Showing posts with label Recall John Newkirk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recall John Newkirk. Show all posts

Not just an Issue - The Issue - Jeffco Kids Inspire

It is kids.

High school mainly. They just wanted their AP US History Class, so they could get college credits, and prepare for college level learning. The curriculums were already decided. The State Board of Education already approved of the AP US History course.

Kids are connected. They are on the Tweeter all the time, sending messages and keeping in touch with people that have moved away. Some out of state, some just to Douglas County. But they keep in touch like they still live next door.

And they hear things. They hear about Texas dropping the whole curriculum state wide and bringing God into the class room. That Moses is the designer and inspiration of the Constitution of the United States. And that George Washington said that this nation was founded and held free by Christians (when he never said that, anywhere). They pick up the falseness.

Closer to home, Douglas county School Board breaks the teacher's union. Begins having closed meetings against the Sunshine law. Things in the schools are getting weird down in Douglas. Weird like the notices for the AP US History classes have been taken down. A new bulletin is up. The bulletin says that the Colorado Christian University is offering College Prep Classes now. That they will be taught at the high school for $200 a credit. That the kids will earn Credits as CCR not AP.

They ask, "Is CCR accepted anywhere else?" and get no answers.

Messages on Facebook, and flashes on the Twitter are getting weird. On her Facebook page Julie Williams, one of the board members is talking about Texas. Says that it was a good thing. Like it is something she admires.

Then, in September, Julie Williams stops the meeting to say that she has concerns about the AP US History course.That it is too Left. That it doesn't project the right message for the kids. She hasn't read it. She doesn't know anything about it. She's never even seen it -- which she will admit the next day to CBS news cameras -- but she has concerns.

The kids know that this is how it starts. This is how it started in Texas. This is what happened in Douglas. It started exactly like this, and no one said anything. No one continues to say anything.

The kids stand up.

They say, "No."

The kids didn't mean to shout it, so that I heard it while I was passing. They didn't know that The American Historical Association (AHA) and the Organization of American Historians (OAH) would hear them all the way in Washington D.C. and send their support. Other people begin to send their support as well. Congressmen, Senators, Governors. Actors.  The kid's voices get Re-Tweeted 
Wonkette: “Colorado Students Ditch Class, Refuse To Love America” 
TPM: “Students Use Civil Disobedience To Protest Removing It From History Curriculum” 
New York Times: “In Colorado, a Student Counter-protest to an Anti-Protest Curriculum”
And all that is well and good, a little heady and a little scary, but then their parents hear them, and tell them they have their support as well... and that's when anyone paying attention knows that the School Board is going down. It's all over the Tweets. It's in their eyes when they are protesting next to their mother, or their father.

The GOP candidates for the coming election say that the teachers are putting them up to it.

Julie Williams and Ken Witt on the District School Board say the kids are just pawns, being played by the teacher' s union. That these kids don't know what they are doing or why.

This angers the kids. And at the Board meeting, they want an apology. They don't get one. They want the board to stop messing with their college readiness courses, and they produce a petition with 40,000+ names. The Board says no, but calls it a compromise. But it isn't a compromise. They are going to do the exact same thing they were going to do before. The Board isn't listening. There are hundreds of parents and teachers and students there, and the Board isn't listening.

The Kids give Julie Williams, Ken Witt and John Newkirk a unanimous vote of no confidence.

The only job the Board really has, the kids reason, is to create and maintain a safe environment where they can get the most out of their school years. For the last year, they only had one job. The kids decide, "Epic Fail".

Now even more people are hearing them. 

It is cool that you are hearing them. And if it brings home to you and makes what is happening in Congress real to you, then that is cool too. But if you want to help, sign the Recall petition. Take back their school. Get the away from the agenda of a few, who listen to no one. They can't vote. They need you.

Stand up.

Jeffco Students, Teachers and Parents Demand Resignation of School Board

Due to the Jeffco District School Board's complete lack of regard for the legal obligations and policies -- or even acknowledgement that there were laws they were obligated to regard, the community of Jeffco Colorado has started a public petition in order to begin the Re-Call process of three board members. The members in question are Ken Witt, John Newkirk, and Julie Williams.

Julie Williams is of course the member who after talking with like minded Education Board Members in Texas, began steps here to change or remove the AP US History program in Jeffco with apparent plans for further alterations to the schools of Jeffco County. Since she was unable to recall a single passage from the AP US History material which demonstrated a need for a committee evaluation, or such radical changes , Williams admitted that: “I’m not familiar enough with everything that is in AP history to make that judgment.” When asked about the kids and the protesting however, Williams said with strong confidence, the students were “uninformed pawns” of the teachers’ union. 

It’s not surprising she could be so definite on the one and so ignorant of the other, because Williams is one of the Jeffco 3, often referred to as the WNW of the School Board -- the recently elected, Koch-brothers-praised, ultra-conservative school board majority that has gone to war with Jeffco schools as we once knew them. This board of thee frequently disregard policy and practice -- often demonstrating that they aren't even aware of policies or best practices. The Sunshine laws of transparency are openly disregarded -- many times they boldly tell the public that a matter will be discussed and decided on in a "closed meeting" later. 

After blatantly ignoring the community's strong concerns (demonstrated by student walk-outs, teacher and parent support and a petition of 40k+ names)regarding the school boards intent for the AP US History program, and then their asinine declaration that this disregard was a "compromise" -- apparently on the grounds that ordering a firing squad for the malcontents wasn't available to them at the moment -- the community started a petition for RECALL
We demand Ken Witt, John Newkirk, and Julie Williams RESIGN from the Jefferson County Public School Board of Education immediately.

PETITION BACKGROUND

Witt, Newkirk, and Williams have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars, harassed and insulted teachers, driven away experienced and effective senior staff, impugned students, ignored concerns of parents, broken Sunshine laws meant to ensure transparency and accountability, violated school board bylaws, betrayed the trust of citizens who voted for mill and bond in 2012, and publicly embarrassed our school district and its students by claiming our district is failing in written editorials, on television and on radio. We demand that all three of you resign before you do more damage to our community. We stand united in our support of teachers and students and the excellent quality of public education in Jefferson County.

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