Much is riding on this year’s local school board elections, Colorado Springs-area candidates say, as district culture and political ascriptions allegedly hang in the balance.

Locally, Woodland Park School District RE-2 became a divisive success story to some and cautionary tale to others. A slate of self-proclaimed conservatives took control of the board following the November 2021 election and have since reshaped the district.

Last school year the board hired an interim superintendent, adopted a new social studies curriculum standard that departs from state standards, dropped $1.2 million in mental health grants and instituted a policy preventing its staff from publicly commenting on district or school goings on. All this, they say, is an attempt to refocus attention on academics first and make Woodland Park the premier educational destination in the area.

A majority of Woodland Park seats are up for election this fall in a pivotal moment that will determine whether the community prefers a course correction or to continue down this new path. It’s not the only district grappling with politically charged issues.

Here are several key platforms dividing this year’s hopefuls:

Teacher support and district culture. Woodland Park lost nearly 40% of its teachers and staff this school year, 81 current and former employees announced at a press conference last week in defiance of the so-called gag order placed against them.

Interim Superintendent Ken Witt issued a statement in response that accused the teachers of “political maneuvering” at the expense of student education and of fostering a “hatred of America.” The district is currently in a legal battle with its teachers union.

“That’s not a path I want to go down,” Colorado Springs School District 11 candidate Kate Singh said during a candidate forum Thursday. “We already have had very extreme views. We’ve had teachers being accused of grooming students because they want to honor student pronouns. I think that’s unacceptable.”

D-11 incumbent candidate Parth Melpakam highlighted his role in securing “historic pay raises and better health benefits” for D-11 staff. Teacher starting salary increased by $8,000 this spring to $50,000.

Incumbent candidates Darleen Daniels and Jason Jorgenson shared in that historic move negotiated alongside the local chapter of the Colorado Education Association. Only Daniels, however, has the teachers union’s endorsement, and Jorgenson’s campaign website describes the union as a threat that is pushing “extreme ideologies into our classrooms.”

Academy School District 20 candidates Derrick Wilburn and Amy Shandy also point to “offering teachers the salary they deserve” as a necessary means of recruiting and retaining talent. Shandy suggested lobbying the capital for a change in the school funding formula, and Wilburn suggested lobbying to waive vehicle registration fees for teachers.

“I’m not sure of the rhetoric kind of going against the profession, that it’s really helping a sense of belonging,” D-20 incumbent candidate Will Temby said at a Tuesday forum. “Compensation is a huge piece of this, but our teachers aren’t in this profession solely for pay … We need to make sure that our teachers feel valued.”

Singh and fellow D-11 candidates Rachel Paul and Shay Dabney separately shared Temby’s perspective at their forum. Teachers need to feel valued and heard, and leaders must do a better job at fostering a sense of appreciation, not villainization, they said. The three join Daniels with endorsements from the teachers union.

Teachers feeling undervalued by leadership is the most notable issue facing the district today, according to Paul, an educator of 34 years who is now working with the Colorado Department of Education to train principals on giving better feedback to teachers.

Achievement. D-11 saw several student achievement gains under Melpakam’s, Jorgenson’s and Daniels’ terms. Recently, the district established a promise scholarship with Pikes Peak State College, bolstered its dyslexia supports and curriculum, improved its CMAS averages in math and ELA and shed nearly half of its 15 struggling watch list schools off the state’s accountability list.

“That is unprecedented growth and achievement, but the work doesn’t stop here,” Melpakam said at an August press conference about state watchlist performance. “The strategy that we have put in place, this outcome shows that it is working.”

Challenging candidates Paul and Singh said that analysis offers an incomplete picture of district performance.

Paul noted the percentage of points D-11 earned under the state’s annual performance framework, which serves as an accountability system for schools and districts by gauging student outcomes, rose by less than one percentage point this year. When that percentage is compared against those earned by other districts, D-11 dropped from 94th place in 2022 to 131st this year.

“We do play around a lot with the statistics, especially the current board, but what that tells me as a longtime educator is that other schools are doing a better job than District 11 in bouncing back from the pandemic,” Paul said. “Although the rhetoric is saying, ‘Wow, we’re doing fabulous,’ there is still a lot of work to do in the achievement field.”

In Widefield School District 3, candidates emphasized that achievement will look different for different students. Kelly Cutcher, Alvin Joe Sexton and Mark Walker described a united vision to expand on the district’s existing skilled trades programs to reach even more students for whom college is not the proper next step.

“Not every kid wants a traditional education, so some of those (career and technical education) classes, and opportunities, and the MILL, and a variety of the other awesome opportunities that we provide here at Widefield, we’ll continue to enhance that and bring those nontraditional students in,” Cutcher said. “Because we want them to be there, too.”

Inclusivity. Just one year removed from the Club Q shooting, LGBTQ+ inclusivity is top-of-mind for some candidates. For others, the focus on such a mission is merely a distraction from a school’s primary mission: educating children.

D-20’s Wilburn and Shandy secured endorsements from Advocates for D20 Kids, a conservative advocacy group for academic excellence and parental rights which has several times come under fire for what critics say is homophobic rhetoric.

Last year, the group’s chairperson and another member expressed concern to school leaders over D-20’s focus on belonging and the status of Gay Straight Trans Alliance Clubs and suggested the school set up a separate campus to cater to LGBTQ+ students’ needs. The chairperson later clarified that the group does not support segregation.

In a written statement to The Gazette, Wilburn said, “Every student is deserving of respect, regardless of their characteristics. Some school districts have been adopting leftist ideology which is disrespectful to the beliefs of non-LGBTQ students. D20’s focus should be academic achievement.”

Both D-11 and D-20 have discussed in different ways barring teachers from asking students their preferred pronouns, a move advocates say disproportionately harms LGBTQ+ youth.

The effort in D-11 was spearheaded by Jorgenson, who said pronouns serve no educational purpose and that cis-gender students — those whose pronouns and personal identity align with their gender at birth — might be uncomfortable learning about their classmates’ pronouns.

The suggestion ultimately fizzled in D-11, although D-20 did send out communication instructing teachers to avoid such questions in a blanket setting.

Singh, an award-winning journalist, said this rhetoric has only created distractions, introduced politics into the board room and “made inclusion feel impossible.”

“(Current board members) made headlines, some of which I have written, and it’s embarrassing to think that some of them have had the opportunity to represent our community on a national stage. We have the chance right now to change that perspective.”