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May 28, 2015 09:41 AM UTC

Even More Ugly Jeffco School Board Footage

  • 7 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Ken Witt.
Ken Witt.

Amid fresh negative press coverage for the conservative Jefferson County school board majority, we were forwarded another clip of video from this month’s regular board meeting–in which the subject of board member Julie Williams’ Facebook posting of a hate group’s protest against the LGBT Day of Silence event the previous month loomed large, but was never acknowledged by the conservative members of the board.

Sources who have regularly attended Jefferson County school board meetings since the takeover of the board by right-wing candidates two years ago stress that they have never seen such a toxic environment as currently exists in these meetings. It’s often the case that school board politics become rather contentious, but not like this we’re told. Perhaps the best evidence of how far out of control the situation has gotten was the highly questionable public disparagement of a 17-year-old student by board chairman Ken Witt during this month’s board meeting, an incident now the subject of an outside investigation to determine whether laws or district policies prohibiting bullying were violated.

In the five-minute video clip you see above, a Jeffco student who earlier participated in a silent protest against Williams attempted to speak as the representative of a group of students. It’s the policy for Jeffco school board meetings that groups of speakers during the public comment periods are allotted extra time to speak. Witt apparently found a discrepancy in the list of students who had signed up as a member of this particular group, and ruled that the student in question could only speak for two minutes. Outgoing board member Lesley Dahlkemper immediately objects to Witt’s limiting of the student’s time to speak, and the room erupts in boos. The student gives an abbreviated version of his speech, only to be very rudely cut off by Witt once again as his already-chopped time expired.

All told, this probably isn’t as serious an incident as Witt’s later name-naming attack on a minor student who merely “favorited” a few Tweets. But having watched it along with all the rest of the Jeffco school board’s history since 2013, it’s illustrative of the kind of openly belligerent treatment that parents, teachers, and even students routinely experience at the hands of this board majority.

And folks, it is really not okay.

Comments

7 thoughts on “Even More Ugly Jeffco School Board Footage

  1. I'd like to point out that this student is the president of the gay-straight alliance at his high school, and all the kids who came up to speak with him are members of that student group as well who came to talk to the board about Julie Williams ridiculous post about Day of Silence.

      1. I've never seen a different expression on her face which goes to prove your mother was right; if you keep making that face, it'll freeze like that.

      2. It's all part of the new "Freedom Agenda"…freedom from respecting anyone elses' rights…freedom from having to listen to anything you don't want to hear…freedom from understanding….

         

  2. I can't believe that these are education professionals, much less administrators.Never have I seen another district that would shut down students who had sufficient poise and articulation to speak in front of a room of adults.

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