Tag Archives: Illingworth

Illingworth’s latest belittling email to a parent

David Illingworth has a long history of hostile language towards parents and teachers in the district. His latest tirade was directed towards Nate Owen, as much a part of the WP community as anybody. Nate is a popular high school teacher who clearly cares greatly for his students, has taught in the district for eleven years, and has four kids growing up in WP schools (he’s also sponsored Key Club, part of the Kiwanis family service organization, for all those eleven years).

Here’s what David Illingworth emailed Nate:

Nate, you are union president and nothing you say has any credibility with me. You seem to only care about creating division, despair, and a climate of doom amongst teachers and parents for your wealthy union bosses. Don’t even pretend to guilt parents and teachers that focusing schools on academics means abandoning our kids. That’s disgusting.


Parents run this district now, not the union. The schools exist for the kids, not the union and their politicians. Your grandstanding for the cameras does not fool me. You work for the union, not parents and certainly not kids.


DAVID W. ILLINGWORTH II
Director

source

The board had adjourned to executive session in their board meeting earlier in the day; the meeting livestream continued to run. Nate took the opportunity to speak to those still present in the room; you can watch his speech below. Nate forwarded the text of his speech to the board; Illingworth’s email was in reply to that.

Director Illingworth is up for re-election this fall.

2022 recall attempt summary

The WPSD Board Recall Committee submitted the recall petitions to the Teller County Clerk on 8/1/22. The signatures have been counted and have come in just under the number needed to continue the recall effort. Though we gained enough signatures to meet the numbers for both Illingworth and Patterson, some signatures were not accepted for a variety of reasons. The primary factors were signers out-of-district, name not found, or the voter’s information did not precisely match the voter registry. These are common reasons why signatures aren’t counted on petitions.

Here are the official numbers:

-The petition for David Rusterholtz did not have enough signatures and was not processed.

-The petition for David Illingworth II received 2709 signatures, 386 signatures were rejected, leaving 2323 signatures of the 2648 required.

-The petition for Suzanne Patterson received 2697 signatures, 409 signatures were rejected, leaving 2288 signatures of the 2644 required.

Understandably, we are disappointed to have fallen just short of the numbers required to move forward with the recall process. However, there are some things that we know for sure:

-The signatures of thousands of voters provide clear evidence that opposition to the Board’s behavior extends far and wide. There are many more people who were unable to sign for a variety of reasons. Many live out of district even though they have children in the school, some are part-time here and are registered to vote in other places, and, unfortunately, many didn’t sign for fear of retribution from the board. That alone says a lot. However, the breadth of support is very clear.

-This was a PHENOMENAL team effort by a group of friends and strangers working together for good, kindness, truth, and decency in our community.

-There is a huge portion of this community who has been and will continue to support our teachers and ALL of the children in this community.

-Our desire and effort to hold the Woodland Park School Board accountable for their actions and to advocate for students, families, and teachers is not diminished. We will continue to seek representation that mirrors the diversity of our community.

-This is the time to be more involved than ever. The new school year just started and we can continue to show support for the teachers and staff. Volunteer in a classroom, write a supportive email to a teacher, learn about what clubs and programs your kids are interested in, ask questions, attend board meetings, get involved in whatever way is best for you.

We are making and will continue to make a difference!!!

Thank you again for your part in this effort!

Erin O’Connell, from the Concerned Parents of Teller County Facebook group