A new school board quickly enacted its agenda in Woodland Park. Now teachers are leaving and the board faces growing opposition, including from lifelong GOP voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WOODLAND PARK, Colo. \u2014 When a conservative slate of candidates won control of the school board here 18 months ago, they began making big changes to reshape the district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Woodland Park, a small mountain town that overlooks Pikes Peak, became the first \u2014 and, so far, only \u2014 district in the country to adopt the American Birthright social studies standard, created by a right-wing advocacy group that warns of the \u201csteady whittling away of American liberty.\u201d The new board hired a superintendent who was previously recalled from a nearby school board after pushing for a curriculum that would \u201cpromote positive aspects of the United States.\u201d The board approved the community\u2019s first charter school without public notice and gave the charter a third of the middle school building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As teachers, students and parents began protesting these decisions, the administration barred employees from discussing the district on social media. At least two staff members who objected to the board\u2019s decisions were later forced out of their jobs, while another was fired for allegedly encouraging protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These rapid and sweeping shifts weren\u2019t coincidental \u2014 instead it was a plan ripped from the MAGA playbook designed to catch opponents off guard, according to a board member\u2019s email released through an open records request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is the flood the zone tactic, and the idea is if you advance on many fronts at the same time, then the enemy cannot fortify, defend, effectively counter-attack at any one front,\u201d David Illingworth, one of the new conservative school board members, wrote to another on Dec. 9, 2021, weeks after they were elected. \u201cDivide, scatter, conquer. Trump was great at this in his first 100 days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The leaders of the Woodland Park School District are enacting an experiment in conservative governance in the middle of a state controlled by Democrats, with little in the way so far to slow them down. The school board\u2019s decisions have won some praise in heavily Republican Teller County, but opposition is growing, including from conservative Christians and lifelong GOP voters who say the board has made too many ill-advised decisions and lacks transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think they look at us as this petri dish where they can really push all their agenda and theories,\u201d said Joe Dohrn, a Woodland Park father who described himself as a staunch Republican and \u201cvery capitalistic.\u201d \u201cThey clearly are willing to sacrifice the public school and to put students presently in the public school through years of disarray to drive home their ideological beliefs. It\u2019s a travesty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teachers grew particularly alarmed early this year when word spread that Ken Witt, the new superintendent, did not plan to reapply for grants that covered the salaries of counselors and social workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At Gateway Elementary School in March, Witt told staff members he prioritized academic achievement, not students\u2019 emotions. \u201cWe are not the department of health and human services,\u201d he said, as teachers angrily objected, according to two recordings of the meeting made by staff members and shared with NBC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Someone in the meeting asked if taxpayers would get a say in these changes, and Witt said that they already did \u2014 when they elected the school board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the past two years, school districts nationwide have become the center of culture war battles over race and LGBTQ rights. Conservative groups have made a concerted effort to fill school boards with ideologically aligned members and notched dozens of wins last fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Colorado, conservatives started making gains earlier because school board elections are held in off years. Woodland Park offers a preview of how quickly a new majority can move to reshape a district \u2014 and how those battles can ripple outward into the community. Some longtime residents say that the situation has grown so tense, they now look over their shoulder when discussing the school board in public to avoid confrontation or professional consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
David Rusterholtz, the board\u2019s president, believes that chasm predates his election in November 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis division is much more than political \u2014 this is a clash of worldviews,\u201d Rusterholtz said at a board meeting in January. He concluded his remarks with a prayer for the district: \u201cMay the Lord bless us and keep us, may His face shine upon us and be gracious to us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rusterholtz, Illingworth, Witt and three other current school board members declined interview requests when reached by email and approached in person at the district\u2019s office. To tell this story, NBC News reviewed dozens of emails board members exchanged with parents and staff, obtained through open records requests, and spoke with over 40 Woodland Park community members, including students, current and former school staff and administrators, and former school board members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When asked to respond to criticism from school personnel and parents, Illingworth, the board’s vice president, replied in an email: \u201cI wasn\u2019t elected to please the teacher\u2019s union and their psycho agenda against academic rigor, family values, and even capitalism itself. I was elected to bring a parent\u2019s voice and a little common sense to the school district, and voters in Woodland Park can see I\u2019ve kept my promises.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the school year winds down, many of the Woodland Park School District\u2019s employees are heading for the exit, despite recently receiving an 8% raise. At least four of the district\u2019s top administrators have quit because of the board\u2019s policy changes, according to interviews and emails obtained through records requests. Nearly 40% of the high school\u2019s professional staff have said they will not return next school year, according to an administrator in the district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The board\u2019s critics have pinned their hopes on the next election in November \u2014 when three of the five school board members are up for a vote \u2014 to claw back control of the community\u2019s schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is an active case study on what will happen if we allow extremist policies to start to take over our public education system,\u201d said David Graf, an English teacher who recently resigned after 17 years in the district. \u201cAnd the scariest part about it, they knew that this community would bite on it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A culture shift on the board<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The four candidates who won nonpartisan positions on Woodland Park\u2019s school board in 2021 had to say little but that they were conservative to win. The mostly white, middle-class city of 8,000 people up the mountain pass from Colorado Springs had voted for Donald Trump over Joe Biden by 2-to-1 a year earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But while many conservatives running for school boards across the country recently were swept into office on a wave of parent complaints about critical race theory, library book content and policies supporting transgender youth, Woodland Park had no such activism in 2021. In fact, few people bothered to attend board meetings, according to Chris Austin, a pastor and the lone board member who was not up for re-election that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was a culture of collaboration,\u201d Austin said. \u201cYou had freedom to bring forward your thoughts and evidential data, people listened, we did not even know each other\u2019s political affiliations. That\u2019s the way I experienced it for the first nearly two-and-a-half years. Then it shifted abruptly with the first meeting with the new board.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Newly elected conservatives on the board acted quickly to approve an agreement with Merit Academy to become the district\u2019s first charter school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet, the vote, at a special meeting on Jan. 26, 2022, caught community members by surprise because the agenda made no mention of Merit \u2014 it had been listed instead as \u201cboard housekeeping.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The district\u2019s teachers union complained in an email to middle school staff that the board\u2019s action was \u201cunderhanded, and at worst illegal.\u201d A parent sued, aiming to force the board to follow open meetings law. A trial court judge did not rule on the legality of the board\u2019s actions but ordered the board to list agenda items \u201cclearly, honestly and forthrightly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In response to the teachers\u2019 complaints, Illingworth accused the union of attempting to organize a \u201ccoup,\u201d and instructed then-Superintendent Mathew Neal to make \u201ca list of positions in which a change in personnel would be beneficial to our kids\u201d and \u201chelp the union see the wisdom in cooperation rather than conflict.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Illingworth\u2019s emails spread after parents obtained them through open records requests. Subsequent board meetings attracted boisterous crowds, as teachers accused board members of creating a hostile environment, while other community members spoke in favor of the board for supporting \u201cschool choice\u201d and quoted Scripture. A handful of parents, including some lifelong Republicans, tried to organize a recall, but failed to get enough signatures to force a vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other parents felt the criticism was overblown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think a lot of people are angry because people don\u2019t like change,\u201d said Andrea Kendall, a mother with children in both Merit Academy and the traditional district schools. \u201cI do feel for the teachers to a certain extent, for sure. I do feel for the board, too, because I feel like they\u2019re trying their best with what they have, and they\u2019re getting attacked for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Illingworth said in emails to NBC News that the district\u2019s enrollment has increased, the district had expanded food and transportation services, and academic performance has improved. \u201cThe facts show the Woodland Park School District is doing better than ever,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neal resigned as superintendent in July 2022. He declined an interview request, but said in an email, \u201cI know how to captain a ship and also know when the direction were headed doesn\u2019t align with my philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Austin resigned from the board last November for a similar reason: \u201cThe direction of the new board was just incongruent with my value set.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Austin\u2019s replacement, the board appointed Mick Bates, who records show donated $500 to Illingworth last fall and was a recent chair of the county Republican Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And for Neal\u2019s replacement, the board picked Ken Witt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘Everyone has their line’<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A week before Witt was hired, on Dec. 13, students in a class called Sources of Strength, which is part of a national suicide prevention program, asked their teacher what should they know about him as the sole finalist for the superintendent job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sara Lee, a longtime teacher at Woodland Park High School, responded, \u201cYou should Google him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The students did, and they didn\u2019t like what they learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They discovered that Witt, as president of the school board in neighboring Jefferson County, supported a plan in 2014 to ensure the district\u2019s curricula would promote patriotism and not encourage \u201csocial strife.\u201d Witt said students who protested the board policies at the time were \u201cpawns\u201d of the teachers union. After he and two other conservative members of the board were recalled, Witt became executive director of an organization that oversees charter, online and other schools and helped launch Merit Academy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Woodland Park students staged a protest against Witt\u2019s hiring on the morning of Dec. 14. An hour later, the administration placed Lee on leave. The district said she was \u201cinappropriate and insensitive\u201d for sharing information about Witt, according to a letter of reprimand she shared with NBC News, and forbade her from talking about the board and its decisions with students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following month, the district transferred Lee to an elementary school, even though she\u2019d worked in a high school setting for 25 years. She quit, and got a job at a school that\u2019s 45 minutes away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was my values that were being called into question,\u201d Lee said. \u201cIt was the fact that I was suddenly in a place where I couldn\u2019t have an open and honest conversation with my students. And that had never happened in the 18 years I\u2019d been in Woodland Park.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The board held its lone public interview with Witt on the evening of Dec. 19. Afterward, Witt met privately with Rusterholtz, Illingworth and board member Cassie Kimbrell in the district\u2019s administrative office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two days later, the board voted to hire Witt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that private meeting \u2014 which was captured by a surveillance camera \u2014 became a flash point. Any time three or more members of a school board gather and discuss the district, the meeting must be open to the public under Colorado law. People in the community began clamoring for the district to release the footage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Witt declined. The district argued in response to one mother\u2019s lawsuit that the conversation \u201cwas of a personal nature,\u201d and that it would be a security risk to disclose where the surveillance camera was placed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teller County District Court Judge Scott Sells disagreed and said he found it \u201ctroubling, the lack of transparency by the school board and the school district.\u201d Sells ordered the video to be released, but the district appealed and the case is still pending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NBC News obtained the footage, which shows Witt, Illingworth and Kimbrell walking into the receptionist area of the administrative building just before 8 p.m. Once Rusterholtz joins 7 minutes later, they stand together conversing for 8 minutes and then walk out of the room. There is no audio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Logan Ruths, the district\u2019s former information technologist, first watched the video in late December, because he was in charge of responding to open records requests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ruths said that when he saw it, his first thought was: \u201cThis is very damning for the board.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ruths, who wears his Eagle Scout ring most days, said he was shocked that the district refused to release the footage. He believed it was part of a recent pattern of withholding public information, which he had repeatedly raised to district administrators and lawyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On March 10, Witt summoned Ruths to his office. The district had terminated his position as a \u201cconsolidation\u201d measure, according to audio shared with NBC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tearfully, Ruths pleaded with Witt \u201cto be honest, for once,\u201d and tell him the real reason that he was losing his job. Witt didn\u2019t say much. Ruths called him an \u201cawful human being\u201d before walking out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Miles Tuttle, Ruths\u2019 boss, told Ruths afterward that he was going to resign. \u201cEveryone has their line,\u201d Tuttle said to him, \u201cand this being done to you, that was my line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Discouraging civic engagement<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the first board meeting in January with Witt as superintendent, the board voted to adopt the American Birthright social studies curriculum standard. No social studies teachers had been consulted prior to the vote, according to three current employees and an administrator who asked to speak anonymously to protect their employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
American Birthright materials emphasize patriotism, argue that the federal government should have no authority over public schools and say teachers should not encourage civic engagement, such as registering to vote or petitioning local lawmakers on issues students care about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is terribly important to be a disengaged citizen, and indeed, a disengaged student,\u201d said David Randall, research director at the National Association of Scholars, a conservative organization that created the standards last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Randall said American Birthright was modeled off state standards in Massachusetts and Florida. The group received input from dozens of right-wing groups and activists, including the Claremont Institute, the Family Research Council and Moms for Liberty. Randall sees it as a bipartisan alternative to coursework that he described as hijacked by liberal concepts. Critics, though, say it\u2019s biased toward the right \u2014 for example, it includes Bill Clinton\u2019s impeachment but not Donald Trump\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Colorado State Board of Education rejected American Birthright in October. The National Council for the Social Studies, a professional trade group for educators, issued a rare warning against using it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey\u2019re trying to push a certain agenda down to these kids,\u201d Amy Schommer, a mother in Woodland Park, said of the school board\u2019s adoption of American Birthright. \u201cI\u2019m a conservative but I\u2019m not against my kids learning something they disagree with. They\u2019re trying to fix problems that don\u2019t exist here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The district\u2019s adoption of American Birthright had immediate fallout for an elective class called \u201cCivil Disobedience.\u201d Graf, the English teacher, had created the class in 2015 to trace protest movements like Black Lives Matter back to America\u2019s founding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Five days after the board approved American Birthright, a community member who does not have children complained to Witt about \u201cCivil Disobedience,\u201d and accused Graf of using \u201cBetween the World and Me\u201d by Ta-Nehisi Coates \u2014 about growing up Black in America \u2014 as an \u201cindoctrination tool,\u201d according to emails obtained through open records requests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A week later, Graf read in The Pikes Peak Courier that Witt had decided Coates\u2019 book would no longer be used because it didn\u2019t conform with American Birthright. Graf said no one from the administration spoke to him about how he taught the class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Graf resigned last month. \u201cThey\u2019re taking autonomy away from teachers, limiting the scope of the free-thinking, controversial discussions that I think are age-appropriate,\u201d he said, \u201cespecially for 16-, 17-, 18-year-olds, who are about to go out and experience what it\u2019s like to be an adult.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several more high school teachers resigned this year, citing the board as a reason, according to interviews and copies of resignation letters reviewed by NBC News. Some in the community, though, saw this as a good thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI feel like if they\u2019re leaving, it\u2019s because they have an agenda,\u201d said Deborah Bruner, a Woodland Park grandmother. \u201cWhat it sounds like to me is that this board is going to hold teachers accountable for what they teach, and to teach the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A contentious meeting<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the time Witt arrived at Gateway Elementary School on March 2 to meet with the staff, emotions were running high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The teachers had heard that Witt was questioning the need for mental health support for students, and they were worried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the meeting, Witt would not commit to keeping the same number of guidance counselors and social workers for the next school year. He said that his focus was on \u201cacademic success,\u201d according to the recordings obtained by NBC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Staff members tried to explain why it was critical to address students\u2019 emotional issues so that they could learn. One employee mentioned recent familial homicides in the community as an example of the kind of trauma children are facing, including a murder-suicide that left a student dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Witt asked if the school had a social worker. The employee replied affirmatively, and then Witt asked, \u201cDid the murder-suicide still occur?\u201d Several people in the room gasped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That same week, Laura Magnuson, the district\u2019s mental health supervisor, had a call with Witt to press him on reapplying for grants for mental health professionals. She had emailed him to warn that due dates were coming up, and a couple had already passed. If the district did not reapply, it would lose $1.2 million in annual funds that covered the salaries of 15 positions, such as counselors, social workers and career and college readiness specialists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following week, after she couldn\u2019t convince Witt to reapply for the grants, she sent him her resignation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI feel most worried that this new vision will leave our most vulnerable students and families behind,\u201d Magnuson, who declined an interview request, wrote in an email to Witt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Magnuson\u2019s email circulated online after Matt Gawlowski, a father who chronicles the administration\u2019s actions on a blog, got a copy through an open records request, and it disturbed some families enough to pull their children from the district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Craig Johnson, a father who describes himself as a \u201cpro-life, gun loving native of Woodland Park,\u201d transferred three of his children to a neighboring district in Manitou Springs. That district said 47 students from Woodland Park are transferring in the fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Johnson said he was particularly bothered that the district\u2019s leaders thought mental health was best left for parents to address at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are lots of kids for whom home is a problem place, unfortunately,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cSo don\u2019t tell me mental health starts at home when we have examples of parents murdering at home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zehan Rogers, a Woodland Park sophomore, said he\u2019s had a friend die by suicide and others who have had depression. He said he doesn\u2019t think the board understands how important having mental health staff available is for the 2,000 students in the district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt can save their lives,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s so many unforeseen consequences that will come from this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘A very important step’<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the Woodland Park school board\u2019s most recent meeting on April 12, only a handful of the 50 people packed into a conference room under fluorescent lights voiced support for the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One was a man who\u2019d brought a red leather-bound Bible with him. He gave a short speech during the public comment session in which he called teachers \u201cinsurrectionists\u201d and implored the board to stand up to them to \u201cstop the next Reichstag that is bound to happen in the Woodland Park school district\u201d \u2014 referring to an arson attack on the German parliamentary building in 1933 that Nazis blamed on Communists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the hot topic that evening was students\u2019 mental health. The board had proposed a resolution declaring opposition to a bill in the Colorado Legislature to offer voluntary annual mental health screenings of students in sixth grade and above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amber Hemingson, a sixth-grade teacher and mother, described how supportive colleagues and previous administrators were when her husband died of cancer in 2020, and her family struggled with depression in the aftermath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Standing at a podium a few feet away from the board members, Hemingson said the district had provided vital counseling services so she could continue working and her children could function in class. She recalled how Lee, the teacher who recently left the district, once found Hemingson\u2019s suicidal daughter crying in the bathroom and comforted her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSelfless WPSD employees cared for orphans and a widow in their distress,\u201d she said, trying not to cry. \u201cWill you look after orphans and widows in their distress, or will Christ say to you, as he said in Matthew 25:45, whatever you did not do for the least of thee, you did not do for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fifteen minutes later, the board read the resolution, which vowed that the district would opt out of the mental health screenings if the bill passed. Rusterholtz said he was proud to support the resolution because parents should be in charge of their children\u2019s education and mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a very important step,\u201d Rusterholtz said. \u201cThis is one more standing in the way of big government taking charge of your children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The board passed the resolution unanimously. The man who\u2019d earlier called teachers \u201cinsurrectionists\u201d stood and applauded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n