Colorado conservatives lay waste to leftist status quo and transform mountain school district into patriotic oasis

Conservatives in the small Colorado mountain town of Woodland Park took over its school board little over a year ago. Rather than rest on their laurels, the board and its supporters have in the intervening months laid waste to the leftist status quo and turned the district into a patriotic microcosm inside the Democrat-run state.

A slate of conservative candidates — David Rusterholtz, Gary Grovetto, David Illingworth, and Suzanne Patterson — ran for election to the five-member board of education in Woodland Park School District RE-2 in November 2021.

The Pikes Peak Courirer reported that Rusterholtz vowed ahead of the election, "We will listen to what parents and students have to say, review all school board policies and not have a one-size-fits-all approach," adding that there "is definitely a sentiment, not just here but around the nation, that parents want their kids to be educated to their virtues and values, and school districts need to listen to them."

Evidently parents and community members agreed.

The conservatives were democratically selected to join incumbent Chris Austin to seize control of the board and the district's destiny on behalf of the community.

Illingworth, the board's vice president, indicated in a December 9, 2021, email that he reckoned the board should emulate former President Donald Trump's "first 100 days" strategy of flooding the zone whereby "you advance on many fronts at the same time, then the enemy cannot fortify, defend, effectively counter-attack in any one front. Divide, scatter, conquer," reported the Courier.

Although there was some debate about Illingworth's wording, there is no debating whether the tactic worked.

NBC News reported that since the election, the Colorado conservatives successfully took various steps to transform the district, such as:

• hiring an unwoke superintendent, Ken Witt, who prioritizes academic achievement over students' feelings and discounts student protesters as "pawns" of the teachers' union;
• adopting a patriotic social studies program called "American Birthright" whereby students learn "the structure of our self-governing republic, the functions of government at all levels, and how our key institutions work" free of leftist propaganda;
• approving the community's first charter school; and
• ousting obstructionist, leftist staff members and driving nearly 40% of the high school's professional staff to threaten to quit.

Unlike other school officials across the country, Illingworth indicated the measure of the board members' success is not whether they "please the teacher's union and their psycho agenda against academic rigor, family values, and even capitalism itself," but whether they "bring a parent's voice and a little common sense to the school district."

That common sense comes, in part, packaged as the new social studies standard, American Birthright.

The national conservative coalition behind American Birthright, the Civics Alliance, notes on its website, "We oppose all racism and support traditional American pluralism, e pluribus unum—out of many, one. These beliefs are not those of the radical New Civics activists, which espouse identity politics with overlapping ideologies of critical race theory, multiculturalism, and so-called 'antiracism.'"

"The New Civics has already advanced in America’s education system to a far greater extent than most people realize. It has succeeded partly because it has received unwitting support from those who fail to see the many wolves in sheep’s clothing," wrote the Civics Alliance. "Well-intentioned reformers must not collaborate with those promoting an ideology that would destroy America."

The district adopted the social studies standards earlier this year after the state board rejected them, calling them "too extreme" for the state, reported Colorado Public Radio.

David Graf, an English teacher who couldn't hack it under the new leadership, created a class called "Civil Disobedience" in 2015 to hype the BLM movement and other leftist uprisings. After the adoption of American Birthright, a community member complained to the superintendent about Graf's use of a book by an identitarian leftist, calling it an "indoctrination tool."

Witt determined the book was impermissible, ruffling some feathers.

Graf quit in April, telling NBC News, "This is an active case study on what will happen if we allow extremist policies to start to take over our public education system. ... And the scariest part about it, they knew that this community would bite on it."

Despite the best efforts of leftist educators, students in the Woodland Park School District may now have a better chance of graduating with an appreciation for the nation entrusted to their care.

Since recent recall efforts by leftists in the district have failed miserably, the conservative board remains in place until November, when three members will stand for re-election.

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