Tag Archives: Merit

Merit Academy

The truth about enrollment numbers

Our board has liked to tout the ~16% jump in enrollment this school year, presenting it as a sign they’re doing the right thing. While it’s an encouraging sign for sure, what they’re not mentioning is the number of students LOST when Merit Academy opened under the direction of ERBOCES. Meaning, the Woodland Park RE-2 school district is not experiencing large growth…it’s a shell game. We’ll need to see how the next couple years pan out to really determine if we’re on the right track.

Enrollment numbers, from the CDE (direct link to XLS):

  • 2018-2019: 2380
  • 2019-2020: 2284
  • 2020-2021: 2055
  • 2021-2022: 1832 (Merit’s first year)
  • 2021-2022: 2119 – if you include the 287 Merit students
  • 2022-2023: 2122

So, it’s clear that in 2020-2021, parents were opting out of the district, and Merit was a choice that brought them back. But the board has failed, so far, to attract new people to the district (well, three technically).

Merit Academy not paying for transportation services

UPDATE – it’s been pointed out to me that there may yet be an agreement written to split costs (a Merit board member says there will be one at some point).

——————-

The district made a big deal about expansion of transportation services to Merit Academy students, and emphasized that it would not add any cost to the district. What they failed to mention is that Merit Academy isn’t paying anything themselves for this service (apart from, presumably, the $50 per kid per year fee parents pay for this service) – the money is coming out of funds used to educate the children of the transitional public schools alone. This was evident in a CORA request I just received results for. The actual text of the CORA request was:

Please provide the district’s contract with Durham bus services for the following school years: 2021-2022, 2022-2023, and 2023-2024. Please also provide the contract, amendment, or other agreement(s) with Merit Academy covering their use of transportation services through Durham Bus Services.

source

I did receive the contract with Durham, and one amendment to that contract. But that’s it, no written agreement between the district and Merit. When I inquired as to whether that was omitted in error, this was the reply:

All documents responsive to this request were provided.

The relevant section from the Merit Academy charter contract is section 5.2, as follows:

5.2. Transportation. The District and the School acknowledge and agree that transportation will not be provided by the District to students attending the School unless otherwise mutually agreed in writing. Any transportation of students to the School shall be the sole responsibility of the School, with all costs borne by the School. The School and the District agree to meet on an annual basis to discuss how the Parties might collaborate to provide transportation options for students of the School.

source

So, Merit kids get a free ride…the public school kids pay for the busses, leaving Merit kids with more money per pupil to be used for educational purposes. Let’s hope the board decides to instead enact an agreement that fairly splits costs…a board director has told me that no written agreement is needed for this transportation issue, but I’m hoping that’s not the final word.

I’ve asked for recent invoices from Durham so we can put some exact numbers on this…but with the Durham costs being fixed, the fewer the kids paying for it, the more each kid pays. For example, if you and three friends eat out and need to split a $100 bill, that’s $25 per person. But if one of those people doesn’t contribute, each of the remaining people have to pay $33.33. That’s the situation here…the bus bill is not being split equally amongst all the students covered by it. Parents do pay $50 per child to participate in this service, but that only covers a small fraction of the actual costs.

Woodland Park School District expands bus route for Merit Academy students | KRDO

Woodland Park School District (WPSD) is now offering students at Merit Academy the same district school bus transportation offered to all other WPSD schools. 
— Read on krdo.com/top-stories/2023/03/21/woodland-park-school-district-expands-bus-route-for-merit-academy-students/

We’ve submitted a CORA request to learn to what extent Merit will be paying for this service.

3/19/2023 Weekly Update

Last week:

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • There’s a special board meeting this Wednesday, 6:00 (agenda). No public comment.
  • This week is when schools typically find out what their staffing allowance is for the next year and can start figuring which positions need to be cut, and which need to be filled.

BOE and Witt’s modification of Merit contract is invalid

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.

This amendment is invalid.

An (unofficial) update on the Middle School partitioning plans

Yesterday, interim superintendent Ken Witt toured the Middle School after school hours with administration staff from both the Middle School and Merit, looking at how the space would be re-divided to give Merit more room. Today, we received this anonymous update:

I have it on good authority that merit is taking over the severe special needs room with their required by law apartment set up. They will also get a staff bathroom, a boys bathroom, conference room(used for students hearing and speech needs, a book room and 4 6th grade classrooms. In order to stay in compliance they will have to rebuild the required by law special needs facilities in a different location. This will be major construction and extremely costly. This board can turn down over a million dollars in grants so im sure we can afford more construction costs. The second year in a row teachers will have to box up and move theor entire classroom. As of now, the enrichment spaces will stay in tact though merit wants access to the ensemble room. In addition they have applied for a contract with chartwells to be able to conduct linch service but they want to share the commons in order to do this. All of these changes are unnecessary, beyond costly and detrimental to the safety and well being of the middle school students. Witt refuses to meet with parents about concerns unless it is documented in writing through email. If you disagree with these decisions then please email him directly!

Some bonus info: academic successes were presented at the dac meeting showing specific test scores and academic measurements in which merit scored below wpms across the board. Considering this regime is academic focused, youd think they would present some results to back up theor interventions. Rather they just shit all over the districts successes while taking away all the amazing people and programs that got the district to where it is. One of the only districts to raise academic success through the pandemic in the region and state. But lets change everything to match a school model that is producing worse results. Ok rant over but this is egregious at best.

anonymous

Merit’s in-person enrollment is currently 289 or 292, depending on which source you listen to, in a space that can handle up to 471 students (but let’s be fair, the actual usable number would be a quite a bit less). How is Witt justifying this change? And why will the district be paying for this? This decreases funding available for our traditional public schools…WHY?

You can email Ken Witt at kwitt@wpsdk12.org.

Merit Contract Amended to Reduce Their Costs

Ken Witt has amended the district’s contract with Merit, to shift some costs from Merit to the district. Section 8.1(I) used to read:

The District will provide charter liaison services by assigning these duties to an
employee or retaining an independent contractor to act as the liaison between
the District and the School. Such employee or independent contractor shall be
mutually agreed upon by the District and the School. The costs of the liaison
services shall be paid by the District’s authorized charter schools, including the
School, as a purchased service from the District.

(see page 37 of the original contract)

In February of 2023, Witt amended the contract to read:

The District will provide charter liaison services by assigning these duties to an
employee or retaining an independent contractor to act as the liaison between
the District and the School. Such employee or independent contractor shall be
mutually agreed upon by the District and the School.

(source)

Note the change – previously, the cost for this liaison was to be paid by the charter schools. Now, the district will shoulder that cost. A relatively minor change but a quiet one that would have gone unnoticed if not for one of our unrelated CORA requests.

Is the Middle School overcrowded? A look at the numbers.

When discussing his decision to move sixth grade out of the Middle School, Ken Witt has consistently referred to overcrowding in that school. So let’s visit that point, and see what the facts say about space in the Middle School.

Last year, the board used a study from Cooperative Strategies to justify partitioning the Middle School into two schools, making room for Merit Academy. According to that report, the Merit Academy side of the school has capacity for 471 students, while the Middle School side has capacity for 432 students. These numbers do not take into account present or potential future modular buildings on the north side of the school build (Merit’s side).

The Colorado Department of Education (CDE) has data available on their website for attendance in all schools in the state. Merit Academy has 331 students, of which only 292 are onsite (the rest are homeschool enrichment); the Middle School has 391. The data shows Merit is at only 70% capacity; the Middle School is at 91% capacity (which is a bit below the 94% capacity the board predicted it would be at when it made the decision to split the building for Merit). The data does not show overcrowding at present.

Enrollment numbers for the ’23-24 school year are unknown, so nothing to base any decisions upon. However, we’ll look at what we know. Merit shows 27-41 students per grade. They are new to high school, and really only have a 9th grade this year. Assuming all their kids ‘bubble up’ into higher grades, they’d potentially be adding around 40 kids. Maybe they’d flush out some of the other grades closer to that 41 number. I consistently read that 90% facility usage is a nice target to shoot for, so let’s assume that (and ignore that our board wanted to put the Middle School at 94% capacity). Merit has a capacity of 423 students at 90% capacity, or an increase of 131 students (not counting the homeschool enrichment enrollment) – an increase of 45%! Perhaps they’ll hit that number, we just don’t know at this point.

I know the board is applauding Merit for ‘growth’ in the school district, but as page 17 of this presentation shows, 293 district students chose to go to ERBOCES (which Merit Academy was a part of at that time) in the ’21-22 school year – part an increase of 352 students opting out of the district compared to the previous school year. It’s clear, Merit pulled students from the district when they opened, then brought them ‘back’ into the district once the district absorbed Merit. This was not some radical growth in the district, it was just shuffling kids around, and to assume that Merit can now find 131 new students? Perhaps they’ll draw some from the Public Schools, but considering they’ve already been around for two years now, I question how many there left to get that haven’t already made that switch.

How does enrollment look for the Middle School? If we assume all current fifth graders move on to the Middle School, that’s 113 students being added, while 121 eighth graders leave for the High School. This bumps Middle School capacity down to 89%.

Actual attendance numbers for next year are unknown. What IS known is that the ‘overcrowding’ argument is based on very ambitious recruitment goals for Merit Academy; whether they’ll succeed is a bit question. If they needed more capacity, they do have existing modular structures on the north side, with space to add more. Perhaps they’ll need more space in the Middle School in the future, but for the ’23-24 school year, the data does not support any radical changes to the makeup of that building.

What this analysis is lacking – firsthand reports, that boots on the ground perspective that only the staff at the school can provide. Given the hostility Witt has shown towards them, I felt it best to not approach staff with questions and to just lay out the facts here instead. I also realize this doesn’t not take into account things like classroom size or number of rooms per grade, though when it comes to analyzing Merit, since they have control over those factors (they can limit enrollment, unlike the Middle School) I felt it OK to leave that part out.

3/5/2023 Weekly Update

Last week:

  • A locally produced podcast released their first episode about our school district
  • The big news was that sixth grade would be moved from the Middle School back down to the three elementary schools to make more room for Merit. There were no discussions in board meetings about this, no discussions with teachers or the principals, and no details have been worked out yet.
  • A book-club style meeting was held at the public library to discuss the book banned from the high school classrooms, as well as discuss the larger question of book banning in general.
  • We made public the details of Ken Witt’s contract with the district, including the fact he has a similar contract with nearby ERBOCES (being paid for two full-time jobs).
  • Many schools across the country celebrated Public Schools Week. We did not.
  • We posted some information about Social Emotional Learning (SEL). It’s on the chopping block for next school year.
  • Witt met with staff at four of the five schools this week (he meets with the High School Monday). One staff member summed up the meeting best by saying, “Staff left crying, furious, unheard.”

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

  • Witt meets with the high school staff on Monday
  • Wednesday 3/8 is a regular school board meeting, 6:00 in the district offices conference room.
    • The board will finalize their change to policy GP-5 to narrow the focus of the board to educational interests only. Witt explained to teachers this week that their focus is on academic performance.
    • The board will do a first reading of proposed changes to GP-9, the policy that deals with changing or developing policy.
    • The board will discuss redistricting. It’s not clear why; note that this is an election year.
    • An executive session is scheduled to discuss security arrangements. While that might sound serious, an email we obtained via CORA suggests it’s likely about routine security arrangements in the schools, which by their nature might be more effective if details are not widely known.

Parents stand up for middle school staff

Thursday morning, around 80-100 parents, students, and concerned citizens showed their support for staff at the Middle School by lining the sidewalk as teachers arrived for a scheduled meeting with interim superintendent Ken Witt. This comes a day after nearly two dozen middle school staff members called in sick in protest of Witt’s decision to move the sixth grade classes back to the district elementary schools. This was NOT a decision the board had discussed with the public, though surveys in November did ask this question…with the answer (on page 5) clearly showing the public did NOT support the idea of splitting sixth grade off from the middle school like this. This was not a decision made in collaboration with staff at any of the schools, and elementary school staff has expressed uncertainty about how to fit the extra kids in place. There are also unanswered questions about less opportunity for sixth graders with this move, especially band and forensics.

Wednesday, in response to the staff’s sick day, Witt sent this following email threatening action if this were done again:

The teachers appreciated this show of public supported, though ultimately the day ended on a sour note as Witt fired one middle school staff member for alleged interactions with media, as explained (without much detail) in this letter below:

So, what’s next? Well, when the middle school was partitioned last spring, a feasibility study showed Merit being given a bit more than half the space when viewing student capacity…theoretical capacity of 471 students, vs. the Middle School’s theoretical capacity of 432 students. With 331 students enrolled this year, Merit did not seem to need more space. The middle school, at 391 students, was full but not quite capacity. So how does this change make sense? Especially since it will leave the Middle School at around 270 students (based on current 6-7th grade enrollment).

This screenshot shows the division of the school between Merit (top) and the Middle School (bottom):

Witt said this change was being made to provide more space for Merit…and looking at this map, it’s not clear what will change to accomplish that, easily. What we actually expect to happen next is 7-8 grades to be moved to the high school, and the entire Middle School building to be given to Merit.

And therein lies one of the biggest complaints about this school board…they are not up front about their plans. They are not telling the whole story here, there are blanks yet to be filled in, as their story about moving sixth grade to the elementary school buildings just doesn’t add up on its own.