Is the Hillsdale Curriculum coming to Woodland Park?

The Hillsdale College 1776 Curriculum has created quite a bit of controversy, and you really should familiarize yourself with it if you haven’t already. Check out these links for a quick primer:

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/184718

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/30/hillsdale-affiliated-charter-schools-spread/

The Liberty Common charter schools in Fort Collins have been shown to have close ties to Hillsdale, though it does not appear like they use the 1776 curriculum at this point in time.

Our district’s first charter school, Merit Academy, visited LCS recently and seems aligned with their philosophy. It remains to be seen if Merit will drift more into the Hillsdale side of things, but that does seem like a strong possibility.

2/8/2023 School Board Meeting

The public comments in the 2/8 meeting were really inspiring and worth watching…you can view this segment below. Lots of new voices at this meeting and some great speeches, word really is spreading.

In the meeting itself, Witt proposed a change to GP-5, to change from:

Board must represent the interests of the citizens of the entire school District

To:

Board must represent the educational interests of the students and their families as first priority, as well as the citizens of the entire school District

This change is expected to come into play with any decisions regarding social issues with students (LGBTQ+, etc) – we expect less tolerance for anything like that (especially after Illingworth’s questions in the 1/25 meeting!). We have CORA requests open to learn more about what discussions may be going on behind the scenes. This was a FIRST READING of this policy, so has not yet been enacted. Be sure to email board members if you have concerns about this (see the district contact info page).

The board also voted to modify the district calendar for next year…I expect they’ll publish that soon.

Here’s the entire meeting:

Ken Witt uses American Birthright standard to censor class

As previously discussed here and elsewhere, The Woodland Park school district recently removed the book, “Between the World and Me” from the high school election course, “Civil Disobedience.”

This action was taken after a resident, Jameson Dion, filed a complaint about this material on January 7. The district has a very clear policy for review of instructional material, policy KEC, and did not follow it in this case. Rather than form an appropriate review committee, Witt made a unilateral decision (which you can read here) to remove the book from the class on January 22.

So this is what we’ve come to. A single man making the decisions of what should and should not be used by teachers as instructional materials in class, disregarding policy and debate.

2/5/23 Weekly Update

Here’s what happened this past week

  • Third Future Schools submitted a letter stating their intent to apply to open a “partnership charter school” using the Gateway Elementary building. (link1, link2)
  • On Monday, the WPEA (local teachers’ union) held a meeting open to all teachers. A video of this meeting was obtained and promised to be leaked online. (link)
  • More news coverage of the district’s decision to remove the book “Between the World and Me” from the high school elective class “Civil Disobedience”. (link)
  • Colorado Public Radio published an in-depth article about high school teacher Sara Lee. (link)
  • MSNBC covered David Illingworth’s board interview question about the book, “Between the World and Me”, then interviewed its author, Ta-Nehisi Coates. (link)
  • Ken Witt sent an email to staff and parents saying that Third Future Schools has decided not to submit an application after all. (link)

Here’s what’s going on this coming week

  • Regular school board meeting Wednesday, 2/8, in the district offices. (agenda)
  • Look for our district to appear in multiple new media channels this week; we’ll post here when that happens.

Third Future Schools cancels plans

Interim superintendent Witt sent an email to staff and families Friday, saying Third Future Schools no longer intended to submit a charter application. It’s unclear what negotiations had been happening behind the scenes that may have led to this.