5/21/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week:

  • After that May 10th board meeting, we were all anxiously awaiting NBC’s primetime segment on us, and they finally aired it on Thursday.
  • Ken Witt was interviewed on local radio station KOA. Quote of the day: he “knows” the CEA and WPEA “hate America.”
  • Ken Witt loaned a US flag to the district to be put on display, and used almost $600 of district money to have it framed. Turns out it’s not a valid US flag, it’s the ’42 star’ version that was never made official.
  • We found some more recent resignation letters in a CORA request. These help shed some insight into what’s going on with staff.
  • We received a copy of an email that a job applicant sent to the district, after withdrawing from the application process. This board and superintendent’s actions are impacting our district’s ability to attract candidates.
  • The district has a new email filter…your freedom of speech to the board no longer extends to words such as ‘crap’. Emails contain that and, presumably, other words will be automatically rejected.
  • We published a few small things learned in recent CORA requests. Including the fact that Witt’s contract with ERBOCES has been modified to reduce his salary, presumably since he’s not working there full-time anymore (his WPSD contract has not been similarly modified).
  • CNN had a crew out in Colorado Springs, checking in on what Moms For Liberty is up to down there.
  • The District Accountability Committee (DAC) held their regular monthly meeting. In it, Illingworth mentioned they’re looking at spending $1 million from district reserves on security upgrades (this would be for one-time costs, not recurring things like personnel). They’re also working on a plan for security personnel but not providing details yet. The discussion on budget was brief and unfortunately, no new detail that wasn’t shown in the 5/10 board meeting. Lastly, there was a productive conversation about how to improve school crosswalk safety, specifically the one in front of the Middle School that everyone agrees is dangerous.

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • Class of 2023 graduates Saturday! Congratulations!
    • We’re told Ken Witt will be speaking at the graduation ceremony.
    • Please don’t disrupt the ceremony during Witt’s speech; this is the seniors’ special day and we should not do anything to spoil that. However, it might be a good opportunity to actually speak to Witt one on one, either before or after graduation.
    • As is customary, members of the board may be present; this event is being classified as a ‘work session’ so that they all may attend without being in violation of Open Meetings Law.

Various tidbits from a recent CORA request

…modeling professionalism is important, and blue or green hair is not a good model for success in today’s workplace, if we wish leadership opportunity for our students.

Ken Witt, in reference to a new staff policy requiring only natural hair hues.

So does this mean purple hair is OK?

Here’s some insight into the hiring process:

I appreciate the chance to review our top two candidates for the open HS math position. Both seem reasonable candidates. However, Mr Hornbeck-Kaiser, having an exemplary education background as a long-time Colorado rural teacher, likely has a lot more commitment to this area than a Texas transplant. Let’s go with Mr Hornbeck-Kaiser, unless a superior Colorado HS Math teacher has presented him/herself.

Ken Witt, intervening into the hiring process in the High School

In March, Ken Witt signed an updated contract for his other job, Executive Director at ERBOCES, reducing his salary from $155,000 to $112,750 – presumably because he’s not working there full-time. There has been no modification to his contract with WPSD, apart from the one year extension.

We were tipped off to one interesting fact about the flag that Witt used $600 of district money to frame (Witt owns this flag personally and it’s just on loan to the district). It’s a design that was never made an official US flag, having only 42 stars. With the star count being made ‘official’ on July 4th each year, this flag was never an official US flag as our 43rd state, Idaho, received statehood on July 3rd, 1890. Given that Witt is more of an engineer than an educator, his fascination with this 42 star flag may have more to do with the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference, or just a love of the asterisk, than any concern about historical merit.

5/19/23 – Ken Witt interviewed on KOA

Ken Witt was interviewed on radio today; you can listen to it here:

Witt states that he “knows” the CEA and WPEA “hate America.” That’s just an awful thing to say about your fellow citizens, period. WTF. A new low for Witt?

A WPSD job applicant explains their decision to cancel their interview

We recently received this email, sent to the district from a job applicant who decided to cancel their interview at the last minute. The email explains their reasoning, and highlights a concern that parents in this district have – with 40-50% of staff not returning next year, how will the district attract qualified candidates to fill those vacancies?

The applicant’s name has been redacted for privacy; authenticity of this has been verified with school insiders.

The reply from director David Illingworth is below:

5/14/2023 Weekly Update

Last Week:

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • We expect NBC Nightly News to air their story about the Woodland Park RE-2 school district Monday evening.
  • The District Accountability Committee (DAC) meets Wednesday, 6:00PM, in the district conference room. We expect they will review the preliminary budget, though the details Amy Ryan (CFO) provided in the May 10th board meeting were incredibly sparse.
  • The next scheduled board meeting is June 14.

Is Ken Witt qualified to be superintendent?

On May 10th, the board unanimously voted to extend the contract of Interim Superintendent Ken Witt by one year and remove the ‘interim’ from his job title. Is he qualified? Let’s review the original job posting from November and see where Witt stacks up.

The following qualifications have been identified by the Board of Education to be of particular importance:

  • Excel in communication with District Stakeholders
    • Grade: F. Parents report lack of email replies, and an inability to schedule in-person discussions. I’ve also had zero luck getting an answer from him in person before or after school board meetings. He didn’t even stick around after the last board meeting to talk to stakeholders present in the room.
  • Exceptional executive skills with experience in building effective relationships
    • Grade: F. He has not demonstrated an ability to build effective relationships with staff. Quite the contrary.
  • Ability to work with leadership team to execute strategic plan
    • Grade: A. He’s working very closely with the WPSD board to execute their plan.
  • Inspire a culture of greatness, innovation, and growth throughout the district
    • Grade: D. He avoids an ‘F’ on this one due to his (failed) attempt to get Third Future Schools to take over Gateway Elementary, I’d call that innovative (though not a ‘culture’ of innovation).
  • Courageous in making tough decisions for the district
    • Grade: C. He has absolutely made tough decisions for the district (like moving sixth grade out of the Middle School), but should we really be calling that ‘courageous’ instead of stupid? “A courageous person knows the possible danger and acts anyway. A stupid person, on the other hand, has no knowledge of the consequences and thus feels no fear in action” (quote citation).
  • Knowledgeable of Colorado school finance, law, and assessment
  • Straightforward, genuine, enthusiastic, energetic
    • Grade: F.
  • Ability to cultivate a positive and motivated work force
    • Grade: F. Can I give him an F-? 40-50% of district staff are leaving this year. I suppose one could argue he motivated them…to leave!
  • Student-focused
    • Grade: F. Eleven high school juniors were inducted into the National Honors Society…Witt was not there to congratulate them. I don’t believe Witt has ever been sighted at any after-hours school event.
  • Sound financial skills
    • Grade: C. He’s siphoning money from our traditional public schools to the charter school…he understands the finance side enough to accomplish his goals of undermining traditional public education.
  • Ethical
    • Grade: F. Where do I start?!
  • Prior superintendent/assistant superintendent or comparable administrative experience preferred
    • Grade: C. he has a bit of administrative experience from his executive director role of ERBOCES, where he still works today.

It’s not clear by what criteria the board was judging Witt, as a CORA request for evaluation results yielded no records.