Teachers and community members (and I believe four press cameras) crowded the Ute Pass Cultural Center this evening to protest the actions taken by the Woodland Park School Board and the Superintendent, Ken Witt. 81 staff members signed a letter of protest, which you can read here (page 1,page 2).
What the teachers did by speaking out appears to be in direct violation of district policy KDDA, and is similar to what Mary Ward was fired for earlier this year. The district is currently involved in a lawsuit brought against them by the WPEA regarding, among other things, that policy. Staff I spoke to expressed uncertainty and even fear about how Ken Witt and the school board will respond to them speaking out like this.
Full video:
The next board meeting (and last scheduled one before the election) is Wednesday, October 11th, 6:00PM.
The Woodland Park school board, and interim superintendent Ken Witt, have made several moves to clamp down on the speech of teachers and other staff in the district.
First was last December…the board blamed Sara Lee, a teacher at the High School, for the student-led protests. After placing her on administrative leave for about a month, they finally just cut her position at the highs school and moved her to Gateway Elementary (but then had to hire someone to do the position she was cut from…).
In January, the board adopted the American Birthright Standards. The Colorado Sun reached out to social studies teachers to learn more about this; one Middle School teacher asked district administration if it’d be OK if he talked to the Sun about this and Witt used policy KDDA to prevent him from doing so. Later, Witt used the newly adopted American Birthright standards to ban a book from a high school elective class.
What does policy KDDA say? Or rather, what did it say in January (it later changed…)? Here’s the January copy:
Also in January, the board reduced the public comment section in regular board meetings from 60 minutes, to 30 minutes.
Next up was the news about moving sixth grade to the elementary schools. After the middle school teachers protested this by staging a sick day protest, following by a massive public protest the following morning, Witt took charge. First, he fired a Middle School staff member, again citing policy KDDA and seeming to point blame at her for the sick day protest:
Next, Witt sent an email to Middle School staff warning of further retaliation if staff were to do something like this again:
Finally, we received word that policy KDDA had been updated…or rather, expanded, to silence teachers from saying just about anything about the district. Here’s the latest copy (we’re not sure if the 2/28/23 revision date is accurate or was back-dated; no announcement of this policy change was made):
So if a teacher has a kid in the district…they can’t talk to the press about their own kid even.
Is this legal? There are, naturally, differing opinions on this topic. If you read about the Supreme Court’s decision in Pickering v. Board of Education, though it really makes this seem like an unconstitutional move on the part of the board and Witt. The Brechner Center studies this issue more in this link. It’ll be interesting to see if our board ends up in the courts over all this.
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.
Wednesday 3/1 – around two dozen Middle School staff called in sick in protest (link1, link2). Concerned community members put out a call for protestors to show up Thursday to show our support for staff.
A Middle School educator was fired in apparent retaliation for the teacher protests and as a warning to staff.
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.
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.
A number of local networks have been covering our schools this past week. Apologies for the crude screen captures here, but they show the stories well!
Staff members and families in Woodland Park School District are protesting after the district announced on Feb. 28 it would move sixth graders from its middle school and expand three elementary schools to preschool through sixth grade by the 2023-2024 school year.
— Read on sixty35media.org/news/protests-staff-sick-out-over-woodland-park-middle-school-decision/
The teachers need our support! Yesterday, Witt announced the sixth grade will be moved out of the Middle School and back to the elementary schools. This was done with zero collaboration with teachers or parents in the district…it was a surprise to all.
The majority of Middle School staff called in sick today (we’re told 29+).
Witt met with staff at Summit Elementary this morning. It did NOT go well. He’ll be meeting with staff at Gateway this afternoon.
Tomorrow morning (3/2), Witt will be meeting with staff at the Middle School at 7:30AM. We need to show the teachers we support them; we need as many people as possible lining the sidewalk outside the middle school. Bring signs if you can; we’ll have some extras. Do not block the roads; do not block pedestrians using the sidewalks. Please arrive early, by 7:00 if possible.
Teachers in this small district northwest of Colorado Springs, like teachers across the country, are scared and uncertain about what they can and can’t say in school.
— Read on www.cpr.org/2023/02/01/woodland-park-teacher/
