Our district has been targeted by a right-wing effort to redefine public education similar to what we’ve observed elsewhere in this country – except they’re finding great success here. A recently elected conservative school board has joined forces with a well known Colorado lawyer and school activist (Brad Miller) and is steamrolling their agenda through the district. On December 21st, they voted to hire Ken Witt, a controversial former board member from nearby Jefferson County who was recalled after two years on that board (one issue involved him wanting a curriculum that was more patriotic).
Here are some things that have happened in the last year or so since they were elected:
- Board hired Brad Miller immediately after his work at Merit Academy ended (more on Merit below). He also works for the ERBOCES organization that made Merit a contract school when their initial charter school application was denied by the previous RE-2 school board. Miller and Witt have worked together in the past and present.
- Board Director Illingworth’s wife was on the board of directors for Merit Academy and resigned shortly after her husband was elected to the board. He did not recuse himself from any matters related to Merit, rather he was one of the most vocal proponents of bringing them into the district.
- Concerned citizens accused the board of violating Open Meeting Laws, and a judge issued a preliminary injunction against them.
- The board decided to not follow their published process for approving a charter school, nor the process outlined in Colorado charter school law, and approved Merit Academy as a charter school in the district (Brad Miller was Merit’s lawyer before he switched to representing district RE-2, right after the conservative board was elected).
- The board terminated its contract with Superintendent Mathew Neal, at a cost of $275k (plus legal fees incurred by the board for this effort).
- The board has been vocally anti-union and hostile in their language. As one example, one director asked Superintendent Neal to prepare “a list of positions in which a change in personnel would…help the union see the wisdom in cooperation rather than conflict.”
- Andrew Wommack, the leader of an unaccredited bible ‘college’ in town (Charis), has publicly stated that he has a spy in the district and is targeting books he thinks should be removed. He said he has people on his staff that go to every board meeting. This individual has also encouraged his followers to “take over Woodland Park.”
- An effort to recall the board narrowly failed. (link1, link2)
- Two board members have resigned this year (one seat is currently vacant).
- Students staged two walk-outs to protest the board’s decision to name Ken Witt as the sole finalist for an interim Superintendent position. Those students also spoke at a board meeting and started an online petition at change.org, opposing Witt.
- The same day as the most recent student protest on 12/19, fourteen high school teachers lined up to request letters of recommendation and are likely to leave the district at the end of this school year. The other district schools had similar lines of teachers.
- A high school teacher was put on administrative leave (by request of the board) because of those student protests. The board deferred its 12/21 discussion/action on this issue to a future date and sources say the board wants to fire her.
- On 12/21, the board voted to hire Ken Witt, the sole finalist out of ten applicants for the interim superintendent position. (Gazette story)(Coloradopols story)
We’ll be working to flush out the content of this website in the coming weeks, but this should help bring you up to speed for now!