Conservatives and Union Members Battle For Control of Town’s Schools
Conservatives and a teachers union have squared off over a small Colorado town’s schools.
After years with no contested school board election, a conservative slate last November took four of five seats on the Woodland Park School Board in Teller County outside Colorado Springs.
They started delivering on campaign promises quickly but just as quickly faced a recall effort led by the local teachers union with help from its state and national allies.
Having allegedly harassed one new board member into resigning this spring, they started a recall drive against the three others and by this week’s petition deadline had narrowly met the signature threshold for two of them.
Whether they’ve got enough valid signatures to trigger the recall election remains to be seen.
Jameson Dion defends the new conservative board seeking to reform Woodland Park’s schools. (Courtesy of Jameson Dion)
The recall effort is one of many such fights across the country.
Parents are struggling to regain control of schools many think have gone over the top in what they teach and how they teach it—subjects like Critical Race Theory, the 1619 Project, Black Lives Matter, and gender fluidity, in many cases information directed at very young children.
Jameson Dion, a Woodland Park resident who defends the school board members, said he and his wife, who have no children, got involved after moving to Woodland Park during the Covid pandemic.
One reason they’d moved was disenchantment with health restrictions passed by local health officials where they lived in the Denver suburbs. “We realized a bunch of people were dictating our destiny that we never voted for and didn’t know.”
They moved to Woodland Park—where Dion, 37, had been born—partly because the county sheriff there refused to enforce what he regarded as unconstitutional mandates during the pandemic.
“We vowed we
" Conservative News Daily does not always share or support the views and opinions expressed here; they are just those of the writer."
Now loading...