Explain the decision

Academy District 20 asked community members to apply for a vacant Board seat. What followed looked less like a serious evaluation than a predetermined sorting exercise.

There was no public discussion of applicants, no comparison of qualifications and no disclosed criteria or scoring. Board members simply arrived with their preferred candidates. The meeting to discuss candidates lasted 4 minutes. A joke.

Now, when asked through CORA for the criteria, rubrics and evaluation records used to reach those decisions, the District cannot readily produce them. That matters. Applicants with years of direct D20 service, committee experience, classroom experience and demonstrated knowledge of district governance were passed over. Several of the strongest applicants also share something else: they are known for perspectives that differ from the current Board majority. Maybe that’s coincidence. If so, show us the evaluations.

More troubling, this isn’t happening in isolation. The Board is simultaneously pursuing greater influence over membership and leadership of the District Accountability Committee — a body intended to provide community accountability and advice. D20 recently hired attorney Brad Miller, whose work in other Colorado districts has already generated serious controversy over transparency, public dissent and open government. Put those pieces together. The Board is choosing who may sit beside it while seeking greater influence over who may sit across from it and hold the district accountable.

Public education does not need an echo chamber. Good governance requires people willing to disagree, question assumptions and challenge those in power. If viewpoint played no role in this appointment, release the criteria and evaluations. Explain the decision.

Until then, D20 families are left with an uncomfortable message: agreement appears to matter more than experience and dissent is something to be managed rather than heard. Our students and staff deserve better.

Bernadette Guthrie

Colorado Springs

Fewer students in schools

So, Colorado has lost about 40,000 public school students since 2019. This translates into needing about 2,000 fewer teachers (20 students per classroom), along with countless administrators and support staff. Figuring that teachers average $75,000 per year, we are looking at lowering costs of around $150 million per year!

A simple question: why are we homeowners not seeing a decline in our property taxes? As a retired teacher, I can assure you that there is waste and fat in school budgets.

Now about that elephant. We seem to have amnesia about the fact that our state, being a sanctuary state for full-term abortions, doesn’t seem to recognize the fact that we are killing thousands of unborn children each year. If we had those children in the classroom, our schools wouldn’t be closing en masse!

Bill Crow

Larkspur

Support for Proposition NN

I’ve lived in Colorado Springs for just over a year. I moved here from Texas, in part because of what was happening to our schools there: the funding fights, the politics that seemed to matter more than the kids sitting in the classrooms. I didn’t expect to become a regular at school board meetings within my first year in a new state, but here I am, now also attending DAC and SAC meetings and volunteering with ECHO (Education Community Help Organization), a new organization dedicated to keeping the community informed and involved. 

Because I care about getting this right where my kids will actually grow up.

That’s why I’m writing to urge Colorado Springs voters to support Proposition NN this November.

Sitting in on those district and school accountability meetings, I’ve heard the same concerns come up again and again: not enough teachers, not enough support staff, budgets that force impossible tradeoffs. Prop NN wouldn’t solve everything, but it would let the state finally invest revenue it already collects into the things I keep hearing about: competitive teacher pay, smaller class sizes, and keeping great teachers in the classroom. 

I know some voters are wary of giving up TABOR refunds, and I don’t think that’s an unreasonable fear. Nobody wants to hand over money without knowing it’ll be used well, especially in this economy. I’m glad Prop NN’s independent public audit requirement exists to answer that concern directly to ensure we know exactly how every dollar is being spent. 

I left one state’s school problems behind. I’d like to help this one get it right, and Prop NN feels like a real step in that direction.

Sara DeBusk

Colorado Springs

COCO is the long vision

 am dismayed to read so many arguments about COCO. We just finished an update on I25. It took years, a lot of money, a lot of interrupted traffic and inconvenience. This was just the beginning since the population is increasing. There are commuters, vacationers, truck traffic and all will be increasing. The alternative to COCO is to keep widening the highway….more money, disruption, etc. The long vision is COCO. The short vision is to do nothing and plan to again widen I25 in a couple of years.

Fran Amos

Colorado Springs

What a difference civility makes

How noticeable it was today during the White House briefing held by Vice President JD Vance. At a time when it has become so painful and nauseating to listen to Donald Trump speak to the people of America and the world so disrespectfully, Vance was eloquent, articulate, personable, charismatic and respectful of the media.

Of course, this observation does not mean that Vance’s answers were acceptable; it was simply the manner in which he answered them.

It was a good reminder that civility still exists in this country. Perhaps Trump ought to have Vance handle all future briefings?

Marcela Gaumer

Colorado Springs