Difference between revisions of "Douglas County RE-1"

Revision as of 17:48, 19 September 2017

Douglas County RE-1 Overview

• Cities: Aurora (small portion), Castle Pines, Littleton (sliver), Lone Tree
• Towns: Castle Rock, Larkspur, Parker
• Unincorporated Areas: Acres Green, Castle Pines Village, Franktown, Grand View Estates, Highlands Ranch, Louviers, Meridian, Perry Park, Roxborough Park, Sedalia, Stonegate, The Pinery, Westcreek
• Counties: Douglas County, Elbert County (small portion)
• County Commissioners:
• State House: HD 39 R, HD 43 R, HD 44 R, HD 45 R, HD 64 R
• State Senators: SD 1 R, SD 4 R, SD 30 R
• Congressional: CD 4 R, CD 6 R

Douglas County RE-1 District Info

Douglas County RE-1 Superintendent

• Erin Kane was previously Executive Director of a Charter School called American Academy.
• Kane is on the Advisory Board for the Leadership Program of the Rockies.
• Predecessor, Liz Fagan, had a salary of $280k plus retirement even after massive cuts.

Douglas County RE-1 School Board

• No compensation
• Terms are 4 years
• 2 term limit

• Despite 2015 incumbent defeats, still extremely conservative, split 4-3 (reformers to teacher's union-supporters).

• Fractured board and district, despite GOP control.
• Meghann Silverthorn (District G) appointed Steve Peck (District E) without Board knowledge, inciting controversy.

The following were endorsed by the Douglas County Teacher's Union for 2013:

• Barbra Chase
• Bill Hodges
• Julie Keim
• Ronda Scholting

All lost their races to candidates who were endorsed by the Douglas County GOP.

Special Interest Groups

Local

• Douglas County Parents
• SPEAK for DCSD (appears neutral in purpose, but members lean anti-Elevate)
• Elevate Douglas County (pro-reform)
• Renew Douglas County (pro-reform)
• DCSD Charter Parent Coalition (pro-reform)
• Great Choice Douglas County (Facebook) (pro-reform)

Great Choice Douglas County

http://greatchoicedouglascounty.org/about-us/board-of-directors/

Leadership of the Rockies Connections

• Charcie Russell - 2005 alum, on the Board of Directors and the Advisory Board
• Shannon Dreyfuss - was a 2013 alum.
• Pam Mazanec - was a 2012 alum. Also currently serves on the State Board of Education.

Local Blogs

• Ed is Watching, a pro-education reform blog written from the prospective of a fictional 5 year-old, maintained by the staff of the libertarian Independence Institute’s Education Policy Center, a self described "action tank" (versus a "think tank"). The Institute is based in Denver. The name Ron Izard is singled out for recognition of the blog, who serves as Education Policy Analyst of that organization, specializing in "school choice policy, accountability, and education labor issues" with a focus on education reform. The Independence Institute supported the reform candidates who took over the majority in 2013, and since worked against teacher unions and teacher tenure, and shored up charter schools.

General

Leadership Program of the Rockies

• Speakers have included Mike Coffman, Cory Gardner, Ann Coulter, Mike Huckabee, Bob Beauprez, Dinesh D’Souza, Hugh Hewitt, Laura Ingraham, and others.
• Fees for their course program are $2,150. The full cost of the program is $6,500 per person. Partial scholarships are available.
• Consistently speaks of "building an army for freedom".

• Steven Peck, current seatholder of District E (not seeking election), was a 2015 alum. He was appointed to Douglas County School Board a year later.
• Judi Reynolds, current seatholder of District D (not seeking election), was a 2015 alum.
• Meghann Silverthorn, current seatholder in District G (termed out), was a 2010 alum.
• Erin Kane, current DougCo Superintendent, is on the Advisory Board.

• Douglas County School Board received the 2012 Leaders in Action award.

• Charcie Russell is a 2005 alum, on the Board of Directors and the Advisory Board. In 2009, she assisted in the election of a school choice slate to DougCo School Board. Additionally she was part of the taskforce that created the Choice Scholarship Program, and co-founded local special interest group Great Choice Douglas County.

ALEC

ALEC stands for American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative organization that crafts legislation across the country. The co-founder of ALEC also co-founded The Heritage Foundation and a PAC called Moral Majority alongside Jerry Falwell. All were created in the 1970s and are credited with creating the bloc of the Christian Right.

Alliance for School Choice & Alliance for Choice in Education

• ASC is a member of ALEC's Education Task Force.
• U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos as the Chair of ASC from 2009 to 2016.

Between the 2009 and 2013 elections, Meghann Silverthorn received large donations from Houston billionaire and former University of Texas Regent Alex Cranberg. They all subsequently won. Cranberg has at some point served on the ASC board. Between the two elections, the donations totaled $30,000 from Cranberg alone.

Cranberg, along with Ed McVaney and Ralph Nagel, founded the Alliance for Choice in Schools. Together, in 2013, they donated at least $105,000 to all 4 reformer candidates (John Carson, Dan Greken, Doug Benevento and Meghann Silverthorn).

John Carson is now on the CU Board of Regents, representing Congressional District 6.

SWS Polifi

Marge Klein

• Registering agent for all 4 Elevate candidates. (Abresch, Mills, Scheffel, Nelson)
• Graduate of Leadership Program of the Rockies (class of 2000) (Source) and member of the Advisory Board.
• President of SWS Polifi, which is focused on compliance of rules and regulations for political campaigns. (Source)
• Klein registered their campaigns using her SWS Polifi email address.
• Registered agent for Clarice PAC, whose stated purpose is "to raise funds for Republicans to get elected to local and state offices and to build a bench of Republican candidates." (TRACER)
• Registered agent for Sias Political Committee, whose stated purpose is "to raise funds for Republicans to get elected to local and state offices." (TRACER)
• Registered Agent of the Arapahoe County Republican Party, whose stated purpose is "to support Republican candidates." (TRACER)
• Registered agent, with SWS Polifi account, for Bob Beauprez's unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2014. (TRACER)
• Registered agent for an issues committee called Colorado Citizens for Fair Elections, whose stated purpose is "CCFE will support any ballot issue or referendum that advocates for a 29 day deadline for voter registrations that are not accompanied by a Colorado DOR ID card or drivers license. (TRACER) (NOTE: Marge Klein put herself as both Registered Agent and Designated Filing Agent, despite for the latter using Tammy Scott's SWS Polifi email address.)
• Klein has active connections to Douglas, Arapahoe, El Paso, and Weld counties. (TRACER)

Tammy Scott

• Tammy Scott, who has a SWS Polifi email address, also serves as Designated Filing Agent for most of the above.

Notable Controversies

Grace Davis

Grace Davis during spring 2016 was a 16 year-old sophomore at Ponderosa High School in Douglas County School District. Davis was among those who organized a walk-out of students at her school, in a demonstration to bring attention to the school's high turnover rate for teachers and the means of evaluating teachers. The protest took place on March 9th, 2016, where more than 100 students attended.

5 days prior to the demonstration, DCSB Chair Meghann Silverthorn and Vice Chair Judi Reynolds had a closed-door meeting with Grace Davis lasting for 90 minutes. Davis recorded the conversation (in Colorado one-party recordings are allowed by law, which Davis was aware of due to a budding interest in criminal profiling). Neither of Davis' parents were asked for permission for such a meeting, nor given advanced notice. Davis was not accompanied to the meeting by any other party.

Silverthorn and Reynolds spoke of the possibility of someone getting hurt and how she and her parents could be held responsible. After the conversation, Davis was left feeling scared and intimidated.

Days after the protest (March 15th, 2016), at the DCSD board meeting, board member Jim Geddes implied Davis was a puppet used by teachers to push an agenda. "I don’t think that was an appropriate way to express your-all’s agenda, through your students, to use your students that way.”

There were calls for the resignations of Silverthorn and Reynolds. The ensuing investigation by a third party cleared them of violations. However, citizens believed that due to Gordon "Skip" Netzorg's previous connections to Alliance for Choice Scholarship program (board secretary) that also counts among it's founders Alex Cranberg, by far the largest individual contributor to Silverthorn (and has also donated sizable contributions to Reynolds), that Netzorg's judgment was questionable.

Complete Colorado, the media arm of the Independence Institute, wrote an article portraying those who believed Davis was treated unjustly in a negative, even childish light. Meanwhile, Colorado Independent wrote their own article from the day before about the backlash on the released report amid speculation that Netzorg's previous connections clouded his judgment, in their comments section, Ross Izard (Education Policy Analyst at Independence Institute) was there giving the same talking points the Complete Colorado article would make the very next day.

2017 Election

Districts B, D, E, and G are up for vote, with Meghann Silverthorn in District G termed out.

Candidates

2017 Election Issues

Douglas County Parents vs. Elevate Douglas County and Douglas County GOP

Douglas County Parents

Douglas County Parents is a local group consisting of parents and educators, with concerns for the increasing privatization of education and erosion of teacher's unions.

These are their candidates of choice in 2017:

• Anthony Graziano
• Krista Holtzmann
• Kevin Leung
• Chris Schor

Elevate Douglas County

Elevate Douglas County is a pro-education reform local group focused on the political concept of School Choice and fiscal responsibility, with making a broad mention of being "competitive" although barely addressing the questions of taxes and mill levies clearly. Their Q&As with the Castle Rock News-Press came with vague answers, with a couple candidates citing the reason why they are running is because of the current division.

However, the current division on DougCo School Board is 4-3. 4 Reformers, and 3 pro-Union. The Elevate Slate are running for the 4 Reformer seats that are currently up. Should they all be elected, the 4-3 division would remain and not be resolved.

The efforts of Elevate Douglas County are paid equally between the committees to elect of all four endorsed candidates.

These are their candidates of choice (known as the "Elevate Slate"):

• Randy Mills
• Ryan Abresch
• Debora Scheffel
• Grant Nelson

They appear to not have any individual campaign pages (plus have Elevate email addresses for their campaigns) and not only are running as a "slate", but in essence as a voting bloc.

Joy Overbeck, a right-wing Colorado-based journalist and author, had written an editorial in the local Castle Rock News-Press in support of the Elevate Slate, which made brief mention of support for charter schools. Overbeck had also written several articles published in the conservative Washington Times, including an article strongly advocating for conceal-carry of guns in schools, making mention of the libertarian Denver-based Independence Institute. She is also a member of the pro-reform Facebook group Renew Douglas County and a is a Trump apologist.

Ross Izard (Independence Institute) wrote an article as an Opinion Contributor titled "How a Colorado school board race has national implications for education and religious liberty" for popular online publication The Hill.

Election 2017 Controversies

8/19/17 - Douglas County GOP Annual Picnic

• Kevin Leung (who famously publicly declined a DCGOP endorsement interview in 2013) was not only kicked out, but the DCGOP posted about it on their Facebook page. In the post, they specified him as a school board candidate (in a non-partisan race) and as part of the "Dream Team". A few were left wondering why it warranted a Facebook post.
• Their claim was he was recording. Others claim other people were recording and were not kicked out.
• The DCGOP comments were defensive and confrontational ("Were you there today? We don't recall your name on the RSVP list.").
• Ross Izard (of the Independence Institute) jumped on, purporting that a person who replied has no right to due to her connections, yet despite his own, he has the right to himself.

8/24/17 - Back to School Night

• There was complaint that Douglas County Parents were handing out literature for their candidates of choice, despite Elevate doing much the same with theirs (though said they only did it because "the other side was doing it").
• Elevate's account of the evening implied that Douglas County Parents were uncivil, by calling to "restore civility" and further stating that their own slate will do so.
• Elevate claims that Douglas County Parents threatened a principal.
• Complete Colorado wrote an article making Elevate look good and DCP look bad. Complete Colorado is owned and operated by the Independence Institute.
• The original Elevate Facebook post became a "sponsored" post, meaning they paid to have it show up in the timelines of a targeted audience, effectively becoming an advertisement.

Campaign Finance