If you’re following what’s going on in the Woodland Park school district, you already know that the city council is butting heads with the district administration, demanding more transparency into how the sales tax revenue is spent and even threatening to terminate that tax. An anonymous teacher posted this to the Concerned Parents of Teller County Facebook group recently about this topic (this was in response to a previous post by council member Carrol Harvey seeking public input on this):

Dear Carol,

After seeing your post on Facebook I felt the need to write to you in response to your request for input. As a long-time teacher in WPSD and taxpayer, I support the effort of the council to hold the school district accountable for the sales tax money. Of course I never want to see money taken away from our district but I have reasons that I would like to share with you all.

First of all, I see firsthand every day the district’s lack of understanding of how schools should be run. The people in charge don’t have education experience and don’t spend the district money effectively or even fairly. I get extremely frustrated by the ineptitude of the administrators that earn so much money and don’t know what they are doing, and don’t make any effort to improve the public schools. They have already wasted our reserve fund and continue to spend state and local money improperly.

If the sales tax is supposed to go towards technology, why did the 6th graders at Columbine have no internet for the majority of the first semester? Why are there no new chromebooks or laptops being bought to replace outdated ones?

If the sales tax is supposed to go towards facilities, why do roofs still leak? Why do students in one of Columbine’s modulars still not have drinkable water available in their space? Why have there been several days this year when the heat didn’t work and school even had to close?

If the sales tax is supposed to pay for innovative programs, why was money wasted on new curriculum that costs the district a huge amount of money, requires more teacher training, and lowers test scores for the first few years of implementation? Why did we even need this new curriculum when the district recently purchased perfectly good curriculum that is now sitting in boxes?

If the sales tax is supposed to go to teacher salaries why did teachers receive performance-based raises this year which amounted to very little, even if they achieved their performance goals? Especially teachers who have been dedicated to this district for years, who received zero raise for the years they have been here. First year and new to the district teachers received higher percentages, which seems backward. Why have we lost so many experienced teachers to other districts and why is it so hard to find good teachers who want to work here?

I believe that Merit Academy is benefiting most from the sales tax money at the expense of the few remaining public schools. One of the accounting documents I read stated that 17 of 20 of their teachers are paid using sales tax funds. As a taxpayer I didn’t agree to the money being used for a charter school. I don’t have a problem with charter schools, but I believe they should not take an inequitable amount of the funding. Our district obviously favors the charter school over the public schools and has tied the district’s hands from applying for grants to help the ever-growing population of special needs students in our public schools who need more support. Why would they do this unless they want to see the public schools fail and be replaced by more charter schools?

If the district were being run properly and sales tax money was being spent appropriately and responsibly, I would have no problem with continuing the sales tax. I just hate to see my tax dollars being wasted and put in the hands of individuals who have no business being leaders of a public school district and furthering an agenda that I don’t share.

Thank you for your diligence in holding the district accountable and keeping them from wasting any more of our tax money.

I would appreciate this letter remaining anonymous out of concern for repercussions from the district and community members who are trying to recall you because they are afraid to lose the money they need in order to further their agenda.

While the teacher posted this anonymously, their identity as a teacher in the district has been verified by an admin of that Facebook group.