson Dion – Among the many complaints he has was the one that he and Illingworth pulled together to remove not only a book but the high school teacher as well. Witt was fully supportive. Dion hosted a conservative board candidate ‘Meet & Greet’ at his home prior to the November 2021 election for Illingworth, Rusterholtz, Patterson & Brovetto on 9.25.2021.

• Clinton Smith is believed to be either Dion or D Illingworth.

• Woodrow Parks aka Curt Grina – “How can we get the WPEA out of our schools here in Woodland Park?”

• Curt Grina aka Woodrow Parks – Very outspoken against the teachers and their union among other things. Check out the posts by both C Smith and W Parks on the FB age.

https://gazette.com/…/article_2bda2f9c-87b7-11ed-8d91…

https://gazette.com/…/article_acd880b0-9047-11ed-8c6d…

• Andrew Wommack: ““We decided that we were going to take Colorado back,” Wommack said. “Colorado is a very liberal place, and so we’ve got a thing in place, and during the last election cycle we started with the school boards. We singled out five districts in Colorado, and we put out 417,000 voter guides. The GOP got incensed at us because we asked, ‘How do you feel about men competing in women’s sports? What do you think about critical race theory?’ They did not want those things to be public. So, we asked all the candidates—Democrat and Republican—and we put out these voter guides, and out of 178 people that we were supporting, we got … somewhere around 78 or 80 of them elected. So, we’re beginning to make an inroad, and we’ve got some big plans in place this year.”

“I sent a spy into our public school system to check out what the books are,” Wommack revealed later in his speech. “I got a list of I think it was 54 books in the Woodland Park School System—and this is a small place, 7,000 people in the community—and there’s 54 homosexual books that we know off. I’ve got a list of that, and I’ve got people that are on my staff that go to every school board meeting, and as soon as we get [the books] looked at so that we can defend what we’re saying, we’re going to stand up in the school board.”

“We now have a number of our Charis graduates that are on school boards, and we’ve got Christians in places,” he added. “Praise God, we’re seeing things change.””

RW: Other names that are common in this agenda include:

• Nicole & Derek Wagner – Merit Academy founders & also Florida residents.

• Katie Illingworth – Merit parent & now supposedly former Merit board member. Spouse of WP BOE member David Illingworth. How is it that he, as a board member didn’t recuse himself from voting on the Merit application? As the media has shown, he appears to enjoy being a controversial thorn directed at educators and their union. As a Deputy District Attorney, all should be concerned.

• Mary Sekowski – Merit board member. Her name shows up many times.

• Jen Gibbons – Cherry Creek Parents Advocacy Group aligned with J. Dion on the far right ‘Kim Monson’ (II & LPR) conservative talk show pushing conspiracy theories about the teachers unions.

• Bob Schaffer – Liberty Common Founder/Headmaster/LPR Chairman

• Tom Krannawitter – A very controversial guy (easy to Google him) that we find to be someone Rumfelt in TSD appears to admire as she posts links to his conspiracy agenda.

Please take time to browse the two Woodland Park conspiracy pages and note the comments by Woodrow Parks & Clinton Smith and remember as you do that they are fake names.

Sources:

Merit & ERBOCES: https://www.cato.org/blog/friday-feature-merit-academy

Liberty Common Newsletter, Oct 6, 2022 Bob Schaffer, Casey Churchill and Merit board members

https://www.denverpost.com/…/charter-school-liberty…/

The Federalist: https://thefederalist.com/…/no-politics-public-school…/

K. Illingworth ‘Go Fund Me for Merit Academy’ in May, 2021. Appears to have raised $9,000 of a $300,000 goal. https://www.gofundme.com/f/small-school-great-expectations

https://www.facebook.com/TSDReformWatch/posts/pfbid0Poxg6xbrcJ9jtY6WvEYXmXFjyLWvfr9HgyvmVVHLkDa1d3EbSZdamzLVvHBqF9mel?cft[0]=AZWCzqlKi_jIdDT1SVOG_V_WvqRH4_M6AvRdJJ6mAPX9rr-0ZPw_fBBf7WyhKNuMBjHQV-qzx-ncaQJrMIFktWXc9KVCMHIDwAMezskbcIgBpZeIrkwD69_AFSpmYjV64tPE3aatECdr0fGRVqYOwZ6h&tn=-UK-R

Is the Hillsdale Curriculum coming to Woodland Park?

The Hillsdale College 1776 Curriculum has created quite a bit of controversy, and you really should familiarize yourself with it if you haven’t already. Check out these links for a quick primer:

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/184718

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/30/hillsdale-affiliated-charter-schools-spread/

The Liberty Common charter schools in Fort Collins have been shown to have close ties to Hillsdale, though it does not appear like they use the 1776 curriculum at this point in time.

Our district’s first charter school, Merit Academy, visited LCS recently and seems aligned with their philosophy. It remains to be seen if Merit will drift more into the Hillsdale side of things, but that does seem like a strong possibility.

Ken Witt uses American Birthright standard to censor class

As previously discussed here and elsewhere, The Woodland Park school district recently removed the book, “Between the World and Me” from the high school election course, “Civil Disobedience.”

This action was taken after a resident, Jameson Dion, filed a complaint about this material on January 7. The district has a very clear policy for review of instructional material, policy KEC, and did not follow it in this case. Rather than form an appropriate review committee, Witt made a unilateral decision (which you can read here) to remove the book from the class on January 22.

So this is what we’ve come to. A single man making the decisions of what should and should not be used by teachers as instructional materials in class, disregarding policy and debate.

Third Future Schools cancels plans

Interim superintendent Witt sent an email to staff and families Friday, saying Third Future Schools no longer intended to submit a charter application. It’s unclear what negotiations had been happening behind the scenes that may have led to this.

Union Intimidation in Woodland Park

We are witnessing intimidation of the teacher’s union in Woodland Park, the Woodland Park Education Alliance (WPEA). This started with board director David Illingworth, who wrote (emphasis added is mine):

“If you expect me to play nice with the union, then you don’t know me.”

source

This union is openly attempting to organize a coup in our schools using our equipment. They have abused our agreement. Therefore, I expect the board to review that agreement for modification or termination.


Further, they clearly feel emboldened and unchecked by your principals and executives. We will not employ people who seek to undermine and resist the people’s business. The exceptional education of our children is our highest priority, not begging forgiveness from people who have underperformed.

In light of the open warfare launched by the union, with the tacit support of leadership, changes that might have been unnecessary before now become imperative. As our employee, I encourage you to use your best judgment in preparing a list of positions in which a change in personnel would be beneficial to our kids, and would likewise help the union see the wisdom in cooperation rather than conflict.

source

Can you please ask the Superintendent to provide us any information he has about WPEA membership and command structure?

source

Now, a resident relatively new to this town (with no kids in the schools), Jameson Dion, has obtained video footage of the WPEA’s recent meeting (CORRECTION 2/1 – this meeting was open to all teachers, not just WPEA), and is promising to post it online. He already posted a short segment of the video online as a ‘teaser’ of what’s to come. A screenshot is included below, but please note – the yellow markups are MY doing…Dion posted this unaltered, so you could see the face of the person speaking as well as the names and faces of some of the people joining the Zoom call and shown at the top (and note, he posted an actual video segment, not a still photo).

I’ve never been a huge union proponent…I consider myself more neutral on them as I’ve seen them do very good things in the past, as well as things I did not agree with. But I do believe it is critical for union members to be able to meet in privacy, without fear. This is a basic American right. Unions have played a central, beneficial role in shaping our society and while I like to see oversight, I do not like to see attacks like these.

Book Banning has begun in Woodland Park schools

High School parent Bridget Curran has a child in the ‘Civil Disobedience’ class in the high school. The BOE gave the teacher an ultimatum, remove the reading of the book “Between the World and Me” or the class would be eliminated completely. The teacher refused, the class is gone. We’ve submitted a CORA request for emails related to this.

posted 1/24/2023 to the Concerned Parents of Teller County Facebook group

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

Amazon

Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone)

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” 

Fiscal Recklessness in Woodland Park

Most of these board members are relatively new to town. Us that have been here a long time remember days not so long ago, when the Middle School roof was leaking. Trash cans were placed in classrooms to catch the drips. The district had no money for a new roof. I recall sitting in on a presentation by Superintendent Bowman at the time…he outlined the expenses on staff, district-wide, at a very detailed level. He convinced me the district was operating as lean as it could be…and yet…there was still no money for a new roof. In the spring of 2016, voters surprisingly stepped up to help! We passed a 1.09% sales tax coupled with a property tax reduction! This has made a huge difference to our schools, and yes, the Middle School got their new roof. 🙂

This current school board has been completely reckless with spending and an insult to taxpayers who deserve more from our elected officials. Let’s look at some examples.

The board spent around $100k of district money to bring Merit Academy into the district. The feasibility study for the middle school cost our district $51,596.53. Caplan and Ernest, lawyers brought on solely for closing the deal with Merit, cost us $32,268.50. Brad Miller incurred some uncertain amount of legal fees until he stepped away from the deal at the end (his legal fees for the first five months of 2022 were about $66k and he was very involved with this beginning in January). The board was not required to give Merit any of the sales tax revenue…they could have withheld enough of that sales tax revenue to reimburse the district for expenses incurred bringing in Merit.

Miller’s legal advice to the board led to them violating Open Meetings Law in January, leading to a preliminary injunction and subsequent legal fees incurred by defending themselves in court. The exact cost is unknown, as Miller did not invoice separately for this court case and he redacts details from the invoices we request through CORA.

In June, Illingworth called for a special board meeting, where they decided to remove Superintendent Neal from the district. Having no cause for doing so, it cost the district $275k to break his contract (plus whatever legal fees were incurred by Miller for this).

Having put in place two very competent co-superintendents, Del Garrick and Tina Cassens, the board then proceeded to hire a new temporary interim superintendent, Ken Witt. Which on the surface is not necessarily financially bad, this board found a way to really screw taxpayers over on this one. They’re paying Witt an annual rate of $155k, plus a $500 car allowance and $100 cell phone allowance. The contract makes it very difficult to remove Witt, as doing so would require 120 day notice or comparable financial compensation! To top it all off, Witt is allowed to keep working at ERBOCES, where is also being paid $155k, gets a $500 car allowance, and a cell phone provided to him. Taxpayers are paying Witt more than $310k to work two fulltime jobs. You can read Witt’s contract with Woodland Park here, or read his ERBOCES contract here (that contract has been extended). Our district alone is paying a full time salary to someone that’s barely working here part time.