29 search results for ""Andrea Haitz""

Andrea Haitz Recall Committee calls off signature-gathering effort

Meme D-51 School Board President Andrea Haitz posted on social media c. May 9, 2022, widely seen as transphobic and a dig at public school teachers

The committee to recall District 51 School Board President Andrea Haitz has stopped gathering signatures for the recall.

The Committee issued a statement at 7:52 p.m. on June 29:

Sometimes we win.  Sometimes we win, regardless.

The Recall Andrea Haitz Committee has decided to suspend collecting signatures.  We are close to our goal, but the D51 board’s decision to include Marillac Clinic in Grand Junction High School was a major factor for starting the Recall. We celebrate the board’s decision to give our D51 students accessible and needed health care. We believe our Recall effort is a success by acting as a “6th member of the board” and keeping community attention on the actions of the board while important decisions are being made.

Recalls rarely succeed.  But we have shown that non-violent, democratic action can positively move the needle, and galvanize voters before the election of two new board members in November 2023.

Folks have spoken clearly – No more political agendas in our schools. No more charter schools that siphon off public school students. No more secret committees deciding how many additional neighborhood schools will be closed.

We hope that Recall supporters know that while the Recall committee is turning a page, community attention remains squarely on board decisions. Our students are worth the time and energy of a 100-strong coalition of signature collectors has devoted to the attempt to peacefully and constitutionally effect change.  We continue to Sign for D51 Kids.

Sarah Lester, Eric Rechel, Ricki Howie
The Recall Andrea Haitz Committee and D51 Stakeholders

Text of the Petition to Recall District 51 School Board President Andrea Haitz

Andrea Haitz, District 51 School Board President

Some people have asked where they can read the text of the petition to recall District 51 School Board President Andrea Haitz.

You can read the entire petition here. 

The petition is available for signing every day from 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 noon at Lincoln Park. The table with circulators and petitions will either be at 12th and Teller by the Barn, or at 12th and Gunnison. 

New website up for the effort to recall D-51 School Board President Andrea Haitz

Click the image to go to the new website for the Andrea Haitz recall effort

The public can now keep track of the effort to recall School District 51’s Board President Andrea Haitz by going to SignForKids.com, where people can find out where to sign petitions, get trained in how to gather signatures, donate to the effort or volunteer to help. The organizers need to gather 15,000 valid signatures of registered voters within the next two months.

The website states the public’s grievances against Haitz:

  • Andrea Haitz was elected to the District 51 Board in 2021, promising transparency.

  • Instead, Haitz has turned local control of school dollars over to extremist organizations, turned fundamental parts of her job over to expensive lawyers, denied student pleas for mental health services, and used her office for family political gain.

  • The biggest decisions at District 51 are now being turned over to outside interests and fringe extremists who don’t represent Mesa County families.

Want to help circulate petitions to recall D-51 School Board President Andrea Haitz? Come to a training session!

District 51 School Board President Andrea Haitz

The committee leading the Recall Andrea Haitz effort is looking for volunteers to help in circulating petitions and collecting voter signatures in support of the recall. A launch event is planned for Saturday, May 13th at 9:00 A.M in Lincoln Park.

A short (~15 minute) training session will be provided for all circulators, as well as information regarding prime locations and upcoming events for circulating. Water, snacks, and shade will also be provided. The launch event will conclude at 2:00 P.M, although any volunteer who has been trained may circulate their petition(s) at any time they desire until July 11th.

“We need the passion and the investment of our local community to help achieve a brighter future for our children, and ensure transparency in our schooling system. Join the Recall Andrea Haitz effort and meet your neighbors and fellow community members in Lincoln Park to learn how to fight for a great cause!” says Charley Allen.

Please reach out to tyrus@bestslopepublicaffairs.com with any questions.

…or contact Charley Allan, cell: 970-623-3179

Remember when Juniper Ridge School used a tent for kids in January of 2018, when Andrea Haitz was on their board?

Before Andrea Haitz was on the District 51 School Board, she was on the Juniper Ridge charter school board.

In January of 2018, while on Juniper Ridge’s board, the school was found to be educating kindergarteners in a 10×20 foot windowless tent that was heated by a wood stove and had a single rented porta-potty next it for a bathroom, alongside a bright red wood chipper.

Grand Junction’s average January daytime temperature is 31 degrees F, just below freezing.

Andrea Haitz, in 2023 is now District 51 School Board President

Juniper Ridge’s Board didn’t tell District 51 about the tent and did not submit a plan to the School District use it. Instead, Juniper Ridge portrayed its use to parents as an “extended field trip.”

After about 12 days of this, someone in the neighborhood called District 51 to report the setup.

D-51 School Board President Andrea Haitz violates School Board Ethics Code

Andrea Haitz’s Feb. 15 mass email violates an ethics rule that says school board members must refrain from using their board positions for partisan gain

District 51 School Board President Andrea Haitz violated the School Board’s ethics rules by sending out an overtly partisan, political mass email February 15, 2023 using her position as School Board President to promote her husband Greg’s bid to get a seat on Grand Junction City Council this April.

Andrea Haitz

Haitz wrote,

I am writing to you today because, despite our victory, the LEFT is still here seeking majorities in local government to make Grand Junction the Denver of the Western Slope.

We can put a stop to this by voting for conservatives in the April 4th Grand Junction City Council Election like my husband, Greg Haitz, who is running for District B. [Underlining emphasis in original.]

Haitz’s email violated Mesa County Valley School District 51’s Code of Ethics for School Board Members (pdf), Policy BCB-E, which says school board members will

Avoid being placed in a position of conflict of interest and refrain from using my board position for personal or partisan gain.

First Congregational Church welcomes trans kids amid furor over School Board President Andrea Haitz’s transphobic memes

The First Congregational Church sign (Photo: Shirley Zimmerman Kodis)

After the uproar over anti-transgender memes District 51 School Board President Andrea Haitz posted recently on her personal social media accounts, the First Congregational Church at 5th and Kennedy in Grand Junction took steps to make it clear to the public that their church welcomes transexual kids. The church is directly across the street from Grand Junction High School.

Church Administrator Beth Rakestraw said on her social media account that “Transkids are loved and welcomed at my church!” The church describes itself on its website as a “progressive Christian community” and says “We welcome all people regardless of race, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender preference, ability, and disability…At our church you don’t have to check your brain at the door. We believe that science and religion are not mutually exclusive. … No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here.”

Haitz tried to walk back her posts by telling the Daily Sentinel that people had “misinterpreted” her memes because they “don’t understand satire,” but that was disproved after Heidi Hess of One Colorado revealed to the Daily Sentinel that Haitz belonged to the Facebook group Reboot 2022, whose mission statement says “Transgender is not an option.”

D-51 School Board President Andrea Haitz belonged to anti-transgender Facebook group

Screenshot of members of the transphobic Facebook group, Reboot 2022, taken on Wednesday, May 11, 2022, after which time her name was removed.

A May 13, 2022 Daily Sentinel article discussed the outrage District 51 School Board President Andrea Haitz’s recent anti-transgender social media posts generated among people in the valley. 

In her own defense, Haitz told the Sentinel she didn’t mean the memes to be hurtful, and that she “has gay and lesbian friends.” Haitz said the “memes had been misunderstood” because “people don’t always understand satire,” and said that people “made up what they thought I meant by it.”

But people didn’t make up anything, and they most definitely did not misinterpret the intent of Haitz’s posts.

How do we know?

Emails between D-51 Board Member Andrea Haitz and Brad Miller of Miller Farmer Law encourage Haitz to avoid RFP process

John Williams, District 51’s current in-house lawyer, graduated from G.J.H.S, served on the D-51 School Board from 2013-2020, then stepped down from the Board to serve as District 51’s in-house attorney, saving the District around $250,000/year, or about half what outside law firms were charging the District.

AnneLandmanBlog has obtained the internal emails exchanged between newly-elected School District 51 board member Andrea Haitz and attorney Brad Miller of the Miller Farmer law firm of Colorado Springs.

Almost soon as she was sworn in, Haitz started pushing to hire the Miller Farmer law firm to handle all of District 51’s legal work, which would mean firing the District’s current in-house attorney, John Williams, who currently handles most of the District’s legal work. Using Williams has provided tremendous savings to the District over using an outside law firm.

District 51 School Board candidate rundown for the November 7, 2023 election

For this article, information was taken from Colorado Tracer (the state’s campaign finance disclosure website), Little Sis (a free database that tracks key relationships between politicians, business leaders, lobbyists, financiers, and their affiliated institutions), the subscription background check site Truthfinder.com, Zillow.com, the archives of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the subscription newspaper archive Newspapers.com, the candidates’ own social media accounts and campaign websites if they have them, and the social media pages of other people and groups in Mesa County where the candidates might have posted, or where they might have been mentioned.

I would urge readers to particularly look at which candidates have hired professional agents and campaign consultants, who they’ve hired to do these jobs, and which candidates are serving as their own registered agents and managing their own campaigns.

The candidates running for the two open seats on District 51 School Board in 2023 are:

District A: José Luis Chavéz, CynDee Skalla and Jessica Hearn

District B: Barbara Evanson and Cindy Enos Martinez

Darren Cook gives his take on the D-51 Board majority’s recent decision to send only lawyers to represent the District in negotiations with D-51 teachers

Darren Cook (Photo: CO Education Association via Twitter, 2015)

Note: This is a guest post by Darren Cook, a former longtime District 51 middle School teacher and former President of the Mesa Valley Education Association, which represents public school teachers. Darren started a website and blog to give the public his take on decisions being made by the current District 51 School Board majority. Darren is running to replace controversial current school board member Andrea Haitz  in the upcoming recall election.

On Friday, the Mesa Valley Education Association shocked the teachers of District 51 by announcing that for the first time in forty years, the Board of Education will not directly negotiate with teachers. Instead, they will be represented by two lawyers, David Price and Tammy Eret.

In my twenty-three-year career with D51, I was part of the teachers’ negotiation team for seventeen of those. We brought eight to ten teachers, paying attention to having representation from each instructional level, content, and area of expertise. D51 administration brought a similarly representative team, with administrators from each level, the Chief Financial Officer, Executive Director of Human Resources, and Superintendent as key parts of their team. And, of course, all five Board members were there. Always.

District-51 fails to opt in to new statewide program offering free meals to all students

Chart provided by ChalkBeat.

On November 8, 2022, Colorado passed Proposition FF, a ballot measure to provide free meals to all public school students. The measure, called the Healthy School Meals for All Program, was referred to the ballot by the state Legislature and passed by a healthy margin of 57-43%. The measure generates funds by limiting state tax deductions for people earning over $300,000/year, and is set to raise more than $100 million/year. The program will reimburse participating school districts to provide free meals to all students and will provide grants for Districts to purchase local food. According to the Healthy School Meals for All FAQ guide, there is also an option for participating districts to provide wage increases or stipends to front-line staff who assist with the program.

501(c)(4) social welfare group circulates information on the Haitzs

The above mailer was recently sent to homes of prospective Grand Junction voters by the Best Slope Leadership Project, a 501 (c) (4) social welfare group based in Grand Junction.

Andrea Haitz and Greg Haitz are a married couple who over the last few years have been seeking more power in Grand Junction. Andrea is currently District 51 School Board President and Greg is trying to get onto Grand Junction City Council in the upcoming election.

As D-51 School Board’s conservative majority rushes to close East Middle School, it fast-tracks the opening of a religiously-affiliated charter school

District 51 School Board President Andrea Haitz

As the conservative District 51 School Board majority headed by Board President Andrea Haitz hurries to shut down East Middle School, it is fast-tracking the opening of yet another charter school, the Ascent Classical Academy, a project of Hillsdale College, a private Christian religious school located in south-central Michigan.

Ascent Classical Academy uses a curriculum advanced by Hillsdale’s Barney Charter School Initiative, “an outreach program of Hillsdale College devoted to the revitalization of public education through the launch and support of classical K-12 charter schools.”

Ascent Classical Academy plans to open in Grand Junction in August, 2023, at 545 31 Road, the building that formerly housed the Rocky Mountain Gun Club, just as the District puts the finishing touches on shutting down East Middle School, a high-performing traditional public school in the heart of downtown Grand Junction.

Teachers union president resigns via email amid flap over school closures & conservative school board members’ rejection of health clinic at GJHS

Timothy Couch, President of the Mesa Valley Education Association (MVEA), resigned via email March 8, on the same day the three-member conservative District 51 School Board majority ignored the pleas of students and voted to reject an offer by Marillac Health to operate a grant-funded, school-based health clinic at Grand Junction High School.  The three Board members rejected the clinic at a time when homelessness among D-51 students is rapidly increasing and a Youth Risk Behavior survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (pdf) found poor mental health and suicidal thoughts and behaviors among students are increasing nationwide. According to the CDC, in 2021, almost 60% of female students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the past year and nearly 25% made a suicide plan. Suicide is also a growing problem among Mesa County youth and suicide prevention is a “health priority” for Mesa County Public Health.

Grand Junction City Council candidate rundown 2023

For this article, I drew from publicly available sources, including the candidates’ own websites and social media accounts, newspaper articles, the candidates’ financial disclosure statements filed with the City of Grand Junction, background-checks done on TruthFinder.com, and public records requests to the Grand Junction Police Department (GJPD) for records of any contact the candidates had with local law enforcement agencies. I felt the law enforcement piece was necessary after seeing Mesa County voters elect people to public office who were later involved in theft, falsifying time cards, embezzlement, assault, plagiarism, DUI, double-dipping, election tampering and other offenses.

These City Council candidates are asking voters to hire them for a job. City taxpayers pay their salaries. The candidates should be background-checked.

Anti-transgender, racist hate mail sent to 92 year old School District 51 retiree; Local Republican political leaders may be contributing to undercurrent of hatred in Mesa County

“Citizens District 51 Defund Vote” sent hate mail postmarked Oct. 11, 2022 to a 92 year old School District 51 retiree in Grand Junction

My 92 year old neighbor, who worked for School District 51 over forty years ago, received this hate mail yesterday, with the following computer-printed in screaming all-caps, racist, anti-transgender hate letter glued to the back of the picture with the child at the chalkboard:

My neighbor is pretty tough, but the line that said “OL’ BITCH” really saddened her.

In addition to showing that racism and homophobia in Grand Junction are alive and thriving, this rude correspondence raises several questions:

— How did the sender get the address of this person?

D-51 School Board members attend seminar in how to fight equity and inclusion policies

“Stand for the Constitution,” the right wing extremist Mesa County group that endorsed and defended Tina Peters, also endorsed and promoted Angela Lema, Andrea Haitz and Will Jones for School Board. All three candidates ran as a far right wing extremist slate. Now two of them are getting training in how to battle policies that aim to help all children feel welcome and accepted at D-51 schools.

The Colorado Times Recorder is reporting that D-51 School Board President Andrea Haitz and D-51 Board Member Angela Lema attended a seminar at a Grand Junction hotel on August 26 called “Save Our Schools,” put on by Heritage Action for America, an affiliate of the right wing Heritage Foundation. The seminar taught people how to fight equity and inclusion policies in schools and provided resources to help them.

What are equity and inclusion policies, anyway?