It’s been a frustrating week but…I think this website is working again! It was down for a few days last week; recovery from backup proved possible but did take longer than I’d like. The cause is not clear, some database issues on the web host side but why that happened, I don’t know. The timing wasn’t great, either, as we had a board meeting last week! They’ll be meeting again this Wednesday to (presumably) extend Ken Witt’s superintendent contract yet again. So stay tuned for that.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
’23-24 preliminary enrollment numbers
It took a few CORA requests, but I finally have the preliminary enrollment numbers for our school district, as of the end of August. These are absolutely not final, it’s the count in early October that matters, but it’s a valid data point that shows where we’re starting this year at. I’ll update these numbers once the official October count is complete.
Since this is the first year of universal pre-K in Colorado, I’m excluding those numbers from each years’ comparison. Just focusing on Kindergarten through 12th grade. Also note, I’m using CDE data for previous years (download the ‘membership_grade_by_school’ files). Merit Academy has many students in their homeschool enrichment program, and the CDE counts those as 50% (for funding purposes). So for consistency, I’m applying the same 50% there (for ’23-24, they have 60 students in this program so that counts as 30 in the numbers below; they had 59 the previous year).
In summary, this is yet another year of declining enrollment in our school district, even considering the growth in Merit Academy.
| ’21-22 | ’22-23 | ’23-24 | |
| Traditional Public School enrollment | 1749 | 1676 | 1592 |
| Total District Enrollment* | 2036 | 2007 | 1986 |
Here’s the breakdown by school for the same time period. Merit has shown growth, the other schools are decreasing. Note the sharp drop in the Middle School for this year is largely due to moving 6th grade from that school to the three elementary schools.
This school board has consistently voted to boost Merit and ignore our traditional public schools, and these numbers reflect that. We continue to see declining overall district enrollment, too.
If you have concerns about me not including preschool in these numbers, here are the enrollment totals WITH preschool included:
| ’21-22 | ’22-23 | ’23-24 | |
| Traditional Public School enrollment | 1832 | 1791 | 1721 |
| Total District Enrollment* | 2119 | 2122 | 2085 |
Lastly, note that per CDE data, in the ’22-23 school year, 473 students in our district opted out, and went to schools in other districts. We don’t know what the numbers are for ’23-24 yet.
Continue reading →Stay Woke, Public School Teachers | gadflyonthewallblog
If we are truly educators, we must teach the truth.
We must put the facts in their proper context.
We must encourage our students to think about what came before and what’s happening now.
We must stay woke.
Or the whole world sleeps.
— Read on gadflyonthewallblog.com/2023/03/12/stay-woke-public-school-teachers/
Update on Curriculum Review
With Tina Cassens leaving the district, it raised the question of, who will be reviewing the curriculum as dictated by our board to make it comply with the American Birthright Standards?
The answer is Lis Richards, who is charging us $4700 for this work. You can read the description of the work to be done in this proposal (note, only phase one has been authorized at this point). Or read the highlights here:
Attend an introductory and organizational meeting at the district in regard to
the curriculum alignment to the American Birthright Standards.
• K-6 Review – Evaluate the vertical alignment of curriculum to the American
Birthright Standards, their relation to the Colorado Academic Standards thus
assisting the District in demonstrating that they are following the prescribed
educational program approved and are meeting or exceeding state standards.
• 7-12 Review – Evaluate the vertical alignment of curriculum to the American
Birthright Standards (ABS), their relation to the Colorado Academic Standards
thus assisting the District in demonstrating that they are following the
prescribed educational program approved and are meeting or exceeding state
standards.
• Provide a report to the Superintendent which would include:• Grade level report on social studies curriculum providing a matrix of
completion toward vertical alignment and any lacking content (Some content
may be covered in different grade levels and this may be noted.)
• Recommendations to the Leadership provided in writing.
This work is being done through Lis’ consulting company, Helping Schools Thrive.
But wait, there’s more!
Lis Richard is also the president of the board for ERBOCES, the company for which our interim Superintendent Ken Witt works for as Executive Director.
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
Thank you, teachers!
Thank you to all teachers in the district for all your hard work! We really appreciate it!
Merit Academy draft contract
In the 4/13 meeting, David Illingworth said a draft of the Merit Academy contract had been posted to this website. You can view everything we have on this contract at this link.
Report on failure rate of charter schools
Interesting article, read it here. Charter schools are a tough business…no wonder Merit wants WPSD support. Do they really deserve it though, when they haven’t even been in business for a year?
3/9 meeting agenda
The agenda for Wednesday’s board meeting is now available, click here. Note, this agenda was updated Tuesday morning.
Looks like a busy meeting…unknown personnel matters justifying a (closed) executive session….talking about giving Merit academy space in the middle school…a stipend for the “leadership team” (is that just a fancy name for the board?). Plus some sure heated public comments.
Meeting starts at 6, usually doors open half an hour before at which point you can sign up to speak in the public comments section if there’s time.