A citizen revolution

There are always two sides to a story, and when politics is involved there could be dozens of sides. Please keep this in mind while reading this post.

Two years ago, in Jefferson County, Colorado (west suburbs of Denver) three "reformists" were elected to the school board. With five on the board they became the majority and immediately showed it. They did not want to negotiate with teachers, they wanted to invest more into charter schools, they liked the idea of pay for performance (of students) and they didn't have any use for rules of how the board should work. They hired an expensive lawyer just for the three of them, a lawyer who specializes in representing school board members just like them.

My personal problems with them were that one of the seemed to be the epitome of a misogynist in action and another, because of her religious beliefs, was not fond of gay people. These things are not good when serving 85,000+ students. I also saw constant disrespect for anyone who might disagree with the "reformists" as they moved full speed ahead on an agenda that seemed to be a checklist of education "reform".

Fast forward to this year and parents, students and others got enough signatures to bring a recall to vote. This vote happened this past week and all three "reformists" were voted out, in a landslide.

I called it a citizen revolution. I was ecstatic. Not only because of the results, but because of the huge outpouring of support in the community to work towards a recall.

Those supporting the "reformists" called it union thuggery taking hold. No matter where you looked, the word union was used everywhere when speaking against the recall.

114,000 citizens voted for the recall. Yet these folks were called union pawns, stupid, mindless and many other words that dehumanize them and simplify a vote that was so much more than union versus non union.


Takeaways for me are:

When people don't vote, bad things happen. No matter your view on anything, this is true.

If you have interest in any type of activism, pay attention to politics and vote. This has been almost a life-long mantra for me.

Just because something "is" right now doesn't mean it has to be. I saw people who had not been politically active take their frustration with the school board and use it to make change.

Don't be a jerk. I ran into this a lot and called many names and judged by all sorts. Treating other people like this does nothing for your cause. If you can't present your side and stick to the facts without demonizing someone else, be quiet. Especially online, where the whole world can see how terrible you look.

Political change is possible. Again, no matter what you believe or what you see that you don't like in any forum where the participants are elected. The citizen revolution that happened in Jefferson County can happen anywhere.

No election is local anymore. Money, and lots of it, comes from everywhere. It's just how things are now.

Finally, one person can make huge change. Add them to another person who wants to make change, and so on, and you have a citizen revolution.

 A citizen revolution is possible anywhere. If it can happen in Jefferson County, Colorado, it can happen anywhere.

Thanks very much for reading.

What an election!

I have always believed that all politics is local.

As I watched the returns on election night from the Jefferson County Dems party, I was once again reminded that the work I do to support local candidates pays off, while at the same time I have little control over whether or not a bigot is elected in Iowa.

To be fair, bigots were also elected in Colorado.

Election night was good locally as both my state rep and my state senator, two men I really like, were re-elected. My state senator was only ahead by some 400 votes, a count that went higher as votes were counted.

My former state senator, whose district we are no longer in due to boundary changes, won by 190 votes.

Talk about close. And about how each vote is vital. There were actually a bunch of close elections in Colorado.

The best part of election day is that we got the vote out in Jefferson County. Our favorite for State Board of Education, who represents our Congressional district, won 89,000+ votes. She was running against a "reformist", tea party candidate, like the three county school board members we have that won election last year. What this election showed me is that people voted. With all of the crap coming from our school board, people have gotten pissed off and have started voting. This is huge as our two amazing county school board members are up for re-election next year.

The point here is to vote. To get active in a local campaign. Get to know the candidates and choose one. If there isn't a good candidate, one that you can support, consider running yourself. I'm not talking about for US Senate. I am totally talking about city council, state rep, county positions and local school board.

If you are dismayed about what happened election night, do something.

Thanks for reading!

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.

Gay, vegan and voting

Election night was quite the night in our household. I am a geek when it comes to politics so election night is typically a flurry of going from website to website watching results as I watch local results on the television.

Last night was no different. Although there were no huge headline elections, I was very much interested in the Virginia governor's race, a congressional race in Alabama (go figure), school board elections in the county we live in here in Colorado as well as a tax hike initiative to support public schools in Colorado and a GMO labeling bill in Washington state. Whew.

The celebratory part of last night was that a bigot lost the governor's race in Virgina. Although I was accused last night of being "super nasty" when calling Ken Cuccinelli a bigot, the fact is he is a bigot. Although in the end the voters of Virginia didn't have a fantastic choice, I am relieved that there will be one less anti-gay, religious extremist in power. Wow, maybe I could just call him and people like him that rather than a bigot?

The celebration kind of ended there. As huge supporters of public schools and the funding of public schools, we were both devastated that our local school board now has three "reformist" members. All three candidates we supported lost. There is a lot of talk around what is actually best for students, and I will be the first to admit that I don't know all of the facts, yet in Colorado we have seen "reformist" school board members in Douglas County and from my point of view it isn't good. With a bunch of out-of-state money the "reformists" held on to power in Douglas County and now will be joined by similar thinking school board members in Jefferson County, where we live.

I haven't seen official results from Washington state. The notes I have read show that the GMO bill failed, yet that is not official as of the time I am writing this.

And in Alabama ( I know you are just waiting to read this part!) the less anti-gay guy won. The guy he beat told gay rights supporters in Alabama that they should move to California or Vermont and take their deviant lifestyles with them. OK, he only said the California and Vermont part but he has referred to us in the past as deviants.

All types of activists read this blog. Some because we are vegan, some because we are gay, some because we are also activists and fight for the voiceless. I absolutely believe that each one of us who is fighting for the voiceless and fighting to make this world a better place for all living beings have to get politically active and have to vote. We have to pay attention to what is going on in our own backyards.

Thank you for reading.

VOTE!

Although you television or radio is not filled political commercials, for many of our readers it is time to vote. Elections, especially local elections, are happening throughout the country. Even though issues may seem small, in most cases they aren't. A perfect opportunity for all of us to express our voice, or let a small group of people decide important issues.

In Virginia there is an intense governor's race. There seems to be a lot of distaste for both candidates. For us there is a clear choice as Cuccinelli is a proud bigot and would only bring more harm to equality and to women in a state I love so much.

There are wonderful people running for city council offices throughout the country. Check them out and let them know what you think.

Most importantly, and with very little fanfare, are the very important school board races. In Colorado this is a huge deal, since we have the infamous Douglas County School Board which has done a good job at wrecking public schools, creating an environment where too many good teachers and administrators are leaving and have placed personal politics over student education. This is a huge lesson in how important it is for us to pay attention to school board races.

We live in Jefferson County and there are three seats open. We'll be voting for Tonya Aultman-Bettridge, Jeff Lamontagne and Gordon "Spud" Van de Water.


We will also vote yes on Amendment 66 which is a tax increase bringing very much needed revenue to Colorado schools, especially those not usually looked at because the school districts are not wealthy. We don't have children but we totally get the deal that our public schools have got to rock and roll. We also do not buy the idea that teacher's unions are the problem. Our schools are hugely underfunded, and Amendment 66 would help with this.


I write a lot about being a voice, not only for the voiceless but for ourselves and our community. Please use your voice wherever you live and vote.


Thanks for reading!

Vote. Seriously.

I have heard and read it all. By "it", I am mean all of the statements and arguments as to why people should not vote.

I get it.

Some think it doesn't matter who wins an election, that all candidates are the same. I suppose part of this could be true, yet I firmly believe that this statement is great for people who have the privilege of being heterosexual. Or for someone who believes the statement of equal opinions/actions from candidates doesn't include opinions around equality or any type of positive notion around gays and lesbians.

Believe me, there is a difference.

Vote.

From your local city council to the President, candidates have vastly different views on equal rights for gays and lesbians. I'm not asking candidates to carry a gay flag at a gay pride parade. I'm talking about candidates who don't even support civil unions. Or go out of their way to disparage or demonize gay people.

Yes, there are many other issues that I am concerned about, yet it begins with whether or not a candidate believes Mike and I should have equality on some level.

Vote.

Who represents you in your state house? In your state senate?

Who is your voice in the US House of Representatives?

What local issues are being decided on? How about your local Board of Education?

Check it out. There is a lot of information out there.

And remember us. Remember The Gay Vegans when you vote.

Early voting starts soon in many places. In some places you need to be registered 30 days before an election so that cutoff date is coming up. Check with your county clerk for more information.

Thanks for reading.

I voted!

The mail in ballot arrived Friday. I filled it out Saturday. Mailed it on Monday.

I voted.

I know, it's not cool. It doesn't mean anything. It won't "help". Nothing will change. It's stupid.

I have heard it all. Even from people I respect. And love.

And I totally disagree.

As one who votes with his dollars every day, I am a proud voter in every election. And I truly believe that my votes make differences, especially in local elections.

Our local election is about city council, mayor, our county school board, and a tax increase to support public schools. I voted in a heartbeat.

Have you looked at your school board lately? Do you know who represents you on city council? Does it matter?

To me it does, on many levels.

Vegan meals in public schools? Go vote.

A "Meatless Monday" in your city? Go vote.

Funds for spay/neuter at the local level? Go vote.

Non-discrimination policies at the local level? Go vote.

Want to support a local, small business? Go vote.

Basic animal cruelty laws in your town? Go vote.

You totally have the power.

Thanks for reading! As always, I would love your feedback!