The JeffCo School Board fiasco Part III

This is Part III of a series of posts I am writing about our county school board.

As schools closed and students began walking out in protest of a proposed curriculum committee, all of a sudden Jefferson County Public Schools was in the news across the country.

The curriculum committee would be a form of censorship.

The board is not transparent.

The student's walking out of class are pawns of their teachers and the ever-powerful union.

Students are being manipulated.

This is all really about the teacher's union.

There are certainly no shortage of opinions. Those who have always supported public schools are voicing their opinion. Those who have always disliked teacher unions are voicing theirs.

Some are going hard core. Ross Kaminsky, an apparent conservative who does not care for teacher unions, wrote this in a recent note to our local paper: "But truth is the first casualty of war, and so it was in Jefferson County as the unions implemented their plan to use students as human shields while assailing the school board with misinformation." This was in response to a part of his note in which he wrote that the school board was really fighting censorship.

The student human shields have a lot at stake. Pawns as they might be, AP History is important to them as they can get college credit for it. (I am still learning more about AP topics so will write more in another post.)

As I watched students leaving class in protest and listened to the nationwide name calling against students in JeffCo schools, some coming from our own school board members, my first thought was that all of these name callers have never met a teenager. Pawn? Easily manipulated? Seriously?

Those who support our "reformist" school board say it's all about the money. And union power. My challenges about our new board have indeed included issues about the money. The $80,000 for an additional lawyer just for the three "reformist" board members. The huge increase in pay for the new school superintendent, especially when so many conservatives complained about the pay of our former school superintendent. $300,000 for a charter school that is struggling and money had not helped before.

And one of the semi-funny issues is the pay of the new superintendent. I listened to many folks complaining about how much our past superintendent was paid. These folks are supportive of our current board majority. Yet I didn't hear any complaining when the new superintendent was hired at a salary of about $80,000 more than the past one. 

As the new superintendent said this week, "the past week has been quiet". Indeed it has. I'm curious to see what the next steps are. I'm also looking forward to our local elections to see if tea party candidates are affected in JeffCo based on the support of the board majority. I want to see if more people start voting based on what the board is doing.  

Thanks for reading. 

The JeffCo School Board fiasco Part II

This is Part II of a series of blog posts about the Jefferson County School Board and recent student walkouts.

This month, one of the new "reformist" board members introduced a proposal to have a curriculum review committee and that the committee's first priority would be to revisit the AP History course.

Although many of the student-organized walkouts were based on the AP History portion of this proposal, including what should or shouldn't be taught in history, I am surprised that no one has brought up the process of selecting the committee.

First, I'd like to share an email sent out by a supporters of the board member, Julie Williams, who wants to create this curriculum committee:
 

This is scary. I wonder how this person thinks about the students who attend JeffCo schools. I wonder what Julie Williams thinks about gay students or students who might call themselves progressive. I wonder if the writer of this email thinks gay people are ungodly.

No matter what you think about "reformist" school board members (not just ours but those across the country), I think it's fair to say that they have an agenda. In our case, I truly believe that our school board majority has no interest in all of our students, that they only care about their agenda.

So just say it.

There are plenty of actions that "reformist" board members have taken that show me that they do not care about all students. I wonder what it's like for gay and lesbian students in the district. Or students who live in poverty.

After over a week of student protests, I also wonder how students in JeffCo feel when being called pawns, or that their actions could never have been planned by themselves but had to have been planned by the dreaded union. Newscasters have called them names. Our own board members seem to think that the students cannot critically think for themselves.

This week two high schools closed due to teacher sickouts. There were a couple of student protests but not on the level of last week. The monthly school board meeting is tonight, and the new curriculum is on the docket.

More to come.

Meanwhile, please vote. Please check out your school board.

Thanks for reading.

The JeffCo School Board fiasco - Part I

Evergreen High School students protesting the JeffCo School Board.

If you are connected with my blog on social media at all, you might already know about what is happening with our local school district. We live in Lakewood, which is part of Jefferson County, Colorado. Since last week thousands of students from high schools throughout the county have walked out of class to protest, mainly, a school board member's proposed curriculum committee that would start out by making changes to AP History.

There is no way I can give this story justice with just one post. This will be a series. My first! Seriously, this issue is of huge importance to me and as I have closely followed this I have learned  a lot that I want to share with all of you.

To give you a little background, there are five school board members and last November three new "reformist" board members were voted in. They have a majority and have used that to promote their seemingly right-wing agenda. Now there are those who say that the previous board majority did the same with a left-wing agenda, yet somehow our school district became one of the top in the country.

With each side trading barbs, this is one thing I believe everyone can agree with: That JeffCo Public Schools has a reputation throughout the country as being one of the best school districts nationally.

We are also one of the largest, 85,542 students. And unlike some school districts in Colorado that are very wealthy, ours is a for sure mixture of class, ethnicity and race. We have a very high percentage of students, 34%, who qualify for free or reduced lunch yet we also have many students who come from upper middle class and up families. About 10% of K-12 students in Colorado attended a JeffCo school.

99.86% of our teachers are considered "highly qualified" according to federal standards.

We have the third best graduation rate of the nation's 50 largest school districts.

NOTE: A lot of this information comes from last year's annual report, done before this new "reformist" majority won the election.

Jefferson County is a purple county, with one third each of Democrats, Independents and Republicans.

In January our new school board majority took over and it didn't take long to notice changes.

But before I start with all of that, I want to plug voting. And voting in local elections. And paying attention to your local school board.

This is vital. Otherwise, your local school board could look like ours, if it already doesn't. As I write about what is going on in Jefferson County, please take this to heart. Please vote. Please speak out. I totally believe that if more folks voted in the school board election last year that these "reformists" would have had no chance of winning.

Once in power, the "reformist" majority quickly hired a lawyer. The board already has a lawyer yet these three wanted their own at $80,000 a year paid by the school district.

Then they decided to give $300,000 to a charter school and in the same meeting decided that they should not fund full-day kindergarten.

Charter schools are an issue. And $300,000 is a lot of money. I have read that there are some amazing charter schools, yet I first and foremost believe in support our public schools. I do not believe that all charter schools are as supportive of all students as public schools are. AN example would be me getting calls from teachers and students at two JeffCo schools that were having a tough time from those in power when wanting to create a Gay-Straight Alliance.

So I seriously should either leave the charter school debate to those most qualified or at least wait until I learn more before I write about them.

I think now is a good time to break. While I write my Part II, here is an article from today's Denver Post that will bring you more information on what is happening: student walk outs.

Thank you for reading. I would be delighted if you shared this post with friends.