LET’S TALK ABOUT IT…
Best District Ever?

Simply stating something does not make it true.

During a recent meeting of the Poudre School District Board of Education, Superintendent Brian Kingsley made a bold claim. He claimed that PSD is the best district in the entire United States. Not just of the 178 districts in Colorado. In the entire country. And, for the sake of our home values, we certainly hope that is true, but we thought we should examine this high performing district and see if we should be celebrating.

What outcomes are our local community getting from this best district? Here are a few we remembered from the past year:

• Vulnerable, non-verbal elementary-age children repeatedly physically assaulted on their school bus by a PSD employee. Parents and staff warnings ignored for months by district employees, possibly in violation of mandatory reporting laws.

• According to Colorado Measures of Academic Success standards, test results demonstrate that approximately 40% of PSD students are below expectations for reading and about 50% of PSD students are below expectations for math. In some schools, as many as 80% of the children are below grade level expectations for math.

• The district’s highest ranking administrator outside of the superintendent repeatedly publicly accused the superintendent and district of racism. That employee was suddenly just gone and no public explanation has ever been provided.

• Investigations into a possible improper relationship between Kingsley and a district employee.

• Implementation of a literacy curriculum which has failed in Kingsley’s previous school district. Teachers publicly stated their concern with the quality of the curriculum as the lessons did not even teach foundational phonics.

• Consolidation chaos. The superintendent surprised the entire community in October by announcing school consolidations. When that surprised angered the community, he lead a new process that was even more disruptive to the community and resulted in a confused board of education and a halted process. Director Kevin Havelda even stated that he had no idea what problem the district and board were supposed to be solving.

• Consistent concerns brought by worried parents regarding unfair treatment of special education students and students with dyslexia. The parents concerned for their children’s access to their education appear to have been ignored or possibly even retaliated against.

We will be curious to see how the PSD Board of Education decides to evaluate the superintendent who is achieving these results for the best school district in the country.

This made us wonder about how the evaluations work, so we looked into Poudre School District’s process for reviewing Kingsley’s performance.

How Was He Hired?

In December of 2020, the PSD Board of Education hired an outside recruitment firm Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates to manage their process of selecting a new superintendent, after the board ousted former PSD Superintendent Sandra Smyser in the middle of the 2020-2021 school year. It is unknown just how PSD decided to award the recruitment contract to HYA, nor is it apparent any other firms were considered.

Through the recruitment process, the PSD BoE decided to hire Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District’s Chief Academic Officer and former Broward County School District’s Brian Kingsley for the job. You can watch his online interview HERE.

One of his CMS accomplishments Kingsley highlighted in the interview was his “…new dedicated focus on how to teach literacy…” In 2019, Kingsley implemented a new reading curriculum from EL Education (Imagine Learning), which, according to local news reports, was selected specifically for the curriculum’s anti-racist focus.

Despite Kingsley touting his new literacy program as a success, we were interested to learn that several years after it was implemented, CMS reading scores did not improve, but basic reading scores for CMS students were at their lowest levels ever, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Kingsley had moved on to his work in PSD, however, so has not been held accountable for the failure of his reading curriculum implementation.

Interestingly, this is the same curriculum brought in to PSD by Kingsley and his staff. We hope for much better results for our local students.

Contract Extensions, Raises, and More Vacation, Oh My!

Kingsley’s contract with PSD began on July 1, 2021 and he has consistently been generously rewarded by the PSD Board of Education.

In August of 2021, Kingsley and the PSD BoE agreed upon an Evaluation Tool which would be used annually to assess his success.

Evaluation Tool questions include:

1. Is the superintendent demonstrating the right leadership and vision for the moment in which the district finds itself? In the eyes of the board? In the eyes of the staff? In the eyes of the community?

2. Is the superintendent leading the district to make regular progress toward the stated learning goals of the district?

3. Is the superintendent running the operational and financial sides of the district in the best short and long-term interests of the students?

4. Is the superintendent partnering with the community and officials in the best interests of the students?

5. Is the superintendent working well with the board?

The priorities the BoE set for Kingsley for the 2023-2024 school year included:

• Implement strategic plan well and plan years 2 and 3 of the strategic plan

• Deliver concrete results from community partners, including development of community resources

• Sustain upward trends in academics and continue to work on closing the gaps, including identifying adult practices that need to change to close gaps

• Continue taking good care of himself and his cabinet (mental and physical health should be a priority)

• Continue with professional development and growth

• Development of a comprehensive strategy that addresses the long-range operational needs of the district

Given the list of accomplishments by the greatest school district in the entire country listed above, we will be interested to see how the PSD Board of Education Directors use this evaluation process for their single employee this year.

TRENDING CONVERSATIONS
How is Northern Colorado Connected to the Synthetic Sex Industry?

What if we have this all wrong? What if the focus transgenderism is actually being driven by billionaires with financial interests in the medical industry?

Reporter Jennifer Bilek says a prominent Northern Colorado name is behind promoting the transgenderism—Stryker Medical Corporation via the Arcus Foundation founded by Jon Stryker. Pat Stryker and her associated Bohemian Foundation are close partners of Poudre School District.

IS THIS A GOOD IDEA?
Abortions for Kids-No Parental Consent Required!

Colorado youth have the legal right to access birth control, receive testing for sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy tests, and other reproductive services without any parental notification or consent.

Kids in Colorado may legally have abortions without parental consent.

WHY WAS I NEVER TOLD?
Perfect Societies with Science

John Dewey is a name you should know. Dewey is a founder of the modern public education and his philosophical impact has been far-reaching. He believed that man and history were malleable and that humans could be perfected if the right ‘science’ was applied to their training. He admired the education system in the Soviet Union, praising the system’s use in developing a “collective mentality” in children. Dewey believed education was best used to facilitate social change and even founded his own school to test his educational theories. His school was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation through the University of Chicago and was called the Lab School. The Lab School still exists and some of it’s alumni include the children of the Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers, former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his children, as well as Barack Obama’s two daughters.

Dewey signed the original Humanist Manifesto in 1933, a document designed to create a new religion which declared the traditional monotheistic religions to be irrelevant and which rejected the world having been created by God. Dewey was committed to the idea that man’s role in the world was to create the perfect world of man’s dreams. And he upended the education system in the pursuit of his vision of utopia.

DINNER TABLE DISCUSSION
Is the Universe Predictable or Chaotic?

Is the universe ordered or random and chaotic?  What are the implications of an ordered universe?  Are scientific discoveries possible without an ordered universe?

JOIN THE CONVERSATION:

☑️ CONSIDER that a recent peer reviewed study of 20 years of real-world data found that gender-affirming surgery is significantly associated with an elevated suicide risk. Review the study HERE.

☑️ LEARN about Dragutante—the non profit organization in Denver that trains children ages 6-17 to be drag performers.  Find the organization HERE.

☑️ ATTEND PSD’s next Board of Education meeting Tuesday, May 29th at 5:30pm, where the PSD Board of Education will take action on approving Biometric Screening for the entire Bus System. Meeting Agenda HERE.