Local News
Insurgent School Board Candidates in Cañon City Want To ‘Throw a Bomb into Our District and Disrupt Programs,’ Says Incumbent
“We’ve seen significant disruption in nearby districts and throughout the state and I don’t want that for our district,” Valladares said. “I do think they want to come in and disrupt some of our key leaders and make changes that may not be allowed under the law. That will disrupt the entire district.
Gag orders on teachers, cutting mental health support, operating in the dark — what’s happening in Woodland Park?
Now, many educators are feeling demonized and quitting, and parents are feeling demoralized and leaving. They say the nationwide culture war has come to roost in Woodland Park, just northwest of Colorado Springs, home to about 8,000 people.
ACLU sues Colorado school district for banning ex-employee from public meetings
Logan Ruths was fired from his informational technology specialist role at Woodland Park School District in March after he raised concerns that the administration had improperly withheld files and redacted information in response to open records requests, which Ruths processed as part of his job.
A right-wing takeover of a Colorado school board has some of the town’s conservatives deeply concerned
“This 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,” David Illingworth, one of the new conservative school board members, wrote to another on Dec. 9, 2021, weeks after they were elected. “Divide, scatter, conquer."
DAVIS: The Small Colorado Town at the Center of Far-Right Plans for American Schools
June 8, 2023
Twenty miles northwest of Colorado Springs, nestled amongst the conifers behind the first upslopes of the Front Range, the vanguard of a shadowy, well-funded national movement has taken over a school district. Now, the district is being used as a base of operations from which to open a new front in the right wing’s decades-old war on public education.
CO Springs School District Bans Books
Academy School District 20 in Colorado Springs has removed three books from school libraries after receiving a letter from members of a conservative activist group that claims the books meet the legal definition of obscenity, according to emails obtained by a Colorado Open Records Act Request.
A conservative takeover of a Colorado school board has led to an exodus of staff, with nearly 40 percent of the high school’s workers quitting, according to an NBC News investigation.
CORA request reveals suggested segregation of LGBTQ students
“I am just frustrated that this is even a thing and that we’re talking about this in 2022,” said Stevens. “I think that we need to let people live their lives and be who they are. And if people are uncomfortable, then they can go somewhere else. These are kids. This is a public school. And, you know, there are other choices.”
