The Woodland Park Education Association has Coordinated to Disrupt the Current School Board

In 2021, voters elected conservatives to school boards throughout Colorado in what was part of a nationwide referendum on the amount of control and visibility parents have with their children’s education. Board meetings in most of those districts since have been volatile. What we have seen in the Woodland Park School District is no exception. 

The results of dozens of CORA requests submitted to WPSD over the course of this year have uncovered a number skeletons. Systemic Racism, CRT and Gender Fluid Training are rampant within the district. Principles and other administrators have been involved in an active cover up to keep our parents in the dark. The Woodland Park Education Association has claimed in the past that they are not part of any national union groups and are just here to protect the interests of all teachers. This too, I have discovered is a lie. Some of this information is being released this evening. All will be released in time. The parents in our district deserve to know the truth. 

In an email released through CORA, written January 12th 2022, the Vice President of the WPEA wrote this to a union member: “The most important piece is that we continue to have teachers, whether a part of the WPEA or not, attend these meetings. It is the only way to continue to hold the board accountable at this time, though we are working closely with the PPEA for other methods of disruption.” LET ME REPEAT THAT QUOTE: “we are working closely with the PPEA for other methods of disruption”. He later notes “We have not sent out a mass communication to all members about WPEA leadership’s thoughts on the newly elected school board and steps we have considered taking since the election. There are a few reasons for that and I would be happy to discuss those outside of an email.” 

The organized disruption by the WPEA is evident in other emails: shortly after the school board voted to approve the MOU for Merit Academy, the WPEA treasurer sent an email to members asking that they distribute an email to “all staff” that read: “With the support of the Pikes Peak Education Association and the Colorado Education Association legal department, we are pursuing legal avenues to address these actions…”. A series of legal and public disruption efforts followed in an attempt to halt the Merit Academy chartering process under the guise of open meeting law violations, much like what was observed in Douglas County and other places. 

An email early the next month to “all staff” announced reoccurring “Friday Afternoon Collaborative” meetings at the home of the WPEA treasurer in which the union would provide food and drinks. 

Just last week the president of the WPEA blasted an email to all High School Staff when the Civil Disobedience Course made it on to the school board agenda. Predictably, staff and some of the usual opponents of this board showed up to the meeting and towed the company line in yet another act of disruption.

The disruption observed at the Woodland Park School Board meetings matches the NEA playbook, summed up in a blog post on their website entitled “How to Oust a Right-Wing School Board”. The dramatic and fierce opposition that this board has encountered is not all organic. The parents and the voters of this district are being lied to.