Category: Education

Conservatives, Education, Ethics, Local scut, Scams, Secrecy, Weird Grand Junction Stuff

Anonymous letter sent to local media alleges wrongdoing by members of School District 51’s senior administration

by Anne Landman • March 22, 2023 • 11 Comments

Letter about D-51 senior Administrators, Pg. 1

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

by Anne Landman • March 13, 2023 • 37 Comments

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

by Anne Landman • March 11, 2023 • 8 Comments

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.

Letter from a District 51 teacher about proposed school closures

by Anne Landman • February 21, 2023 • 7 Comments

Orchard Ave. Elementary school, one of the schools targeted for closure by the D-51 board

AnneLandmanBlog received the following letter from a District 51 teacher regarding the D-51 School Board’s proposed school closures.

District 51 teachers express anger and dismay at School Board’s rush towards closing schools

by Anne Landman • February 20, 2023 • 19 Comments

Shannon Bingham (Photo: westerndemographics.com)

Some District 51 teachers are saying they feel blindsided, abandoned and upset by the School Board’s odd headlong rush towards closing three traditional schools this fall. The District cites falling birth rates, the pandemic, online schools, families moving out of the area and other reasons for the decline in students as reasons to close the schools.

But that doesn’t fit the demographic narrative we’ve been told as recently as the end of last year.

Just last November the Daily Sentinel reported that the western slope has seen substantial population growth over the last decade and Mesa County is expected to keep growing over the next few decades due to in-migration, saying this brought “a sense of hope that District 51 will see an increase in students.”

State Sen. Janice Rich (R) introduces bill to require CPR training in High Schools

by Anne Landman • February 8, 2023 • 1 Comment

Sen. Rich, shown here in 2022 when she was a House Representative, has a track record of introducing beneficial, bipartisan legislation and getting it passed. Here she is seen at the signing on April 12, 2022 of HB22-1040, “Homeowners’ Reasonable Access to Common Areas,” which limited homeowner associations’ (HOAs) ability to restrict homeowners’ access to their own common open space and amenities. (Left to right: House Rep. Edie Hooton, Rep. Janice Rich, Gov. Polis, Sen. Tammy Story)

State Senator Janice Rich (R) is doing something we haven’t seen in years from our elected state Senator: Introducing thoughtful, beneficial, bipartisan legislation that can benefit everyone.

Sen. Rich recently introduced SB23-023, a bill that requires high schools that teach the state’s comprehensive health education program to instruct students in how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and use an automated external defibrillator (AED).

The bill has the potential to save many lives.

Group urgently seeks help to keep Orchard Mesa Pool open

by Anne Landman • December 17, 2022 • 2 Comments

Orchard Mesa Pool

Mesa County residents have formed a group to try to keep Orchard Mesa Community Center Pool open, and they are asking the rest of the community for help.

In mid-November, 2022, the City of Grand Junction announced the possible closure of the Orchard Mesa Pool in early 2023.

The group, Save the Pool, is encouraging people with families to come to the December 21st Grand Junction City Council meeting this Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall Auditorium, 250 N. 5th Street, Grand Junction to stand in solidarity to keep the pool open.

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

by Anne Landman • October 14, 2022 • 8 Comments

“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

by Anne Landman • August 31, 2022 • 10 Comments

“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?

District 51 hiring Tammy Eret of Hoskin, Farina and Kampf as new in-house counsel

by Anne Landman • May 24, 2022 • 3 Comments

John Williams, District 51’s current in-house lawyer, went to 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 approximately $250,000/year, or about half the cost outside law firms were costing the District. Williams is leaving the position in 2022.

Tammy Eret of Hoskin, Farina and Kampf has been hired as the new in-house counsel for School District 51, replacing John Williams, who has been the District’s in-house attorney since 2020. After Williams announced he was leaving the position, District 51 posted the job opening, interviewed candidates, and the School Board chose Tammy Eret as the new in-house counsel for the District. The hire will be presented at a special meeting to be held tonight, May 25th, 2022, in the Harry Butler Board Room.

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

by Anne Landman • May 14, 2022 • 15 Comments

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?

Woman makes Q-Anon style threat against Telluride School Board

by Anne Landman • March 23, 2022 • 40 Comments

Gabriella Moorman’s letter to the Telluride Board of Education and Superintendent

Taking a leaf from the QAnon playbook of turning school boards into battlegrounds for unhinged conservative politics, a woman named Gabriella Moorman threatened individual members of the Telluride School District board in San Miguel County as a way to rail against district policies that guided masking during the pandemic, sex education, Critical Race Theory (which is not taught in K-12 schools) and other practices and policies the school board has taken in the past.

Moorman wrote to board members that “you could lose your house, your cars, your job, your retirement, etc., if you DO NOT PAY ATTENTION. You are inviolation of multiple State, Federal and International laws … and you could be facing time in FEDERAL PRISON for your actions if you do not cease and desist.”

Angry crowd faces down School Board at their meeting Monday, 2/7

by Anne Landman • February 8, 2022 • 3 Comments

Screenshot of the packed, angry but well-behaved crowd that faced down the new School Board President Andrea Haitz and the other new school board members Monday night, 2/7/22, as they made moves toward possibly firing district administrators. The screenshot is from a video taken at the beginning of the meeting, before the Board went into executive session to discuss the employment contracts of Superintendent Diana Sirko, Assistant Superintendent Brian Hill and the Director of Equity and Inclusion, Tracy Gallegos. An equal number of people were outside. A student in front is holding a sign that says “Don’t make me use my INSIDE VOICE!”

Andrea Haitz, Angela Lema, Dangerous Republicans, Education, Ethics, Extremism, Willie Jones

Haitz calls another D-51 School Board Special Meeting on short notice, this time to be held Wed., 2/9 @ 3:15 p.m. in the Butler Board Room

by Anne Landman • February 8, 2022 • 3 Comments

School Board President Andrea Haitz is clearly rattled in this 7 minute video of last night’s meeting (2/7/22, above), taken before the Board went into Executive Session. Her voice quivers, and she gets items for the meeting out of order.

District 51 School Board President Andrea Haitz has scheduled another Special Board Meeting on Wednesday, February 9 at 3:15 p.m. in the Harry Butler Board Room at R-5, same location as yesterday’s meeting. Like the one on Monday night, this one was also scheduled with very short notice. People have noticed the time of day when Haitz plans to hold the meeting will make it difficult for teachers to attend.

Looks like District 51’s conservative school board majority is getting ready to fire Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent and Director of Equity & Inclusion

by Anne Landman • February 6, 2022 • 19 Comments

Meeting agenda quietly put up on the School Board’s website on short notice announcing a special meeting the next day to discuss employment contracts of the Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent and Director of Equity and Inclusion

The District 51 School Board’s new conservative majority — Andrea Haitz, Angela Lema and Willie Jones — appear to be getting ready to fire School District Superintendent, Diana Sirko, Assistant Superintendent Brian Hill and Tracy Gallegos, the District’s Director of Equity and Inclusion, who was hired into that position in July, 2021.

The three Board members gave short notice about a special meeting to be held on Monday, February 5 at 5:00 p.m. discuss these three employees’ contracts with attorneys they just hired in January to serve as their own representatives: David Price and Tammy Eret of Hoskin, Farina and Kampf.

The Board members produced the agenda on Saturday evening, 2/5/22, and then quietly slipped it onto the School Board’s meeting website (pdf) on Sunday evening, 2/6/21.

Mesa County Concerned Citizen meme demonstrates local cluelessness about respiratory transmission of disease

by Anne Landman • January 20, 2022 • 0 Comments

Meme in an email blast sent out by the far right group Mesa County Concerned Citizen on 11/15/21, showing that likely many local people lack any understanding of how respiratory disease transmission works — vital information that’s central to getting a pandemic under control

The above meme was sent out in an email blast last November 15, 2021 by the far right extremist group Mesa County Concerned Citizen.

The meme makes it clear that many Mesa County residents likely lack an understanding about how the transmission of respiratory diseases works — information that is massively important to our ability to bring the virus under control. This could be one reason why the coronavirus has been able to spread so efficiently in Mesa County, and why it is likely to persist here.

Central High unveils new Warrior logo, replacing racist Indian-head logo from last century

by Anne Landman • January 4, 2022 • 6 Comments

After months of deliberating ideas for an updated logo, Central High School finally unveiled its new logo today, January 4, 2022, replacing the outdated and embarrassingly racist Indian head symbol the school has had since 1947.

Some CMU staff upset by University President John Marshall wearing what appeared to be a doctoral robe

by Anne Landman • December 19, 2021 • 9 Comments

CMU President John Marshall at the December, 2021 graduation ceremony

Some Colorado Mesa University (CMU) instructors who have doctorate degrees were upset to see CMU President John Marshall at the December graduation ceremony wearing what looked like the type of graduation robe worn only by doctoral students upon their graduation.

It was an easy mistake to make.

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