Issues with Past Board Rules and Recommendations

I will be expanding this section as I read existing and proposed rules.

Board actions:

1. Usurp local board power by issuing highly detailed rules and policies regarding teaching methods, curriculum, graduation planning, bus maintenance and operations, and more — plus

2. Invade student privacy by requiring extensive reporting to the State including a detailed dossier on each student, from reading progress in early grades to individualized ICAP graduation plans. Reporting also includes detailed reports of district operations, and

3. Ignore parental wishes and cut parents out of decisions at curriculum level and regarding their students.

4. Rules favor “trans girls” (boys) in girls sports, locker rooms, and bathrooms in name of inclusion with zero protection for others.

All this requires lots of administrators in districts, plus more at the State level to review all the dossiers..

Examples follow:

Matt Alexander (Colorado House district 60 candidate and Fremont County RE-1 School Board member) gives a campaign speech where he describes leading local resistance to a State Board rule REMOVING parents and community inputs from curriculum selection. If elected, we could restore, even require, parental and community involvement in curriculum and textbook selection.

Colorado READ act rules, and revised proposed amendments to those rules are posted at the Board website for consideration in August. The READ act provides subsidies to school districts for extra tutoring for students with reading issues. The rules and amendments as initially promulgated provided no parental involvement until parents are consulted before holding kids back to repeat third grade (revised amendments now add parental notice of “significant reading deficiency” in section 4.01b)). Parents should be involved as early as possible when their child has difficulty in any subject, and this should have been recognized in earlier versions of the rule; report cards alone are insufficient. The READ act rules also has reporting requirements, including a personally-identifiable dossier with multiple test results on each child each year, see section 13.02, as well as each student’s “READ” plan. Let us slash this dossier both to reduce administrative costs of districts and the Department of Education, and restore privacy to students and families. If elected, I’ll propose to the Board eliminating detailed per-student dossiers at all levels to improve privacy, and involve parents more than they do now. Statistical reports should be sufficient for grant computation, and these can be backed by on-site audits to prevent fraud without removing personally identifiable information from the district offices.

Parental involvement is crucial throughout K-12 schooling, rules should encourage frequent parental involvement. Further, privacy is important to parents and students.

The graduation standards require an individualized career and postsecondary plan (ICAP) for each student and progress along that plan be reported to the state at least yearly—another part of the dossiers reported to the state. Again, having to report plan and progress invades student privacy and requires multiple administrators at state and local levels.

Amendments to transportation (bus) rules are posted on CDE website. This usurpts local board power by micromanagement. They require extensive records and are duplicative of commercial driver and other rules, thus requiring additional administrators for compliance. Further, they require no input from parents and bus route drivers in bus route or bus stop placement decisions, both of whom should be stakeholders in bus routes and stop locations.

I expect to find much more exclusion of parents, invasion of privacy, and micromanagement as I continue reviewing Board documents.