New Changing of the Guard Delayed Until December
Trevor Phipps
As the former school board recently exited the Woodland Park RE-2 School District leadership panel, following the November election, political insiders were expecting an 11th-hour curve ball regarding the finalization of a 30-year lease deal with the Merit Academy.
But that didn’t happen to the surprise of many school board meeting-goers. In fact, the final meeting of the former board, was quite uneventful and featured very little public comment.
As a result, the controversial lease deal, concerning Merit’s long-term situation in occupying a facility that once served as the district’s old middle school, will be taken up the new board, comprised of a much more progressive group of leaders, according to most accounts. The actual swearing-in of the new panel won’t occur until mid-December due to the fact that the election results are still regarded as unofficial. The election of the newly-elected board members — Carol Greenstreet, Kassidi Gilgenast and Laura Gordon — is part of a big change that occurred throughout much of the Pikes Peak region and southern Colorado, with candidates that endorsed strong, ultra-conservative causes taking a beating. Instead, those who sought the goals of having more public transparency and better staff and teacher relations, mostly prevailed. This trend was quite surprising in the more conservative Pikes Peak region. Many attribute this trend to many voters who wanted a more stable, and less partisan environment without so much political turmoil.
The Nov. 12 board meeting marked the final session for the Board of Education Directors Suzanne Patterson, Cassie Kimbrell and David Rusterhotlz. All three didn’t seek re-election. Mick Bates and Keegan Barkley, meanwhile, were elected to four-year terms that do not expire until 2027.
The three new board members, who will be taking their seats in December, are not aligned with the former conservative slate. The election results had not yet been finalized so Greenstreet, Gilgenast and Gordon will not be sworn into their positions at the district’s December board meeting. All three won their seats by strong margins.
During the board reports portion of the Nov. meeting, former directors Kimbrell and Rusterholtz wished the new board members luck and told the small crowd that it was an honor to serve. Patterson had an excused absence for her final meeting on the board.
In contrary to past meetings, this final gathering of the former board proceeded in a calm manner. It wasn’t until public comment when one resident ridiculed the former board members.
Residents Ready for a Change
During the public comment section of the Nov. 12 session, the crowd was much smaller than usual. In fact, there were only a few speakers. One resident who did speak though, heavily criticized the former school board members.
As for most public comments, several speakers embraced the change that the school district is about to pursue. One person called for unity while others were hopeful that the turmoil the district has gone through for the last four years will come to an end.
“Never in my 34 years of my children’s education have I seen a school board such as you cause such a tense division both within the district and within the community,” Woodland Park resident Karen Francis said. “The adversity, division, prejudice, narrow-minded policies are not what this community stands for. It has tarnished our reputation. You have decimated the spirit of Woodland Park schools.”
Francis said that she looks forward to the district getting “restored” with the new school board. Francis went further to asked for Board of Education Director Mick Bates (who ran on the conservative slate in 2023) to resign.
“Mr. Bates if you had any self-respect or an inkling of the greater good of our schools, you would walk out the door right now,” Francis stated. “And I also believe it’s time to fire Brad Miller. He has cost us way too much money.”
Superintendent Reveals Staff Culture Survey Results
Over the last few weeks, RE-2 Interim Superintendent Ginger Slocum has been working on a staff culture survey to get an idea of how employees feel about their workplace. Slocum spent a large amount of time at each school to conduct the surveys of the staff in each of the district’s three schools (Summit Elementary, Columbine Elementary and the Junior/senior high school).
Slocum told the crowd that she didn’t share all of the survey results to protect privacy of staff. She did, though, present highlights of the survey results to the board.
Slocum worked towards getting results on how the staff feels about their workplace, following the end of the 2024/2025 school year. She said she had a pretty good idea of how they felt last year, and wanted to see if it has changed in the past few months.
“54.8 percent of staff say they feel better since the end of last year,” Slocum said. “16.1 percent say they feel much better and 20.4 percent say they feel worse.”
However, the survey results were mixed when it came to overall morale amongst staff. In fact, according to Slocum, 26.9 percent of the staff said morale was low, 29 percent said neutral and 28 percent said morale was high.
When asked how much support they believe they are receiving by the current district leadership, including Slocum, the results were mixed. On this question, “25.8 percent feel ‘very supported,’ 38.7 percent feel ‘supported’ 22.6 percent are ‘neutral’ and 9.7 percent say ‘not very supported,’” Slocum explained. “And a little tiny percent said, ‘not supported at all.’”
Overall, many residents have expressed excitement over a having a new school board at the helm. Over the next several weeks, all eyes will be on the new board to see what changes they may or may not decide to implement.
