The leaders of the Woodland Park School District are enacting an experiment in conservative governance in the middle of a state controlled by Democrats, with little in the way so far to slow them down. The school board’s decisions have won some praise in heavily Republican Teller County, but opposition is growing, including from conservative Christians and lifelong GOP voters who say the board has made too many ill-advised decisions and lacks transparency.
— Read on www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/woodland-park-colorado-school-board-conservatives-rcna83311
This article was written by NBC reporter Tyler Kingkade. Tyler spent a few days in Woodland Park last month talking to people and learning about the situation here. I think he did a really good job of telling this story in his own words in this article, instead of just repeating what people tell him…the work he put in to listening and learning really shows.
The separation of church and state is a legal concept that’s been around for a long time. Based on the First Amendment, the idea is that government should do nothing to favor any one religion over another. That would extend to even the idea of religion, as some people do not believe in a Higher Power or Supreme Being. A 2021 Pew Research study found that only 19% believe the government should stop enforcing the separation of shurch and state.
What does our school board think of this concept? Board member Mick Bates said this about it in January:
This separation of church and state has been around a long time but, it’s backwards. It was intended to keep the state out of religion, not religion out of the state. And that has been convoluted over the years, over the many years.
Board President David Rusterholtz has been accused of crossing this line several times. In the January 11, 2023 board meeting, he even took to the podium during the public speaking portion to offer prayer (video link, timestamp 28:00).
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has sent two complaint letters to the district outlining other examples of what they view as a violation of separation of church and state. The first letter, from November, addressed the board opening an October meeting with a prayer; you can read the letter here or watch the incident in question here (about 3:55 into the video).
The second complaint letter is in regards to a March 9th email Rusterholtz sent to other board members, where he said:
Good afternoon everyone. I see we are being requested information about the American lie Fairplay and other books. I’d like to let you know that my heart goes out to so many of these people. Many of them have completely rejected Jesus in any way other than a historical figure I would like everyone to know that Jesus came because he loved the world so much!
Sin has separated us from God, and our hurts our habits, and our hangups often times get in the way of us returning to him.
Jesus died on the cross for each one of us, if we would receive him as our savior, we can spend eternity in paradise with him.
He loved us so much that he came and died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins if we will only receive his free gift of salvation.
I would invite anyone who reads this letter to give me a call if they would like to receive Jesus as their savior and start a new life with him.
Ask yourself this question if I were to die today, where will I spend eternity…. with a loving and gracious God, in paradise, or for eternity, separated from him in hell.
I would like to ask you, to receive him as your savior today, I look forward to hearing from you. Also, if you would like to join me in church, I go to Impact Christian church on 67 north of Woodland Park. Services start at 9 AM and 1030. Let me know and I will meet you at the door.
The letters from FFRF (letter1, letter2) are worth reading as they dive into the legal justification behind their complaint and the idea of separation of church and state.
The Washington Post’s famous tagline is ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’, and those watching events in Woodland Park this last year or so should have a good idea of what they mean. We have a school board that operates in the shadows, making decisions outside of board meetings and doing their best to stay out of the public eye. The result, is a school district in turmoil under the rule of an autocratic interim superintendent Ken Witt, a complicit board of education, and behind it all, in the deepest of shadows, figures like Brad Miller and other alumni from the Leadership Program of the Rockies attempting to remake school districts across the state.
There’s no shortage of violations of their own governing policies they each swore to uphold. Our last superintendent, Dr. Mathew Neal, pushed back to try to maintain some order, and was cut loose as a result. Most recently, Ken Witt modified the district’s contract with charter school Merit Academy, in apparent violation of that same contract.
The Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) is designed to enforce at least some level of transparency in state government. Both supporters and detractors of this school board have taken advantage of CORA to learn more about what’s been going on in our district. As a result, we’ve witnessed some board members use district email less, and when we’ve shown them to use their personal email address for district business, they refuse to comply with CORA requests for district emails from that account. One CORA request from December was refused more than once, and a new lawsuit has been brought against the district for this…here’s an excerpt from that court filing:
Around a week ago, Witt deemed ‘unnecessary’ the IT position responsible for managing CORA requests submitted to the district. CORA results were already occasionally late…and since then, the district has failed to provide results in the timeframe explicitly required under Colorado Law (3 days for a single document, up to 10 for anything else). Additionally, after submitting a new CORA request, the district no longer acknowledges the submission like it had previously. These are disappearing into a black hole. The district knows that the CORA law doesn’t have any penalties for non-compliance, so we’re witnessing them exploiting this loophole to hide information from the public.
We’ve learned that at least recently (we don’t know when this started), Brad Miller will, instead of redacting a particular document, withhold it from the CORA results entirely, with no notification to the requestor. We’ve since learned that if we specifically ask about this, we’ll be told the number of documents withheld, but these are never provided to us, not even in heavily redacted form.
The CORA lawsuit above showed another issue with our district – violations of Colorado Open Meetings Law (OML). Designed to ensure transparency in governance and enable public oversight of elected officials, it prohibits (for a local body) three or more board members from meeting without notifying the public at least 24 hours in advance. The district violated OML first in January of 2022, for which a preliminary injunction was granted. That particular court case was resolved last November when the judge said the district cured the previous violations in their actions in an April meeting of that year. In that link above, Director Illingworth described the suit as ‘political’, though the board’s violation the following month (reference the CORA lawsuit above) casts question on that statement.
In the January 25th board meeting, the board interviewed three candidates to occupy the vacant board director seat. With three good candidates speaking that night, one might have expected some deliberation amongst the board members. Instead, as the video below shows, there was none…the board had obviously already discussed this, outside of board meetings, and made their decision even before they interviewed the board candidates!
In a March meeting, Ken Witt explained how he uses one on one or one on two meetings to discuss issues with the board, or as he put it, to ‘share ideas.’ For example, the picture here shows Witt and Patterson meeting for breakfast one morning. That in itself might be normal, but when you look at the decisions being made without zero public board discussion (like the sixth grade middle school decision), it’s clear that decisions ARE being made through this serial communication process (which we believe is technically legal in Colorado, for now, but in violation of the spirit of the OML).
Witt explained this process himself to teachers recently:
Last but certainly not least, is the the board and Witt’s effort to clamp down on freedom of speech, initially even prohibiting teachers from using social media (later backtracking on that slightly). One staff member was fired, read more about it here.
Board President David Rusterholtz frequently speaks of transparency. Their actions speak louder than those words of his.
As previously reported here, in February Ken Witt initiated and signed an amendment to to the Merit Academy contract, to shift the cost of hiring a charter liaison from Merit to the District. When BOE President Rusterholtz was asked whether Witt has the authority to do this, this was his reply:
However, page 37 of the District’s contract with Merit says something different, in section 12.2:
There has been no discussion of this amendment in any board meeting.
There has been no vote on this amendment in any board meeting.
Our district attorney provided incorrect legal advice to our board President.
Superintendent Neal is having to play damage control with comments made by local cult leader Andrew Wommack, who does have quite the following in this town with his bible study school (sorry dude, it’s not a real college). The Pike Peak Courier covers it well in this article.
I call on our school board to issue a resolution condemning the remarks made by Wommack. Rusterholtz is already quoted in that article opposing those statements…but those words are weak, we need a formal resolution from the board to send the proper message to our students and community.
Local parent Joseph Marney has written a response to Mr. Rusterholtz’s comments regarding what is being taught in our schools in the Maverick Observer to various media outlets; it’s too long to paste here but you can read the PDF at this link.
My favorite quote from this:
My children are strong. They are curious. They are vibrant and compassionate. They have already outgrown the small-minded prejudice that keeps you living in fear. Their world is big. You will not change them. They will change you.
I would like to formally request an opportunity to present at a WPSD Board Work Session regarding facility usage. On February 24, 2022, there was a presentation given by a group calling themselves ‘The Taxpayers.’ In this presentation, the recommendation was to immediately surrender one of WPSD elementary schools to a charter school which hasn’t even officially been offered a contract by the district yet. I am appalled that the board would even consider this without proper data, a feasibility study, and a lengthy timeline for review.
Woodland Park Community Education Coalition would like an opportunity to present factual data as well as another viewpoint, held by many people in this community. We would like the timeline of this presentation to precede any action item or vote taken by the board regarding building usage, reallocation of grade levels or determination of Merit Academy obtaining a building through WPSD.
Please note that I have blind copied a group of approximately 60 individuals for both verification and in support of this request. I have also copied multiple media outlets so that they will remain aware of the ongoing situation in WPSD.
Please confirm the date and time of the work session we can present at. We are looking forward to ensuring that you hear all of the facts before you make any decisions on building usage and related issues. Thank you.
