Tag Archives: Merit

Merit Academy

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.

Sixth graders being moved out of Middle School

This afternoon, the Witt administration and our school board announced that sixth grade would be moved out of the Middle School building, back down to the elementary school buildings. This is being done to provide more space to Merit Academy. The feasibility study a year ago showed the capacity for Merit’s side of the building to be 471 students, so it’s not clear how this move is actually necessary. Especially considering the costs incurred with partitioning the school last year. This is probably just a preemptive move in anticipation of losing this fall’s school board elections and facing a board more friendly towards traditional public schools.

Merit’s 2022-23 enrollment is 331 students; if they add a grade next year that’s an increase of 30-50 students. So, still well under the 471 capacity number. In the 2022-23 school year, the middle school had 136 sixth graders (391 total students). So, a 17% increase in students in the three elementary buildings. (spreadsheet link with data)

The superintendent also announced that the district will continue to use the Summit Learning Platform for 7th-10th grades.

There was no public meeting. No public announcement.

Parents have not been notified of this change yet.

Connecting the Dots

The Thompson School District Reform Watch on Facebook does a really good job of detailed investigations with supporting evidence. They recently ‘connected the dots’, and it’s worth reading below.

“Connecting the Dots” proves the agenda in Woodland Park is MUCH BIGGER and much more dangerous to public education than anyone knows!

RW: Our post here is long but it has a story to tell that must be said.

One thing that is for sure is that the WPBOE & their supporters are on a mission to “Get Rid of the Woodland Park Teachers Association and the Colorado Education Association”. This was a major item on the agenda in Jeffco & Thompson back in 2013. The Thompson Education Association sued when their MOU was in major trouble and the courts ruled in with the teachers. The voters spoke loud and clear as well. Gone were Kerrigan, Rice, Langner and Brad Miller. Jeffco said bye-bye to Miller, Witt, Newkirk and Williams. Miller resigned in both instances.

The union IS our teachers and they work for all students & parents in a positive and fair manner. Not at all like the board members and their supporters that we have observed at board meetings and those who came disguised as teachers or pro-public ed supporters that were planted by the far right to disrupt, swear and threaten and give their masters something to blame on the education association. How about the public comment speakers who give false names?

The Woodland Park SD Bully Pulpit can be connected way back, to not only to the Independence Institute/Leadership Program of the Rockies/Americans for Prosperity, but higher yet.

Just some of the team that we find have been involved for years in this agenda are: Paul Lundeen, Brad Miller, Tim Farmer, Bryce Carlson, Barry Arrington, Gwen Benevento, Bob Schaffer, the Centennial Institute (Jeff Hunt), Colorado Christian University (Deborah Scheffel), Luke Ragland, Jon Caldara, Ben DeGrow, Ross Izard, Kevin Lundberg, Owen Hill, Tim Geitner, Ken Witt, Bob Gardner, the Neville family, Steve Schuck and many others.

Attorney Brad Miller’s actions during his tenure in Jeffco, Thompson, Falcon 49 and now other districts has often brought out concerns about his ethics, his knowledge of the law, his behavior behind closed doors and more. Some question whether he is a school attorney or a school entrepreneur because of how he appears to drum up business for himself and the Independence Institute agenda.

In reviewing other law firms that are legal counsels to school districts, that behavior is not observed. They are not out creating new charter schools, network schools, home school enrichment programs, online charter schools and more as Miller & Witt have been doing. The emails between Miller & Carlson with Mesa County 51 that were CORA’d speak volumes as to why the concerns should be addressed.

When a new conservative majority has been installed (and even before it has happened) Miller seems to have been the attorney who suddenly appears on the scene as new legal counsel. The Sup and current legal counsels are soon gone. And then it is chaos as we see happening in Woodland Park.

SOURCE: https://annelandmanblog.com/…/emails-between-d-51…/

This situation deserves an investigation from people who are much bigger than RW and the Woodland Park teachers, parents, students and community members who are working hard to SAVE THEIR WPSD!

The latest effort to take over our public schools and rid school districts of teachers unions doesn’t just exist in Woodland Park, Colorado.

If you come across organizations that include words like “freedom, patriots, guardians, liberty and conservative” beware!

Thompson saw it with Rumfelt’s ‘Liberty Watch’. Jeffco had several groups. In Northern Colorado and all across the state we are seeing Cain’s ‘Task Force Freedom’, The Front Range Patriots and the Northern Colorado Conservative Patriots. In Weld County it is “Guardians of Weld Re-4 and Guardians of Greeley Evans 6. In the Colorado Spring’s area we see ‘Liberty on the Rocks’ and ‘Pikes Peak Patriots’, ‘Truth & Liberty Coalition’, ‘FEC United’. At the national level we see the ‘Moms For Liberty’, ‘Parents Defending Education’, ‘Freedom Foundation’, ‘Freedom Watch’ and ‘Freedom Works’. We could list many more here. Americans for Prosperity and KOCH have their mitts in all of it.

But, do you know that ALL of these DOTS connect?

****************

Now we see “WP Families for Freedom” and their FB page ‘Freedom Watch News’.

These two new groups may sound new to the WP scene but the names behind them are not new at all. RW started digging and found plenty of cause for alarm and further investigation.

The web site – ‘WP Families for Freedom’ & and their FB page, ‘Freedom News Watch’ include some of the very same people that RW and Support Jeffco Kids has followed for years. At the top of the that ladder sits the Independence Institute & Americans for Prosperity and all of their created organizations like Ready Colorado, Advance Colorado and more.

‘FAMILIES FOR FREEDOM’ – Even the name tells you to run!

https://www.facebook.com/freedomwatchnewsonfb

A very important point about the current post on FWN needs to be made here regarding the ‘Families for Freedom’ fund raiser for the overdue school lunch accounts. Yes it is a great project and one badly needed, BUTTTTTTTTTTTT there is a catch here. ‘Moms For Liberty’ uses this project as a way to gain favor with the communities they are in and portray themselves as Good Guys who are there for the kids. It is a well planned image campaign. School supply backpacks are another one they are doing.

MFL have done this is Cheyenne, WY and other districts across the nation. Now we wonder if Moms For Liberty El Paso County has themselves involved in the Woodland Park school district as well.

FFF: “Freedom Watch News is a news source brought to you by a Teller County, Colorado based non-profit. Families for Freedom was started to promote school choice, access to classical education, parental rights and scholastic excellence. Families for Freedom will also pursue citizens right’s for transparency in government, free and fair commerce, and other pressing issues.

Families for Freedom and Freedom Watch News was created by Teller County residents to help provide fact-based news for pertinent issues in our community.”

RW: The founder of ‘Families For Freedom’ is Jameson Dion a well-known GOP activist in Teller County. Known for his numerous letters to the editor and more. Appears on the Kim Monson show (also II & LPR) with Jen Gibbons (Cherry Creek Parents Advocacy Network) – “Teachers unions are not focused on educating kids but is focused on power and control.” He is the latest feature in the book banning campaign.

CO ID #: 20228012078 – The address on the SOS document is Dion’s address although his name is not there. It is who his agent is that tells the real story here. She has a long history in supporting the far right extremist agenda. J Dion is, like Cain of Task Force Freedom, just another willing pawn in their game.

AGENT: Gwen Benevento (Maven Law Group) aka now as The ‘West Group’ (Name was changed Dec 2022) https://westgrouplp.com/professionals

Benevento:

• Agent for Cain’s Task Force Freedom & another Task Force Freedom Action.

• Agent for LPR’s Michael Fields & George Brauchler’s ‘Advance Colorado’. https://advancecolorado.org/ Brauchler is president of AC.

• Spouse of Doug Benevento, former controversial DougCo BOE member leading the school voucher cause, pay for performance and anti-union agendas with Ben DeGrow of the II as well as the controversial president of the Douglas County Board of Health with his anti-mask/mandate agenda.

https://www.denverpost.com/…/resignation-dougco-school…/

‘FREEDOM WATCH NEWS’ – FWN is not the ‘CREDIBLE SOURCE for educational news at all’ as they claim to be! Sharing posts from Epoch Times and the Freedom Foundation which are true fake news conspiracy sites proves that.

https://freedomwatchnews.com/

WHO do we find on the website and FB page?

NAMES & Posts THAT STAND OUT FOR GOOD REASON!

• Plenty of fake news site articles including many from the Epoch Times & the Freedom Foundation!

• Several names are fake as WP parents have found. How ethical is it for a board member to be doing (if he is)?

• Jameson Dion – Among the many complaints he has was the one that he and Illingworth pulled together to remove not only a book but the high school teacher as well. Witt was fully supportive. Dion hosted a conservative board candidate ‘Meet & Greet’ at his home prior to the November 2021 election for Illingworth, Rusterholtz, Patterson & Brovetto on 9.25.2021.

• Clinton Smith is believed to be either Dion or D Illingworth.

• Woodrow Parks aka Curt Grina – “How can we get the WPEA out of our schools here in Woodland Park?”

• Curt Grina aka Woodrow Parks – Very outspoken against the teachers and their union among other things. Check out the posts by both C Smith and W Parks on the FB age.

https://gazette.com/…/article_2bda2f9c-87b7-11ed-8d91…

https://gazette.com/…/article_acd880b0-9047-11ed-8c6d…

• Andrew Wommack: ““We decided that we were going to take Colorado back,” Wommack said. “Colorado is a very liberal place, and so we’ve got a thing in place, and during the last election cycle we started with the school boards. We singled out five districts in Colorado, and we put out 417,000 voter guides. The GOP got incensed at us because we asked, ‘How do you feel about men competing in women’s sports? What do you think about critical race theory?’ They did not want those things to be public. So, we asked all the candidates—Democrat and Republican—and we put out these voter guides, and out of 178 people that we were supporting, we got … somewhere around 78 or 80 of them elected. So, we’re beginning to make an inroad, and we’ve got some big plans in place this year.”

“I sent a spy into our public school system to check out what the books are,” Wommack revealed later in his speech. “I got a list of I think it was 54 books in the Woodland Park School System—and this is a small place, 7,000 people in the community—and there’s 54 homosexual books that we know off. I’ve got a list of that, and I’ve got people that are on my staff that go to every school board meeting, and as soon as we get [the books] looked at so that we can defend what we’re saying, we’re going to stand up in the school board.”

“We now have a number of our Charis graduates that are on school boards, and we’ve got Christians in places,” he added. “Praise God, we’re seeing things change.””

RW: Other names that are common in this agenda include:

• Nicole & Derek Wagner – Merit Academy founders & also Florida residents.

• Katie Illingworth – Merit parent & now supposedly former Merit board member. Spouse of WP BOE member David Illingworth. How is it that he, as a board member didn’t recuse himself from voting on the Merit application? As the media has shown, he appears to enjoy being a controversial thorn directed at educators and their union. As a Deputy District Attorney, all should be concerned.

• Mary Sekowski – Merit board member. Her name shows up many times.

• Jen Gibbons – Cherry Creek Parents Advocacy Group aligned with J. Dion on the far right ‘Kim Monson’ (II & LPR) conservative talk show pushing conspiracy theories about the teachers unions.

• Bob Schaffer – Liberty Common Founder/Headmaster/LPR Chairman

• Tom Krannawitter – A very controversial guy (easy to Google him) that we find to be someone Rumfelt in TSD appears to admire as she posts links to his conspiracy agenda.

Please take time to browse the two Woodland Park conspiracy pages and note the comments by Woodrow Parks & Clinton Smith and remember as you do that they are fake names.

Sources:

Merit & ERBOCES: https://www.cato.org/blog/friday-feature-merit-academy

Liberty Common Newsletter, Oct 6, 2022 Bob Schaffer, Casey Churchill and Merit board members

https://www.denverpost.com/…/charter-school-liberty…/

The Federalist: https://thefederalist.com/…/no-politics-public-school…/

K. Illingworth ‘Go Fund Me for Merit Academy’ in May, 2021. Appears to have raised $9,000 of a $300,000 goal. https://www.gofundme.com/f/small-school-great-expectations

https://www.facebook.com/TSDReformWatch/posts/pfbid0Poxg6xbrcJ9jtY6WvEYXmXFjyLWvfr9HgyvmVVHLkDa1d3EbSZdamzLVvHBqF9mel?cft[0]=AZWCzqlKi_jIdDT1SVOG_V_WvqRH4_M6AvRdJJ6mAPX9rr-0ZPw_fBBf7WyhKNuMBjHQV-qzx-ncaQJrMIFktWXc9KVCMHIDwAMezskbcIgBpZeIrkwD69_AFSpmYjV64tPE3aatECdr0fGRVqYOwZ6h&tn=-UK-R

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.

Merit Academy Updates

The district has signed a contract with Merit Academy, and is currently working on a Facilities Usage Agreement (FUA) to give them the space they wanted in the Middle School. The contract was voted on in their 5/19 meeting (link to video); this followed their 5/18 “town hall” meeting (link to video) to take public comment…none of which led to any changes in the contract later adopted. As expected, the board ignored the process laid out in Colorado charter school law and even the district’s own website. They also never did have a clean vote on the MOU that was supposedly the foundation for this action…the preliminary injunction had found the original vote to be in violation of the Open Meetings Law, and the subsequent two ‘re-votes’ to be rubber-stamping which is also not allowed (link).

For the Facilities Usage Agreement (FUA), the board posted the draft Friday evening before Memorial Day weekend, with all public feedback required by Monday evening of that same holiday weekend. Thereby establishing that FUA also stands for, “Fuck U All” and showing that they really didn’t want public feedback. On Wednesday June 1st, the board met to ‘review’ to that feedback (link to video), and promptly instruct the Superintendent to proceed with the FUA with Merit without any changes to what was posted the prior week.

The district’s own financial analysis (link) of Merit was concerning, with their conclusion being:

A compressed analysis window, inconsistent financial reporting, and the lack of
a full-year of Merit Academy’s operational existence make thorough fiscal
analysis for adding a charter school to the Woodland Park School District
difficult. Much of the information included in this summary is based on projected
or estimated data and may be dramatically impacted by a host of variables
including changing economic, demographic and political circumstances. A more
effective analysis will be possible after a fiscal audit by a contracted, external
auditor.

Despite those financial concerns, the board granted Merit a significant portion of the sales tax revenue received by the school, something the law does not require. A more conservative board would have at least tied that sales tax money to specific milestones Merit must achieve, such as a satisfactory financial audit. But then, this board is all about doing what’s best for Merit, not the public schools.

Board posts final Merit contract and schedules vote

In a giant ‘fuck you’ to the taxpayers of this district awaiting a chance to voice their opinions on the Merit Academy contract in tonight’s special board meeting created for that purpose, the school board has gone ahead and posted a FINAL version of the Merit contract to the district website and scheduled a meeting for tomorrow at 6:00 (agenda) to vote to approve it (they also posted an approval resolution which they’ll be voting on). They have no intention of listening to public feedback nor making any changes to their contract based upon that feedback. This is all a circus show (maybe ‘shitshow’ would be a better description).

It’s worth showing up at tonight’s school board meeting, 6:00 (agenda) in the auditorium, and let the board know what you think about this corrupt, unethical process.

Both meetings will be livestreamed and the link for that is in the agendas.

Merit Contract draft finally posted!

The draft contract between WPSD and Merit Academy has finally been posted to the district’s website. You can download the full contract here, or the executive summary here. We’ll have our full analysis posted soon. The board will be taking public input in a meeting on Wednesday May 18th in the High School auditorium. They’ll also be taking questions via an online form that isn’t working at the moment, but when it does, the link is here.

Feasibility Study Presentation

The Feasibility Study Presentation to be shown at tonight’s board work session can be downloaded here.

Points of note:

  • Most public school rooms would be at 100% capacity. One classroom would have 1 empty seat. One ‘yoga’ room is at 0%.
  • Merit space would be at 66% capacity. So, the board would be giving Merit room to grow, but no room for the Middle School to grow.
  • Construction and other costs to make this happen would be in the $112-229k range. Additional capital expenditures are identified for the next two years; I think we’ll need to see the Merit contract to determine if they’re required to pay for any of this.
  • Some uncertainties are noted, such as whether moving and storage costs would be shared.

School Board meetings today

Today is a busy day for the school board. After last week’s fiasco regarding the Feasibility Study (let’s discuss it! Oh wait, we don’t want the public know about it, let’s remove it from the agenda!), they’ll be finally be giving the public a peek at it in tonight’s work session, scheduled to start at 6:00PM in the district offices (agenda link, livestream link). After the discussion about the feasibility study, they’ll go into a closed door executive session to chat with their lawyers about how to push this Merit contract though and set statewide precedent that will upend the traditional charter school approval process (or at the very least, lead to more expensive legal bills for our district).

First though, the board is scheduled to tour Columbine Elementary at noon (agenda). Why would they do this now, when they’re in the midst of contract dealings with Merit? And coincidentally, just reviewed (in private) the feasibility study on Merit being given space in the middle school? I suspect they’re reconsidering the middle school plan and considering giving Merit to Columbine, but we should learn more tonight.

Note too that we’re not guaranteed to see the original feasibility study…tonight is just a presentation about it. We may or may not get to view the document given to both the board and Merit last week.

Feasibility Study blocked from public view

In the April 27 school board work session, the board agenda had the following item: “Feasibility Study Presentation by Executive Director of Technology & Operations Miles Tuttle” (source). This information was to be presented to the public in that work session. Instead, the school board decided to keep it secret and hidden from public view. Considering the financial ramifications of a potential contract with Merit Academy, this is unacceptable to the taxpayers of this community. CORA requests for this information are pending. This post will be updated with a video recording of the meeting shortly.