7/16/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week:

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.

Woodland park woman acquitted of all charges tied to calling police on school board member’s wife

During the school board recall effort last August, one of the recall organizers, Samantha Peck, was gathering petition signatures in the Safeway parking lot when she called 911 over concerns about a possible drunk person about to leave the store. That person was board member David Illingworth’s wife, and when police arrived, they did not detect any signs of alcohol or other concerns with that woman. After investigating further, Peck was arrested and charged with two counts of attempting to influence a public servant and filing a false police report with the Woodland Park Police Department.

Peck finally had her day in court last week, where a jury quickly found her not guilty on all three counts. The story linked to above contains video of board member David Illingworth being interviewed by police and contains further analysis of that, it’s worth reading and watching the video for yourself.

Peck later posted this to the Concerned Parents of Teller County Facebook group:

We live in a country with problems, just like the rest of the world. Our systems need work. However, our process still has the ability to provide justice if you are strong and patient enough. 12 everyday citizens heard all facts of this case and decided in mere minutes not only am I innocent on all charges, but they took the time to talk with both parties to tell them this was the grossest abuse of power they have ever seen. That says it all. I could write pages sharing with you each and every detail of this case. But, I would rather focus my efforts on using this to help our community move forward. This case has proven that David Illingworth is willing to use his position for personal and political gain, even if it is unethical. I hope that isn’t what this community wants as a quality in our representatives. Please, vote this November. Spend time learning about the candidates. Make a difference for students whether you are a parent of a school age child or not. Leave politics out and vote based off of character. I’m proud because our country has prioritized the ideology that ALL children have a right to access education. Let’s protect a foundation of true values. Please vote.

In honor of my tribe I will include a few highlights that will live with me forever:

-Mr. Lane proving Officer Humphrey lied and forcing him to admit it

-The prosecution’s own witness testifying Humphrey lied about what she said

-The strength of Rachel and Jill to tolerate the prosecution trying to attack them. Yet these brave women never faltered and got to share the truth

-After the prosecution tried to attack me for my facebook post returning to Mr. Lane (arguably the great human I have ever met) and having him say to me your post was good, you ARE like those people you wrote about

-Mr. Lane casually reminding the jury Katie Illingworth wasn’t honest

-The jury’s faces when Humphrey had to admit he taped the conversation when David Illingworth tells him how to falsly charging me, but didn’t record my conversation with him showing just how innocent I am

-The jury almost falling out of their seats when Mr. Lane asked Humphrey what did the witnesses say when you interviewed them, and Humphrey had to say he never did and never has interviewed the witnesses

-The prosecution cross examining a war hero and offering to call him COL and his response: just call me Lee❤️

And now that I type those moments I realize just how bad corruption is in Woodland Park…help end it. Get involved, write letters, ask questions, but above all, VOTE.

It’s nice to finally have this all behind us. The past year has seen several references to this incident, with people jumping to conclusions rather than waiting for the facts to come out in court. For example, Andrew Wommack, in May, described this incident as ‘swatting’ (he got the facts wrong but this is the incident he was talking about at time stamp 2:00 of this video). In June’s board meeting, one of the public comment speakers likewise talked about this ‘swatting’ incident. The verdict is clear and Peck’s innocence has been established; I hope those individuals apologize to her.

Woodland park woman acquitted of all charges tied to calling police on school board member’s wife | KRDO

A Woodland Park woman, who was a leading member of the effort to recall members of the Woodland Park Park School District Re-2 board, has been acquitted of all charges by a Teller County jury. Samantha Peck, 42, was previously charged with two counts of attempting to influence a public servant and filing a false police report with the Woodland Park Police Department.
— Read on krdo.com/news/2023/07/14/woodland-park-woman-acquitted-of-all-charges-tied-to-calling-police-on-school-board-members-wife/

District Legal expenses

The current board has greatly expanded the use of outside legal counsel, compared to previous boards. Here’s the data:

  • In the ’19-20 fiscal year, the district spent $15,608.48 on legal expenses (link).
  • In the ’20-21 fiscal year, the district spent $63,532.14 on legal expenses (link). This was the year the district reviewed the charter school application from Merit Academy.
  • In the ’21-22 fiscal year, 7 months of which were under this current board, the district replaced legal counsel with Brad Miller’s office and spent $145,872.56 on legal expenses (link1, link2).
  • In the ’22-23 fiscal year, the district spent $171,250.21 on legal expenses (link1, link2).

What is the board spending our money on? It’s hard to say, they’re pretty secretive as the attorney invoices get heavily redacted. Here’s one from April of last year. What sort of information is being hidden from us? A bit of insight can be gained by looking at the invoice from May of last year, which is the only one received in unreacted form. That will show you the sort of information the district is choosing to keep secret. Judge for yourself if it’s appropriate. One thing you’ll note is soon after Miller came on, the board started using lawyers to redact CORA requests, something done by district employees previously. That’s just a small portion of overall legal fees, but does raise the question of why the board felt necessary to include lawyers in all of those documentation reviews.

DAVIS: American Birthright: A Woodland Park Investigation

For the past month, I have been investigating a concerted effort by national groups to use the Woodland Park School District as the testing ground for a radical new right-wing approach to public schools, where the goal is no longer to strangle the system and cut taxes, but to seize the system and train up conservative voters. While much has been reported about what is happening in WPSD, little has been documented about why it is happening in Woodland Park specifically, or who is ultimately behind it. 

The Woodland Park school board’s first-in-the-nation decision to adopt the American Birthright standards brings us closer to answers for those questions.
— Read on coloradotimesrecorder.com/2023/07/davis-american-birthright-a-woodland-park-investigation/54661/

If you care about public education, go to the polls – The Durango Herald

In the last such elections, in numerous Colorado school districts – e.g., Douglas County, Woodland Park, Colorado Springs, Montezuma-Cortez, Grand Junction and Garfield RE-2 – a group of far-right conservative candidates took over the majorities of those Boards of Education. These individuals sought those positions not because they are committed, genuinely, to improving the quality of public education. Instead, they are part of a political movement, launched in the wake of Glenn Youngkin’s defeat of Terry McAuliffe to become governor of Virginia that demonizes the supposed “indoctrination” of public school students by exposing them to “woke” concepts like equity and inclusion.
— Read on www.durangoherald.com/articles/if-you-care-about-public-education-go-to-the-polls/

7/9/2023 Weekly Update

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.

City Council recognizes school success in 7/6 meeting

In their July 6th meeting, the Woodland Park City Council recognized an award Gateway Elementary recently received, an award that the district had not publicized in a timely manner. The news first broke here of Gateway Elementary’s receipt of the Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award (the district followed up later with a press release of their own). This award was based on the 2022 CMAS state assessment for excellence in student growth over the previous three years.

In the public comment period, former district employee Miles Tuttle talked about Gateway’s accomplishment.

Holly Sample talked about Gateway’s award, as well as mentioning the record high SAT scores at our high school. As she mentioned, these awards represented success across the entire system and was years in the making. She pointed out how most of the people responsible for Gateway’s success have left the district, as well as mentioning turnover at the High School and district levels.

Carol Greenstreet read a letter from Benjamin Honeycutt, a middle school teacher who left at the end of this past school year. She went on to talk about the timeline of the Gateway award and how the district kept employees uninformed of the award they had won. She talked about how teachers are being talked about by the community.

You can watch the video of this portion of the meeting below:

Whatever happened to nonpartisan school board elections?

We saw the 2021 Woodland Park school board elections bring politics to a school board election with the ‘conservative choice’ candidates winning in November. Now in our 2023 election cycle, the partisanship of the board incumbents is only increasing. At the July 4th celebration in Memorial Park, board members were seen hanging out in the Teller County Republicans’ booth:

Next up for this overtly-conservative group of incumbents is this Saturday’s “Teller County Republicans Big Tent Event” at the Cultural Center. The event page proudly advertises that the three board incumbents will be present (Illingworth, Bates, Kimbrell).

On the other hand, the three school board challengers (Knott, Bryant, Barkley) are so far avoiding any outward political affiliation.

One uncertain thing about this Saturday’s event is whether all three candidates will actually be present at the same time. Doing so would constitute a quorum and thus require the meeting to be open to the public at no charge (cost is otherwise $50 in advance or $60 at the door).

I read one perspective, that “The goal of having nonpartisan elections is not to remove all politics from governing but to remove a conflict point that keeps a school board from doing its job” (source). I would blame policies, not politics, for the conflict this board has experienced since taking office, but in general, it seems like a wise move to reduce the impact of politics in school boards, not encourage and increase it.

Three school board candidates to hold meet and greet | Pikes Peak Courier | gazette.com

Three candidates for the Woodland Park School Board of Directors will be holding a meet and greet on July 22 at Memorial Park.

Candidates Mike Knott, Keegan Barkley, and Seth Bryant will be in attendance, which will be held between 12:30-3:30 p.m. The three will kick off their campaigns for the November election by outlining their stances on the issues facing the district.

Hot dogs will be served.
— Read on gazette.com/content/tncms/live/