Tag Archives: Ken Witt

What’s going on with SROs in WPSD?

What’s going on with School Resource Officers (SROs) in Woodland Park schools? These have typically been Woodland Park police officers, providing a partial security presence at our schools. Last year, there were two SROs (I believe the school only paid for one, the cost of the other was on the city)…and by spring, both of those were no longer working as SROs in the district. With the board and superintendent eliminating the large mental health support program in our school district, parents have been justifiably concerned about the safety of our kids. David Illingworth and Ken Witt have repeatedly said that the city and sheriff are both unable to provide officers. CORA requests are casting doubt on this statement, as you’ll see below.

The question has been, what is the district’s plan for providing security to our students? Illingworth hinted at a plan in the works using private security in the April City Council meeting, and mentioned (time stamp 12:32 in this video) that the WPPD and Sheriff don’t have enough personnel to provide a full time officer in each of the six school (this is true). The board met in executive session with Sheriff Mikesell in the May 10th meeting to discuss security. The Sheriff does have his own private security company, so it’s been suspected the district would leverage that to help keep our kids safe – but no mention of this appeared in the budget in June.

What CORA requests have revealed is, reassuringly, the board DOES appear to have a plan in the works to have one security guard in each school (there is no indication that any plan has been finalized). There aren’t enough law enforcement officers in this small community to serve those roles (assuming one person per building), and it’s not clear at this point whether those roles will be entirely private security, or whether they’ll be a mix of private security and law enforcement officers. It’s also not clear what cost this will carry.

Dig deeper though and you see friction between our police department and Ken Witt. It seems to have started with the issue of plugging the ‘gap’ in SROs to close out the school year (though perhaps started earlier this year when the chief rejected the district’s request for police presence at all board meetings). On May 3rd, WP Police Chief Deisler offered officers on overtime three days a week to work as SROs, but the district didn’t take him up on that offer. Witt went on to spread incorrect information about that situation to a community member who had emailed him about their concerns (email link is below):

We were very disappointed when Chief Chris Deisler informed the school district this year that the WP PD no longer has the manpower to provide SROs given their law enforcement demands and limited personnel in Woodland Park.

Ken Witt, July 11, 2023

Chief Deisler replied to Witt:

Shortly after the announcement that Ofc. DeJesus was coming back to Patrol, I announced an internal lateral transfer “intent to apply” process for the now-vacant SRO position at WPHS since the final security plan for school safety and security had not been finalized for school year 23-24. Not one eligible police officer applied for this assignment. You can also see that in order to continue to support the school, I offered a city-paid overtime detail for three officers a week to be present at the campus to help get through end of the year at no cost to the District. No one at the school ever finalized this process with me.

WPPD Police Chief Deisler, July 12, 2023

If you read the entirety of the email exchange (obtained via CORA and can be read here), it’s pretty clear that Chief Deisler tried working with the district on this matter but the district did not engage him. Worse though, Ken Witt, in my opinion at least, has portrayed our local police department as uncooperative and unable to help, which is not the impression I get when I read the email from the Police Chief – quite the opposite, Chief Deisler actually seemed eager to help. It’s unknown why the district made the decisions they did about this.

While it’s reassuring that the board is still working on a security plan (Chief Deisler and Sheriff Mikesell appear to be collaborating on it), I hope that plan includes our local law enforcement officers, not just private security.

I encourage all community members to read the entirety of the email exchange for themselves.

DAVIS: The Specialists: A Woodland Park Investigation

From the outside, the events unfolding over the past year and a half in Woodland Park – where a far-right school board won control in late 2021, and has since pursued an aggressive agenda of banning certain books, demonizing the local teachers’ union, cutting funding for mental health services, skirting open records and public meetings laws, approving a highly controversial charter school without due process, and firing staff and faculty for speaking out against them – seem like an extension of the right-wing’s long standing animosity to the public school system. On closer inspection, though, what’s happening in Woodland Park looks like something new: an evolution of that old fight, where the goal is no longer to shrink and dissolve the public schooling system, but to seize control of the system and use it to train up a new generation of conservative voters. 
— Read on coloradotimesrecorder.com/2023/06/davis-the-specialists-a-woodland-park-investigation/54189/

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?

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.

The cost of PACE membership

As previously reported here, next year the district will auto-enroll staff into  the Professional Association of Colorado Educators (PACE). PACE is a state chapter of the Association of American Educators (AAE); referred to by some as the ‘anti-union union’.

New details obtained via the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) shed some more light on this topic. This will be costing our district approximately $40,000. The discussions with PACE took place before contracts were sent out to staff, but the announcement was made after those contacts were sent. It’s possible (likely?) that contracts may have been signed and returned before the announcement was made.

Yet another large expenditure of taxpayer money made behind closed doors and without stakeholder input.

Woodland Park school board extends term of interim superintendent, reactions divided | KRDO

Wednesday night, the Woodland Park school board voted to extend the contract of controversial superintendent Ken Witt.

Dozens of community members turned out for the meeting, many voicing frustration over the decision, and many having to stand outside the building after the meeting room filled to maximum capacity.
— Read on krdo.com/top-stories/2023/05/10/woodland-park-school-board-extends-term-of-interim-superintendent-reactions-divided/

How conservatives transformed the Woodland Park, CO, school district

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.