Now that the teachers union successfully kicked out reform school board members in Jefferson County, it’s finally dropping the ruse that this was a parent-led effort. A document leaked to the Peak showed that the teachers union has been working to take back Jeffco “from the moment the polls closed in 2013”. See a screen shot of the email below.
Those of you who believed this was a parent-led effort must feel foolish right about now. Perhaps even more shocking is how easily the “parents” who claimed this was a “parent-led effort” lied to their neighbors and friends about the intent of this endeavor. It’s also disgusting how easily this effort lied about almost everything related to this effort and tried to destroy the lives of the board members and their families as well as staff. But, the ends justify the means, right union thugs?
@Derek Wittlief: On behalf of people treating you less than civilly, I appologize. I genuinely appreciate your efforts to understand the fight, given that you don't have a dog in it. To clarify, the recall didn't start right after the election. Recall paperwork wasn't filed until this June, and they were filed by a group of parents, not the union (though understandably, JCEA members were glad to jump on board the recall efforts). What DID happen immediately is that people were on the watch. There was a huge increase in the attendance of school board meetings and communication through social media and forums online, primarily because of two factors:
1.) The actions of these three new board members were a huge cause for concern, from their very first meetings onward.
2.) DougCo had the same style of AFP-backed "reformer" candidates take control of their board in recent years, and the results have not been what most citizens would consider positive.
I've already addressed the first one, but I can link you to video of of the meeting at which they voted to hire Brad Miller if you'd like to see for yourself. I can also link you to evidence that Thompson's new board members knew Miller was going to be hired by JeffCo before it was even voted on. A lot of the JeffCo community felt blindsided by our new board majority and their agenda. Witt, Newkirk and Williams ran on campaign buzzwords like "transparency" and "fiscal accountability" that of course sound great to voters who aren't dialed in, so it's not surprising they were elected when they had campaign backing from Americans for Prosperity. I'll be honest, I didn't know there was so much riding on the 2013 election and missed my chance to vote. But it didn't sit well with a lot of people that the first action of these "transparency" advocates was to lawyer up, to keep things from the board minority members, and to break board policy and apparently sunshine laws as well. It didn't take long for JCEA to fear these three, and that's what their statement about "starting right after the last election" was in reference to, but JCEA weren't the only ones who were upset basiclly right off the bat. Once we all saw the pattern of AFP-backed "reformers," we saw the damage it was doing elsewhere and wanted to stop it.
This is evidenced by the fact that despite having been successful at breaking up the teachers union in DougCo and having a voter base in which republicans outnumber democrats by well over 2:1, DougCo still voted out all three of their incumbant reformers who were up for re-election. Many voters, (myself included) weren't even aware of this movement when these three were elected in JeffCo. But the increased voter turnout, participation of voters of every party affiliation, and patterns in all local elections this year support the claims that this is not a partisan argument or a simple matter of supporting or villifying the teachers unions. Big monied, national, political special-interest groups supported education reform candidates in all these local elections, and whenever anyone points that out, they are accused of being liberal union thugs who put politics first. But we weren't the ones who wanted candidates to have a particular political ideology, and we're having to fight it all across the state.
Freddy Snowing Yes, damaging. Beyond violating Sunshine laws, repeatedly breaking board policy regarding when an issue can be voted on, throwing out the existing pay increase schedule for teachers, implementing their own teacher performance rating system (which disregarded the fact that the independent firm THEY HIRED THEMSELVES determined the system was inaccurate and unreliable), lying to teachers about how the new (flawed) rating system wouldn't afect their compensation the first year, hiding information from minority board members when they asked to see an invoice for the attorney who supposedly represented all of them, urging supporters to communicate with them in ways they (erroneously) believed would circumvent CORA rules, getting caught lying about info provided in CORA requests, linking to protest events sponsored by hate groups on their public facebook pages (which urged parents to keep kids home from school in protest of an anti-bullying event, despite having proclimed that students shouldn't ever miss class time to protest), identifying a student by name and picture at a board meeting (a big no-no according to their own polices) and slandering the student, calling her a racist for non-racist statements made by someone else entirely, the list goes on and on. I'm happy to provide links documenting any of the items above if there's any you'll actually tke the time to read. If not, suffice to say we all saw the damage they were doing despite the short time they held their seats. It's a pattern we've seen all over the place, including neighboring Douglas County.
These "reformers" have been in DougCo for a lot longer than in JeffCo, and test scores are dropping, turnover rate has been increasing, DCSD owes the state $4.2 million for school bord changes which resulted in overcharging the state for fulltime students. the public woke up to it. There's no union left in Douglas and there are more than twice as many republican voters there than democratic (Democratic voters: 44,655 – Republican voters: 104,378), yet Douglas County still voted out ALL THREE of the incumbent reformer candidates who were up for re-election. How is that a liberal or union problem?
In JeffCo, more republicans voted than democrats, so again, if you think the issue is limited to "the liberals" you totally fail to understand your opposition. I'm registered independent, I'm not a teacher nor a member of any union, and my only connection to JeffCo Schools is that my kids are going to go to school here. I happily spent my time, energy and money working for this recall, while people like youcontinue to ignore the depth of the issue and scream about political party lines and union-busting. That's why you lost in a landslide.
Jeffco teachers' only agenda is to provide premium education to the students presented to us with compensation that reflects experience, education, and evedence of student growth."
You mean use scare tactics when losing and keep the union club in power.
So who is the group "American votes"? Thats not outside money? Gota love the union puppets mouthin off.
Lol at the grassroot efforts. You mean the liberal playbook of do it for the kids. Same ol bs from the left.
You mean with collaboration of the teachers union.
Damaging? How long were the reformers in there? I think the union and the liberals have done enough damage.
My union represents organized labor in the best interests of students. Such organization is no different than the monies and outside influences that have been fighting us. The ousted three board members represented religious and private interests which wanted to dismantle PUBLIC education in order to implement their dogmas. They have been loduly voted out and should return to their private domains to 'educate' their children at their own expense.
Jeffco teachers' only agenda is to provide premium education to the students presented to us with compensation that reflects experience, education, and evedence of student growth.
Goodbye, Jule Williams, Ken Witt, and John Newkirk. You are no longer relevant.
I'm a Jeffco parent/grad/resident and not a teacher or a district or JCEA employee. When I started hearing rumblings *right* after the 2013 Jeffco board election I thought, 'Wow, what's the big deal?' and started watching videos of the meetings so I could see for myself. I was shocked by what I saw and quickly became very worried about the changes that were being pushed through without thorough research/planning or discussion, and often in violation of the board's own policies. They spent district money on a community survey and then ignored the opinions they got. They spent district money on independent fact-finders (for the pay-for-performance plan) and a search firm (for the superintendent job) and then ignored the recommendations of both.
Of course JCEA had a plan. They worked hard to make sure that the parents and community in Jeffco knew what was going on here. But the recall effort was, in fact, started and led by parents and didn't start in 2013. I hear all this vitriol about the evil union, but who do you think the union is?? It's the teachers. You know, those people to whom we entrust our children's learning and safety every day. (I mean, really, thugs??) And if the union wouldn't stand up and participate in a fight taken on by their members, well, what good are they?
Outside interest groups have no business in our district. That includes their $$$$. Public education is just that public. It's not for sale. I'm also for alternate schools such as charters as long as they don't discriminate. Sadly, they do and our SPED students lose again. Schools need to be diverse and all students deserve a right to an appropriate education. We need to be very careful with granting charters a license especially when there are so many flags.
If all you saw was the namecalling, then perhaps you should read a book. Or maybe at least re-read the comments until you can absorb the other information beyond just the naughty, naughty words. And frankly? I wouldn't call them dumbasses if they weren't such… well…. dumbasses. This "theiory" of theirs is mind numbingly stupid even by their standards.
So I'm maybe starting to understand just a little with the comments here about how some of the first meetings were run and the appearances that new board gave trying to force through an agenda without any input or collaboration. Thanks you guys for replying. (Except those who just get on here and name call – go read a book or something… what are you, 5?) I had no dog in this fight but am trying to understand because something just doesn't add up about the whole recall and the supposed reasons for it. It still doesn't make sense that the recall started right after the last election and it still has all the appearances that the board was never given a chance to reform anything. I despise lack of transparency in processes like this or any government dealings so if that was the case I can relate to the parents frustration. They didn't help themselves with their first actions for sure. Everyone talks about school reform like its evil but in my experience with the Boulder school system and others, reform is badly needed. Many schools have become the model of inefficiency and a waste of time quite frankly where students get very little out of it. Also – I think that sentence on the website says exactly that; the recall movement plan started the moment the polls closed in 2013. Those are the exact words – I don't see any other way to interpret them.
I think the point here is that many, many parents said that the union had nothing to do with this recall. They did. As you can see from the email, they were working on throwing this conservative board majority out on it's ear since the day after they were elected. The old board never even had a chance, and that is because the board wasn't union-friendly. I agree, it was painful to watch the board meetings and the animosity between Lesley and Ken. But it wasn't all one-sided. There are many parents that voted WNW in. We wanted change, we wanted something other than the status-quo for the last 12 years. Just like many of you say you worked your butts off for this recall but don't work for JCEA, well the same goes for the other side. We worked our butts off to stop the recall. I'm not a Koch Brothers minion…I had never even heard of AFP before I decided to do an ad for them. We simply needed a platform to make our voices heard, just like the other side. I took time away from my family, my children, for this fight. No, we didn't win, and that is how elections work. Let's see how this new board does in the next two years and then we can vote again. But personally, I will never, ever, ever believe that the unions care about schools, education, and values. It's all about power – but I guess that is what politics always comes down to.
If the people in the area aren't legitimately waking up to the idea that this AFP-sponsored "reform" movement is dmaging our school system, what explains DougCo tossing out 3 of them (out of three up for re-election)? Was it their teachers union? Wait, no… that got broken up a couple years ago. I guess the big bad JeffCo union got DougCo, Denver and Thompson people all to vote the same way? That's a lot of power to place on a union that couldn't keep its own teachers happy. Union busting didn't help DougCo, so it's not hard to see why the union here was on the side of the recall and worked hard alonside us, but no amount of mudslinging and digging up union info can take away from the fact that communities are now paying attention and actively stopping this takeover movement at the polls, and it's clearly taking help from all sides of the political spectrum.
Cathy Sutherland Swartwood You are aware that their very first board meeting was the one at which they voted to hire attorney Brad Miller, in an unprecidented move to give the board its own legal representation, are you not? You are aware they only had a single candidate to vote on fpr hiring, who was coincidentally the same one representing all other new "reformers" in the area? And that two of them said at that board meeting that they had already spoken with Miller? How was all that done if not outside of board meetings? How did Thompson's new conservative board members know Miller was going to be JeffCo's attorney before it was even voted on? Why was it voted on at the sme board meeting at which it was proposed, when policy dictates all board members will be given the chance to review the information and vote at the following meeting?
You're right, this board majority started planting the seeds immediately upon taking their seats that would grow into the community discontent that got them tossed out. That's hardly evidence they didn't deserve it. Chosing to ignore that is fine, but many of us started watching like hawks when that started, and we did something about it as time and time again it was proven to us that things weren't about to get any better.
Well, your last sentence is spot on. But when you look at the politics, ask yourself this: how many pro-recall television commercials did you see? Julie Williams, on the other hand, was all over TV including Monday Night Football. Which side had the big political money pouring in? Her TV ads were paid for by the Independence Institute, which is a "libertarian thinktank." No politics there, right? The biggest money for these three board members' campaigns came from Americans For Prosperity. Are they a LOCAL organization? Even if you want to claim the union funded the whole recall, that IS a local organization, and it's made up of local community members, who also happen to teach our kids. How are they the bad guys?
You can claim that recallers are liberal, but more republicans voted than democrats. You can claim that the union did all this, but there are only 4,000 of them and about 115,000 voted each of these board members out. You can go to the facebook pages of all the commenters here who worked hard for this recall and aren't teachers or union members (I'll add myself to that list) if the numbers alone aren't enough to convince you that this was a community effort that took everyone working together.
You're right, we found ourselves on the same side as JCEA, but that's not cause for some big conspiracy theory. Do you think JCEA would have succeeded without all the parents and community members that got involved? If a random union member I had no affiliation with showed up on my porch to tell me how to vote on an issue I didn't care about, how likely would I be to show up and vote the way they told me to? I certainly wouldn't have devoted my time, money and energy to the recall effort in order to support a union that doesn't involve me. So what explains the sharp increase in voter turnout from 2013 to 2015, or the fact that more people voted for recall than originally foted to elect these three, by about 50%? ALL the comercials were anti-recall. ALL the political money in this ordeal was on the side of these three. I did that because of what I saw in the board meetings and because I want my kids to have access to the same level of education my wife got here. That's why we bought our house in JeffCo.
Well, your last sentence is spot on. But when you look at the politics, ask yourself this: how many pro-recall television commercials did you see? Julie Williams, on the other hand, was all over TV including Monday Night Football. Which side had the big political money pouring in? Her TV ads were paid for by the Independence Institute, which is a "libertarian thinktank." No politics there, right? The biggest money for these three board members' campaigns came from Americans For Prosperity. Are they a LOCAL organization? Even if you want to claim the union funded the whole recall, that IS a local organization, and it's made up of local community members, who also happen to teach our kids. How are they the bad guys?
You can claim that recallers are liberal, but more republicans voted than democrats. You can claim that the union did all this, but there are only 4,000 of them and about 115,000 voted each of these board members out. You can go to the facebook pages of all the commenters here who worked hard for this recall and aren't teachers or union members (I'll add myself to that list) if the numbers alone aren't enough to convince you that this was a community effort that took everyone working together.
You're right, we found ourselves on the same side as JCEA, but that's not cause for some big conspiracy theory. Do you think JCEA would have succeeded without all the parents and community members that got involved? If a random union member I had no affiliation with showed up on my porch to tell me how to vote on an issue I didn't care about, how likely would I be to show up and vote the way they told me to? I certainly wouldn't have devoted my time, money and energy to the recall effort in order to support a union that doesn't involve me. So what explains the sharp increase in voter turnout from 2013 to 2015, or the fact that more people voted for recall than originally foted to elect these three, by about 50%? ALL the comercials were anti-recall. ALL the political money in this ordeal was on the side of these three. I did that because of what I saw in the board meetings and because I want my kids to have access to the same level of education my wife got here. That's why we bought our house in JeffCo.
Derek – I'm one of the parents (not a member of any union btw) who sponsored the recall petitions. The recall effort didn't start after the polls closed in 2013 and that's not what that paragraph says. However, parent & community groups like SJK, JCSBW, Transparency Jeffco, Jeffco Exodus, CRE and others all started to develop shortly after the election when it was apparent the board majority had an agenda they intended to force through without collaboration with the community.
That's the answer I'm looking for that nobody can seem to explain.
So as an angry parent can you explain why the recall effort started immediately after the last election then? When the new board hadn't yet had time to do anything to make parents so angry?
As a parent who supported the recall, this made me laugh. While you were looking around every corner for the union boogeyman, you apparently missed the thousands of angry and passionate parents, students and community members who also had a plan. Everyone has a plan. You do realize your side had a plan, too? Some plans work better than others. Keep on dismissing the grassroot efforts…it only makes us want to work harder.
Im not JCEA and I worked very hard for change when it became apparent the new majority was everything but honest, transparent and respectful.
You are so right…..the wheels for this recall started rolling immediately after the election.
Jerry Ligrani Oh blah blah blah… The handwringing over the fact that someone had a plan shows the simple one-dimensional thinking of the WNW supporters. Their belief that there could only be one plan. Which, again, is why I say you will continue to lose. And the idea is so simplistic, ignorant, and "spinny" that on its face it simply deserves no respect whatsoever. It's worse than a flat earth theory. It's worse than the face on mars. It's just epically stupid. Most mud puddles are deeper than this theory, and the people who hunt bigfoot have more credibility than this theory. It's just dumb. And asking for an explanation is like asking "why are there hats?"
Ray Randolph I'm just asking a question and you won't answer it because it goes against the narritive that this was a "grass-roots effort". At least is was marketed that way. Wow, Ray, so much for Respect, resorting to name calling. Typical response when someone doesn't want to answer a question. Oh I forgot…Respect, Accountability and Transparency only matter when the right people are in control.
I'm one of the parents who agitated for this change. I'm one of many.
I'll repost it just for you. Here's your explanation: Dumbasses. Guess what. JCEA had a plan! Oh.. and I had a plan. And the students had a plan. You guys had a plan. I had friends who had plans. My wife had a plan. Pretty sure my dog had a plan, but sometimes it's hard to be sure. Are you all really so enormously dense that you cannot understand that pretty much everyone recognized the shower of teabags and that pretty much everyone had a plan? This is why you will keep losing.
Dumbasses. Guess what. JCEA had a plan! Oh.. and I had a plan. And the students had a plan. You guys had a plan. I had friends who had plans. My wife had a plan. Pretty sure my dog had a plan, but sometimes it's hard to be sure. Are you all really so enormously dense that you cannot understand that pretty much everyone recognized the shower of teabags and that pretty much everyone had a plan? This is why you will keep losing.
If this really was a parent led effort like a lot of people contend, can someone explain this?
Just one word …LIARS
The infection has died
I knew it. You could smell the lies. The new board hadn't even had time to affect anything worth recalling them over yet. Even with a lot of reading I couldn't figure out exactly what they had done wrong but people fell for the misinformation anyway. Sad how much politics has wormed its way even into school boards.
The only thing worse than crowing about a victory is whining in your beer.