While unfortunately only three school board candidates (Seth Bryant, Keegan Barkley, Mike Knott) showed up to the forum organized by Woodland Park High School students, the community turned out in large numbers and packed the large conference room of the public library. Three students read questions that had been submitted by students; you can watch a recording of the event below (the last few minutes of Seth Bryant’s closing speech were cut off due to technical issues).
The first time I heard of Mick Bates was on January 25th of this year, when he was one of three people the board interviewed to fill a seat left vacant by Chris Austin’s resignation in December (you can watch Bates’ interview here). He struck me as a likable guy, the sort who would make for a good neighbor in these parts. After being chosen to be the new board director, Bates proceeded to vote in unison with the board consistently…never offering a dissenting opinion, just going along with the majority. I decided I should learn more about Mick Bates, since he’s one of the three up for re-election this November. Here’s what I’ve learned.
Mick Bates is a graduate of the 2015 class of the Leadership Program of the Rockies, a sort of social club for people identifying with far-right philosophies. Among the 63 other graduates that year are a couple names that should sound familiar – Bryce Carlson (partner in Brad Miller’s law firm) and our superintendent, Ken Witt. Other graduates of this program you’ve probably heard of are Brad Miller, Curt Grina, Tim Farmer, Jimmy Sengenberger, Dan Williams, Trevor Miller.
Mick’s local influence grew in the following years, and he became the chair of the Teller County Republican Central Committee. Then in one of the candidate forums last week, we listened to Mick Bates take credit for helping to engineer the political takeover of our district back in 2021:
I noticed that we hadn’t had School Board elections no one had been challenged for 11 or 12 years and so I engaged in a process to put together a group of candidates um primarily conservative candidates Dave was one of the original candidates we interviewed people put the best people forward that we could and at the time we elected a uh we had there were four seats open and we won four of four seats
10/9/2023 candidate forum
The conservative slate Bates helped get elected didn’t last long; director Gary Brovetto resigned in the spring of 2022. The board chose Cassie Kimbrell to take that seat.
According to the public information website TRACER, on September 5th of 2022, Mick Bates donated $500 to the campaign of board director David Illingworth (though he had not announced an intention to run for re-election, with the election being more than a year away still). That same day, Jameson Dion donated $1,000 to Illingworth (Dion is a very vocal board supporter on social media). No explanation was given (or required) for these off-cycle donations.
September saw more controversial decisions by the board with the their decision to dismiss the SAC and DAC committees which had just completed their training, and put in place their own selections. The board proceeded to announce a plan to hire an interim superintendent to replace Del Garrick and Tina Cassens, long-time district administrators who had been made co-superintendents just that August and by all accounts had been doing a great job. The one member of the board NOT part of that slate, Chris Austin, resigned in early December. The board chose only one person to interview for the interim superintendent position, Ken Witt, and hired him at the end of December.
In January, the board interviewed Mick Bates and two others to fill the seat vacated by Austin. As you know, Mick Bates was chosen; it’s worth watching the board’s brief discussion about which candidate to choose…there wasn’t any discussion, they all had their minds made up already. We did learn a little about Bates’ religious perspective in this interview, where among other things, he said this:
…this separation of church and state has been around a long time but it’s backwards it was intended to keep the state out of religion not religion out of the state…we’re a Judeo-Christian country…
Since the January interview, we didn’t really hear much from Bates. He didn’t say much in meetings, didn’t offer a dissenting view, just voted along with the rest of the board. In August, with his re-election campaign heating up, he did propose a meager 15 minute increase in the public comment period in board meetings (which has proven insufficient, as the 10/11 board meeting showed).
Now that the campaigns are in full force, we’re hearing a lot more from Bates. With the district scheduling a forum at the same date and time as the Chamber of Commerce candidate forum, Mick Bates reached out to someone named Bill, asking him to write a piece for the Courier about these forums. He helped get this slate in place and bring all these changes to our district; it was clear he didn’t want to give that up so quickly:
We just need to get ahead of this and go on offense like we discussed, We want to create the narrative!
Prior to the start of the 10/11 meeting, Bates came outside to address one of the dozens of people locked out of this meeting (the board refused to move it to a larger venue)…you can watch that below:
I’ve come to realize my initial impression of Mick Bates was not correct. He’s been involved with orchestrating this far-right takeover of our school district from the beginning. Despite the division it has fostered in this community, Bates is working hard to not lose control of what he’s helped build.
Mick Bates is running against Seth Bryant for that school board seat.
So many people – on both sides I’m sure – were looking forward to voting on this school board race and being done with this. Ballots were mailed Monday, and started being received today. What greeted people opening their envelopes though, was this:
Not what people expected…where was the school board race? Calls to the county clerk revealed there has been a printing mistake, due to switching to a new printing service. We’re expecting a press release and/or other public announcement from the county soon to set the record straight, just know that replacement ballots should be mailed out later this week. The county’s website has an example of a sample ballot, and shows that it SHOULD look like this:
Last year, the board revamped the SAC/DAC appointment process, giving themselves absolute control over those boards. They’ve made their selections for this current school year – much later than traditionally has been done though (there are reviews the SAC/DAC would typically do before this point that aren’t happening as a result).
In all, 44 people applied! You can see the members selected at the district’s website. The board did pack the committees with people known to be supporters of this board, which does raise the question about how much ‘accountability’ these accountability committees will provide. Additionally, nine of the members chosen did not submit applications to be on one of the committees (Sean Pekron, Mike Demuth, Richard Starling, Samantha Huitt, Julie Lyons, Kristin Montgomery, Grace McKoy, Finn Bryant, Shaina Lampton). It’s not clear why those people were chosen over people who HAD submitted the proper applications.
This video is from March, 2023, when Ken Witt talked to staff at Gateway Elementary. Just in case you need a reminder of how he treats staff, and what sort of person this current BOE wants leading our district.
What happened to what was going to be our fifth school board candidate forum, the one hosted by Woodland Park High School students? Massive rejection, that’s what. First, their attempts to hold a joint Merit/WPHS forum, where students from both schools would organize and moderate the forum, was quickly rejected by Merit Headmaster Gwynn Pekron. Then, WPHS students’ own administration rejected them, when Ken Witt and Kim Moore shut down this effort.
But Woodland Park Panthers are tough. They don’t just back down.
I’m proud of the students of the Woodland Park High School…they are proceeding with their school board candidate forum, in defiance of the wishes of Ken Witt and the board members that support him. Since their school won’t support them, they’ll be holding their forum at the Woodland Park Public Library on Saturday, October 21st, at 10:00AM. I’m told that invitations have gone out to all six candidates; I do not know how many have replied. But a forum being hosted by the very students our board is responsible for, and hosted in our public library? This seems like our best chance yet to get all six candidates in the same room at the same time.
If you missed the WP School Board Candidates Forum hosted by the Chamber of Commerce, you can watch the video here. The district has not yet posted the video of the incumbents’ separate forum; I’ll post a link if they do so.
— Read on myemail.constantcontact.com/WP-School-Board-Candidates-Forum.html
For students planning on playing college sports, taking classes that meet NCAA requirements is super important. A lot of parents have been wondering whether the American Birthright Social Studies standards would impact NCAA eligibility? It’s understood that any course curriculum change requires that class to be re-submitted for review. So where do we stand? The NCAA has a helpful website where you can look up each school and see the status of all classes, and it turns out we have a LOT of classes where the NCAA is holding off approval while they await information from the district. Here’s the list:
I suspect – but really don’t know – that the American Birthright Standard is only responsible for the seven classes in the ‘social science’ section. I also believe that the district might never seek NCAA approval for many classes on this list, so keep in mind the situation probably isn’t as bad as this list makes it seem. Just be sure your kids are choosing classes that meet their needs and paying attention to the NCAA status of each.
In February, the district attempted to reassure parents by saying their goal was to finish this work by registration time in August:
What do we know about the district’s work done so far on this? Unfortunately, not much, apart from the large list of classes pending approval. However, the people at the NCAA are very helpful and told a caller today that district executive assistant Kelley Havin called today to reset their admin password – it seems they couldn’t even access the school information. Which really suggests that they haven’t been working on this! Keeping all this in mind, here’s the email the district sent to parents yesterday about this topic:
That email does little to address the concerns about pending status of classes, and what timeline we’re looking at to resolve all this.
The NCAA has a comment line that they listen to on a daily basis. The number is 317-917-6762.
Tonight was the night of the forum battle! The school district scheduled their own school board candidate forum for the same date and time as the already-scheduled candidate forum being hosted by the Chamber of Commerce. We were all curious how it would go down…who did the voters want to hear from the most?
The same cannot be said for the forum hosted by the school district, featuring incumbents Mick Bates, Cassie Kimbrell, and David Illingworth:
Meanwhile, our superintendent Ken Witt, who repeatedly talks about prioritizing academic success. The High School was holding their Academic Awards ceremony at the same time. Witt decided to go to the district forum for the incumbents instead of actually prioritizing academic success and celebrating the accomplishments of those high school students.
The response from the board and superintendent Ken Witt has been foul. Thursday evening, the district issued this press release:
It continues to disappoint us to see the teachers union prioritize its political views over the needs of students. If the energy they invest in attacking the Woodland Park School District (WPSD) administration and school board was instead turned towards academics, there would not be a need for the board to direct implementation of sound and fundamental educational standards.
This “teacher press conference” appears to be another union tactic to again dredge up issues that have been thoroughly addressed. These union affiliates are engaging in political maneuvering when the focus should be on the education and safety of our students, which they claim to care deeply about. We are equally disappointed but unsurprised to see CBS choose to be a platform for union opposition to the improvement of education in Woodland Park, enthusiastically seeking to assist in the union opposition to our school board.
Yes, this district adopted a traditional framework for civics and social studies – because we had to realign from courses such as “civil disobedience” and statements by the teachers union in Colorado that they disavow Capitalism, the free market which makes this nation the envy of the world, while they quip communist tropes. And yes, we still ensure we meet or exceed Colorado state standards.
Our community is tired of teachers believing they have the authority to determine what is taught. This is the responsibility of the people, through their elected representatives, the board of education. The concept of teacher supremacy over the rights of parents, voters, and even representative democracy must be rejected.
Yes, we declined some money earmarked for mental health services, which are often utilized for gender confusion and sexual identity matters instead of the sort of counseling and character development that our schools ought to pursue. We are returning to pre-COVID norms, focusing on teaching academics rather than loading the system with so many social workers and mental health practitioners that little time is left for learning. We have a counselor in every school and teachers who are trusted adults and watchful for students needing additional support. We also forged a new partnership with Mindsight this year to ensure we have all mental health support needed.
This district aims to design policies that uphold a respectful working and learning environment while fully honoring First Amendment rights. It is important to emphasize that WPSD does not seek to suppress anyone’s First Amendment rights. Nevertheless, it is expected that all district employees conduct themselves professionally and portray the district aims positively when working in their capacity as employees, where they have a role as representatives of WPSD.
We recognize that there continue to be staff members who seek to pursue goals related to unorthodox worldviews that run counter to the values of this community, but we are adamant that the role of the school is to come alongside parents in the education of their children. It is not the role of the school to be endorsing ideologies or undermine the values taught in the home. This administration proudly acknowledges the accomplishments which this small group of union-affiliated individuals decry. Their proposed alternative, a return to sexual politics, anti-capitalism, and hatred for America, is unacceptable to the administration of this school district, our board, and our community.
Ken Witt, Superintendent Woodland Park School District
That’s Ken Witt, accusing our teachers of proposing ” a return to sexual politics, anti-capitalism, and hatred for America”!
Then today, this email was sent to parents:
Dear WPSD Families,
A false narrative is spreading through the Woodland Park community via a campaign of fear-mongering, claiming that the adoption of the American Birthright standard somehow jeopardizes NCAA accreditation of courses and implies that courses are not meeting Colorado Academic standards. This is patently false.
WPSD fully meets or exceeds Colorado Academic standards, and so courses have no real risk of losing NCAA accreditation. All WPSD courses are and will continue to be accredited. The district notes that adding the American Birthright standards has exposed a number of gaps in the previous civics and social studies content and has both resulted in the creation of a new course, World Geography, as well as the addition of the contributions of a large number of significant historical figures that had been overlooked.
The addition of the American Birthright standard to supplement the Colorado Academic standards has improved the depth and breadth of WPSD civics and social studies instruction, to the irritation of those teachers union affiliates bent on fostering a hatred of America in our youth.
Again, accusing teachers of being “bent on fostering a hatred of America in our youth.”
It’s absolutely unreal to hear a superintendent, with no objection from our board, speak about our beloved teachers in this manner.
