Last Week:

• We posted an update on the lawsuit between the WPEA and WPSD. The board hired yet another new lawyer (at least three different law firms now); there are four active lawsuits against this board and school district.
• The Braver Angels are launching a chapter in Woodland Park – dedicated to depolarization.
• Read an opinion piece on the WPEA lawsuit.
• The High School principal, Mr. Burr, wrote an update in the Panther Nation newsletter.
• Check out another podcast, TeachLab, featuring a couple former WP teachers.
• The CDE published CMAS scores for this past school year.
• In response to book banning in other communities, some groups are making apps to help students access these banned books.
• The WPSD announced they’d be adding armed guards in our schools (not using SROs), though details are very sparse currently.
• Check out this podcast, This Week in the Bear Cave, featuring local parent Samantha Peck talking about her recent experiences and court trial and acquittal.
• If you missed it, here’s Sarah Voget’s letter to the editor.
• We dug more into the 8/9 board meeting, where they voted to let Merit expand their usage of the Middle School building as much as needed over the coming years – effectively giving them the whole building. No plan was announced for what is to be done with the 7/8th grade public middle school currently sharing that building with Merit.
• Check out this resignation letter from a Gateway teacher, for some good insight into what our teachers are going through under this board and superintendent.
• In case you missed it, after the ACLU sued the district for banishing Logan Ruths from district property for one year, the district very quickly folded and revoked the banishment order.

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

• Back to school time! First day of school is Wednesday for most students.

Last Week:

• Read the latest letters to the editor in the Courier.
• The Woodland Park School District was named in two new lawsuits last week. The first involves parent Jessica Pool and involves first amendment rights on religion. The second is another first amendment lawsuit, this one involving former district employee Logan Ruths who found himself banished from district property for a full year after speaking out in a board meeting in June.
• The Colorado Times Recorder obtained an audio recording of attorney Brad Miller speaking about how he helped enact these changes in Woodland Park.
• The three people challenging the board incumbents in this fall’s election (Seth Bryant, Keegan Barkley, and Mike Knott) released a single website that links to their different pages, http://www.wpsdkids1st.com/. Much easier to share with people than having to send three.

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

• School Board meeting Wednesday, August 9th, 6:00PM in the district conference room (link to agenda). We have no reason to expect the board to open up the overflow room or move this to the auditorium like some past meetings have been, so plan on attendance being limited to the first 90 people. The agenda says they’ll be taking action on updates to the Facilities Usage Agreement, and Charter Agreement, with Merit Academy. They have not posted details about what those updates entail.
• School starts in just over two weeks, and the district has not announced any plans to provide a security presence in our schools. They refused to work with the WPPD on SROs, but will be discussing this topic in executive session this Wednesday so I’m hopeful they’ll put a plan in place before school starts.

Last Week:

• If you’re wondering how many teachers and staff decided not to return after the ’22-23 school year, check out this summary.
• CORA requests have shed some light on the topic of SROs in schools. The district says there are no officers available…emails from the police chief seem to suggest otherwise. We’re expecting the board to reach a deal with Sheriff Mikesell’s private security company for this instead.
• The board promised teachers a 5% raise in July…it didn’t materialize…but getting this news out on social media prompted the district to at least send an email to all staff clarifying this.
• Colorado Times Recorder Logan Davis published a fascinating piece digging into the money behind the American Birthright standard (Woodland Park was the first in the nation to adopt this).
• Truth and Liberty Coalition is continuing its efforts to recruit people to run for school boards across the state. We also posted a video where Sue Patterson confirms she is a Charis grad.

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

• Two and a half weeks until teachers need to report for the school year…and the district is facing a teacher shortage. How will they address this? Perhaps we’ll learn more at the next board meeting, week after this one on Wednesday August 9th.
• The three candidates challenging the incumbents in this November’s election set up a new website shortcut with links to each of their individual websites…this will make it easier for you to share with other people.  http://www.wpsdkids1st.com/

Last Week:

• The three candidates challenging this board in this fall’s election had a meet and greet event in Memorial Park Saturday.
• The Gazette published an article about Samantha Peck’s recent success in court.
• We published details of the district’s deal with Scott Gessler’s attorney office to represent the district in its appeal in the CORA video case.
• 9th graders did great on their PSAT test last spring, and we published the results here (the district has not released this yet, we obtained it via CORA).
• Here’s a new infographic showing how this board is dividing up transportation costs between Merit Academy and the five traditional public schools.

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

• The district currently has 14 open teacher positions posted on its website. Parents are growing concerned about what impact this may have on their kids; it’s an issue we’re all following closely.
• The Junior Woodland Players have been working hard on their production of The Little Mermaid; shows are this Friday (7:00PM), Saturday (7:00PM), and Sunday (1:00PM) in Dickson Auditorium (high school).

Last Week:

• Local parent Samantha Peck finally had her day in court and was found not guilty of all three charges brought against her last August when she called 911 on a woman at Safeway who turned out to be David Illingworth’s wife (follow the link for articles talking about the history of this).
• We summarized the legal expenses incurred by the district over the past four fiscal years.
• Reporter Logan Davis published another article relevant to our district, this one focusing on the American Birthright Standards for social studies which Woodland Park adopted this past January.

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

• Next Saturday, July 22nd, the three candidates challenging the board incumbents this fall are hosting a ‘meet and greet’ and fundraiser in Memorial Park from 12:30-3:30; they’ll be serving up free hot dogs and answering questions. If all three of these individuals get elected, that will leave only two of the current board, Rusterholtz and Patterson, in place and the balance of power will shift.

Last Week:

• The three candidates challenging the board incumbents in this November’s election have scheduled a meet-and-greet in Memorial Park for July 22nd...more info here. It should be a good opportunity to talk to them one on one.
• Woodland Park’s old fashioned Fourth of July celebration in Memorial Park saw the board incumbents drift further into making school boards partisan, with their appearance at the Teller County Republican’s booth. Keegan, Knott, and Bryant were seen walking around the part talking to people, sticking to a more traditional non-partisan school board philosophy.
• In their July 6th meeting, the Woodland Park city council recognized Gateway’s accomplishment of earning the Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award. A few public speakers spoke up about that as well as the High Schools’ recent SAT score success, and pointed out how this board’s actions have led to the resignation of large numbers of the teachers partly responsible for these accomplishments.

This coming week should be a quiet one, with no scheduled board meetings for July and the district on a four-day work week for the summer.

Last Week:

• Investigative journalist Logan Davis published his second article about Woodland Park (if you missed the first, one, click here).
• A school in South Carolina also banned the book “Between the World and Me” from its classrooms.
• There were several good letters to the editor published in the courier, on June 14th, and June 21st.

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

• The next regular board meeting will be in August.

Last Week

• The board held its regular monthly meeting on 6/14/2023. The main focus was approving the budget for school year ’23-24. I’m still pouring through some details so will have more on that later. The board did not move the meeting to a larger space, though everyone who wanted to attend was admitted as there was no organized appearance of Charis students like the 5/10 meeting (which left ~100 people standing out in the rain).
• We noticed an interesting link between board member Kimbrell and a Moms For Liberty leader in Colorado Springs.
• Gateway Elementary won the Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award! The district made no announcement of this though…I have CORA requests pending to try to figure out why.
• The WPSD board is no stranger to ‘serial meetings’…meeting one on one in private to skirt open meetings laws. A court case in Douglass County threatens to put an end to that strategy.
• We’re seeing similar turmoil in other school districts…one in Texas being the latest example.
• KOAA reported on the expansion of mental health screenings in Colorado schools (except for a few like WPSD).

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

• The next regular board meeting will be in August. The board met in executive session on 6/14 to discuss security arrangements though, so it wouldn’t be surprising for them to schedule a meeting before the end of the fiscal year to implement a new program, if they reach consensus on one and if it will affect the budget. So we’ll be watching for a last minute meeting scheduled in June.
• School may be out, but this is a time to dig deeper to check into some things the district is doing. So stay tuned for more.
• Three people have announced their intention to run for school board against the three incumbents up for reelection. I haven’t heard much since that original article in the Courier, but expect that as the summer goes by, their campaign efforts will ramp up. I’ve looked into these candidates and think they’ll be great board members!