Letter on Current State of Woodland Park School District

From the perspective of someone living it, on the inside, from the trenches, who has to speak anonymously, for obvious reasons

 

The beginning of this school year has been at least three times harder than it should have been, due to the incompetence of the WPSD school board and top administrators..  Decisions that have come down from the top unilaterally have caused ripple/domino effects that leave those of us implementing them scrambling like worker ants trying to make them function in real time.  Things that should have been done, handled, anticipated were not.  They got to the level of our top admin and stalled.  This caused the people trying to make the beginning of this school year successful for concerned parents, inexperienced teachers/staff and scared kids doing all they can to make things run smoothly. The staff and teachers have made the best of it, despite having board members and admin who don’t care about the damage their irresponsible and short sighted decisions have caused.  I, myself, and the other dedicated educational professionals that I have spoken to have experienced the lack of knowledge these people have firsthand.  They don’t even know what they don’t know.

 

They sit up on their high perches looking down and thinking “this is good” when they have no idea what we have had to do to make it so.  To give these people any credit for an increase in WPSD test scores is insulting.  Even though they have wasted taxpayer money on new curriculums that we didn’t need, teachers learned to teach with them anyway. Our students and teachers and building leaders deserve the only credit for improving this district’s test scores and continuing to run schools that kids want to wake up and come to every day.

 

I will stay and continue to fight for this community’s schools and families, who deserve so much better.  I will work my hardest to give these kids the best education I can when confronted with threats of pay cuts and layoffs, even when we all deserve raises based on the performance of our students on state tests, and, more importantly, for the smiles on the faces of the kids and their families when they come to school each day.  I also will stay to honor all of the amazing former teachers and administrators who worked so hard to make our district a great place to work and learn, but were chased away by a hostile board, administration and community.  Their expertise and caring are missed every day, and they are not forgotten.  I pray that they will come back one day when all this is put right again.

 

Signed, a very tired, discouraged, hard working and excellent WPSD teacher