District enrollment decline data (10/5)

We repeatedly hear David Illingworth and Ken Witt talk about enrollment increases in the district. The only way they can make that claim is if they count Merit Academy kids as NOT being part of our district the year that school opened in the ’21-22 school year. From a legal standpoint that’s correct, but it ignores the fact that Merit Academy was physically located in city limits that first year. So I’m going to count them as part of the district, but I’m including all the data at the end here if you want to interpret it differently.

District-wide enrollment

  • 2021-2022 school year: 2036 students
  • 2022-2023 school year: 2007 students
  • 2023-2024 school year: 1904 students

Note that the 2023-2024 numbers are not yet final and won’t be until closer to the end of October, though are showing a 5% decline in enrollment. I have not included pre-K in these numbers due to the universal pre-K program new to Colorado this year – comparisons to past years are not applicable as a result.

When Merit Academy opened for the 2021-2022 school year, we did see a 2.6% enrollment boost – that school helped fill a niche here, though Covid is also credited with driving people out of cities and to the suburbs. Note though this was before the current board was voted in.

2021-2022 school year (data per the CDE)

1832 students in the district schools, 1749 if you don’t count pre-K. Merit had 287. Total is 2036, or 2119 with pre-K.

2022-2023 school year (data per the CDE)

Total is 2007, or 2122 students with pre-K.

2023-2024 school year (preliminary data from 9/25 district count)

Total is 1904, or 2026 with pre-K.

Campaign Donation Summary (10/4)

Colorado does a great job of managing elections, with so much data made available to the public. Financial data is tracked via TRACER, a great website with comprehensive data on donations and expenses for campaigns. The most recent filing was due yesterday, so with this new data, here are some observations.

The fundraising leaders are clearly the three challengers; here are the fundraising totals from highest to lowest.

  • Seth Bryant: $24,975.65 raised
  • Keegan Barkley: $22,682.38 raised
  • Mike Knott: $22,613.29 raised
  • David Illingworth: $14,971.03 raised
  • Mick Bates: $10,978.24 raised
  • Cassie Kimbrell: $9,622.36 raised

Each side is running as a slate of three candidates, so another useful comparison is the total per slate. In that case, the three incumbents (Bates, Kimbrell, Illingworth) have raised $35,571.63, while the three challengers (Bryant, Knott, Barkley) have raised almost double that, $70,271.32!

The other interesting data point is the average contribution. Despite Bryant, Barkley, and Knott raising nearly twice what the incumbents (Bates, Kimbrell, Illingworth) they’re trying to defeat this election have, their average contribution was around half of the incumbents’. Here are the average contributions, again ranked from highest to lowest:

  • Mick Bates: ~$168 average contribution, from 58 individual supporters
  • David Illingworth: ~$161 average contribution, from 87 individual supporters
  • Cassie Kimbrell: ~$129 average contribution, from 66 individual supporters
  • Seth Bryant: ~$80 average contribution, from 215 individual supporters
  • Keegan Barkley: ~$77 average contribution, from 225 individual supporters
  • Mike Knott: ~$75 average contribution, from 220 individual supporters

(note – these averages are approximate and do not account for donations from the candidate themselves to their election committee)

So in summary, the three challengers (Seth Bryant, Keegan Barkley, and Mike Knott) are raising nearly double the amount of money the incumbents are, and doing so through a large number of smaller donors. The incumbents are relying on a small number of larger donors to fund their campaigns.

There are two Independent Expenditure Committees registered to support the incumbents. The only one reporting donations currently is Teller County for School Choice. They’ve raised $3,700 so far, and while they are not yet reporting any expenses, they do owe the state of Colorado $550 in late fees for not filing their reports on time (that’s 15% of their total raised so far). David Illingworth himself has racked up a large quantity of fines for late filing; we’ll dig into and summarize that at a future date (but it’s all visible on the TRACER website if you want to explore it yourself).

Numerous times, the board has declared the opposition to their actions to be the part of “a small group of radicals”. They’ve downplayed the magnitude of opposition and repeatedly talked about having widespread support. These fundraising stats do not appear to support those claims.

Ballots are mailed out around the middle of this month, and due November 7th. You can track the status of your ballot, from mailing to being accepted, at this website. VOTE!

WPHS Academic Awards Night

The WPHS Academic Awards Night was scheduled for…the same day and time as TWO competing school board candidate forums. I’m told this award night was scheduled long ago, before the forums. Which means, the school board which supposedly prioritized ‘academic success’ chooses to celebrate the academic success of the high school students by skipping the awards ceremony for a campaigning event instead. I suppose this explains why the board is holding their candidate forum in the Columbine gym instead of the high school auditorium!

Of course, the big question is, will Witt be bothered to make an appearance this time (he was a no-show at the May event)?

Timeline of candidate forum controversy

As you’ve probably heard, instead of the one traditional school board candidate forum, there are currently FOUR scheduled, and a FIFTH was in the works until shut down by the school district. They are:

  1. Chamber of Commerce Forum (10/9)
  2. Victory Life Forum (10/2)
  3. Merit Academy Forum (10/17)
  4. Woodland Park school district forum (10/9)
  5. Woodland Park student-led forum (CANCELLED)

I’ve had some help from community members piecing together a timeline of events, and am summarizing it below:

  • September 5th: Chamber Forum invitation sent to incumbents and candidates.
  • September 12th: District Forum Invitation sent to incumbents and candidates.
  • September 13: Email to District by candidates requesting alternative moderators with neutral suggestions. 
  • September 13th: Receipt of email from candidates confirmed by District.
  • September 18th:  Invitation sent from Merit for a Merit community exclusive forum to incumbents and candidates.
  • September 19th: After no response, candidates decline District’s competing forum.
  • September 19th: WPSD HS students invite incumbents and candidates to the student led forum. 
  • September 21st: Candidates respond requesting that WPHS students include Merit students on their moderation team
  • September 22nd: HS students email Gwynn Pekron (Headmaster), Mrs Hanson (Head of Upper School), and Mrs White (secretary) asking if 3-5 Merit students would moderate with them.  
  • September 22nd: Mrs Hanson responds favorably but Ms Perkron politely declines as they are doing their own forum. 
  • September 26: David Illingworth posts a joint statement that the incumbents will attend the District forum, the Church forum and the Merit forum. 
  • September 26: Kevin Burr (HS Principal) informs incumbents and candidates that the HS Student forum has been canceled by the District. 

At this point in time, there is no forum scheduled with all six school board candidates present.

Also scheduled for October 9th, is the WPHS Academics Night at the high school, awarding students for academic excellence (which, it seems is actually not the priority the board claims it is as they scheduled their forum for that evening).

Not a Good Start to the School Year | Guest column | Pikes Peak Courier | gazette.com

If the traditional schools are fully staffed (or close to it) and in great shape, why did my first grader’s class size jump from 16 to 30 this year?

How is this the best education for my daughter when her class is so big and loud that she comes home with headaches to the point we bought noise canceling headsets so she can concentrate on schoolwork – while in class?
— Read on the Gazette

Candidate Forum Update

The candidate forum chaos continues, but with a little clarification. Yesterday, the Woodland Park School District sent this email out to parents:

Dear WPSD Families,

We want to inform you of an upcoming event – the School Board Candidate Forum on Monday, October 9, moderated by Peter Hilts. Mr. Hilts currently serves as Superintendent of District 49 in Falcon, CO, and provides consultation to education leaders around the state. This event offers a valuable opportunity to engage with the candidates running for our school board and gain insights into their visions for our schools.

Event Details:

Date: Monday,  October 9

Time: 6-8 p.m.

Location: Columbine Elementary Gymnasium

During this forum, candidates will address your questions, share their perspectives, and discuss their plans for our school district.

Forum Format:

Questions solicited from the community will be reviewed to identify common themes, and a selection will be made by the moderator, ensuring their appropriateness for a 90-minute forum. The forum will be conducted in three 30-minute segments. Ballot opponents will be asked the same questions during their allotted 30-minute segment. The remaining 30 minutes are reserved for opening and closing statements.

How to Participate:

Your active participation is essential in making this event a success. To submit your questions for the candidates, click here or visit the homepage of our district website at wpsdk12.org. 

We look forward to your presence at the School Board Candidate Forum on  Monday,  October 9 , from 6-8 p.m . 

Thank you!

We learned the moderator selecting questions is Peter Hilts, the CEO of District 49 and a consultant the WPSD board hired to lead their retreat in Black Forest in the spring of last year. He helped Ken Witt and Brad Miller start up Colorado Digital BOCES (later becoming ERBOCES), and has worked with Brad Miller quite a bit apart from that, including in his current role at D49 where Brad Miller is the attorney (if you’re new to all this, Ken Witt is the Woodland Park superintendent, and Brad Miller was brought in by our current board to be our attorney).

Of course, it’s worth noting that this district candidate forum is at the same date and time as the one organized by the Chamber of Commerce (to be held in the Ute Pass Cultural Center). The district has not answered questions about why they chose this date/time, though it seems clear from their supporters on social media that they did not approve of the moderator of the Chamber event. Questions for the chamber event are drafted by a non-partisan group of Chamber members, and the audience is allowed to submit questions (direct attacks will not be allowed), so the moderator seems to have less influence here than at the district event (the moderator will not edit any questions).

The three challengers all posted statements about this to their Facebook pages today:

I am confirming my attendance at The Greater Woodland Park Chamber of Commerce candidate forum on October 9, 2023.

All candidates were asked to save the date of this forum back in June.

Two days after we received our official invite we were informed the district scheduled their own forum with a hand picked moderator on the same day and time.

Keegan Barkley, Seth Bryant and I reached out to the district in good faith to see if we could agree on a moderator for their forum but did not receive even a courtesy response. Total crickets from the incumbents.

I hope they will reconsider and attend this important event for our community.

Mike Knott

…

Disappointed but not surprised.

Disappointed in the decision to intentionally schedule a conflicting candidate forum with a moderator who is not a stakeholder in our community, but not surprised with the track record the district leadership has placing politics and personal agendas above the best interests of students and families in Woodland Park School District. Deliberately creating conflict instead of trying to negotiate or collaborate in the best interest of the community is not good leadership, it is not good public service.

In an effort to try and give the community a forum that would have all six candidates I requested a date change, I was met with silence. In an effort to get a moderator who understood the complexities of our community, I asked for an impartial local conservative and provided names for consideration, again silence. It was only after officially declining did the district publicize the event. I think it is shameful to use a position of power to deprive the community of the opportunity to compare and contrast the candidates.

I look forward to participating in a long-standing Chamber of Commerce forum for the elected officials of our community. My campaign was, as was the district and other candidates, notified in June to reserve the date. We confirmed upon receipt of my invitation and I will be honoring my commitment. I look forward to seeing you there.

Seth Bryant

…

I am excited to announce that I will be participating in the upcoming Chamber candidates forum! This is an incredible opportunity for the community to hear our plan for the future and have your remaining questions answered.

It is disheartening that the incumbents decided to hold their own forum at the same date and time, despite knowing about the Chamber event since this summer.

We reached out to the incumbents in an attempt to create one event where all 6 candidates could come together, but they were unwilling to even respond.

This is just another example of this board not listening to the will of the people and catering to their own personal agenda. We deserve better from our elected officials and it is time for a change!

True leadership and public service involves open and respectful dialogue. It is about working together for the betterment of our schools and community.

I am committed to being a school board member who listens, engages, and works tirelessly to represent YOUR interests. Together we can bring about the change Woodland Park actually needs!

Keegan Barkley

This is yet another example of how this current school board has fostered division in this community rather than unity and healing. If even one of those three gets reelected this November, we can see exactly what we’ll get…more of the same. Voters have a choice.

9/17/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week:

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • I’m hoping we can get some clarity about those three different candidate forums, especially the two overlapping ones. Stay tuned!