Board of Winning: D11 School Board Recommendations
Friends and family, it’s that time of year again. The leaves are falling and that means the smell of freshly printed campaign literature on every doorstep and in every mailbox.
Here are my 2023 election recommendations. These candidates are all believers, dedicated to putting academics first and keeping left-wing ideology out of classrooms
Colorado Springs School District 11 School Board (4 votes)
(From left to right: Thomas Carey, Jason Jorgenson, Jill Haffley, Parth Melpakam)
In 2021, across the nation, state, and here in Colorado Springs, conservative school boards were swept into power with the mandate to focus on academics and turn a politically distracted public education system back to the basics.
While they saw varying degrees of success, Colorado Springs School District 11 was among the most effective. Under the leadership of Board President Parth Melpakam and Vice President Jason Jorgenson (both running for re-election), D11 saw victory after victory in two years.
From 2017 to 2021 the district was losing over 1,000 students every single year. This year, for the first time in over a decade and only the third time in 25 years, enrollment increased from the year before. In the last two years, D11 saw the largest academic growth in the region and halved the number of schools on the state watch list for poor academic performance.
The success began when the school board parted ways with Superintendent Michael Thomas and hired Col. Michael Gaal, who shared the board’s vision for an academic renewal in D11.
From there, they streamlined the budget, kicked politics to the curb, and focused on putting students first. They disbanded the “Department of Equity and Inclusion.” They changed highly intrusive surveys such as the “healthy kids” survey, which asks students as young as 10 about gender identity, to “opt-in” (meaning that the default position is that a student will not take the survey unless a parent explicitly agrees to allow them to).
They signed a resolution committing to political neutrality in the classroom and stood up to the Colorado Education Association when that organization passed a resolution condemning capitalism as an economic system.
In place of political theatrics, the school board put real reforms in place that will change lives and turn the district around.
They partnered with the community to create the “D11 Promise Scholarship,” which gives every graduating D11 student with a 2.5 GPA and a 90% attendance rate a full-ride scholarship to Pikes Peak State College.
They began rolling pathways schools, which allow students to pursue a specific pathway based on their future interests or goals. There are now D11 schools focused on Career and Technical Education (the trades), STEM pathway schools, performing arts schools, and more.
They secured historic pay raises for teachers, raising starting pay in the district from $42,000 a year to $50,000.
State of the race
Running alongside Parth and Jason to keep D11 on its path of excellence are two award-winning teachers. Jill Haffley is a 27-year D11 history teacher at Coronado High School and Dr. Thomas Carey is a professor at the Air Force Academy Preparatory School.
Despite 3 of these 4 candidates being teachers (Jason was a science teacher before running for his first term in 2019), the teachers union chose not to endorse them and is instead spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to try and keep them out and return to the status quo.
Here’s an example of what the race looks like. At a recent panel, candidates were asked their position on sports being separated by biological gender. Watch which candidates give unequivocal, sound answers to what should not be a difficult question, and which do not.
This school board’s success could be looked at as the gold standard. It’s been no-nonsense, few unforced errors, and highly effective.
In his closing remarks at board forums and speeches Parth takes a page from Reagan’s re-election campaign and asks:
“Is the district better off than it was two years ago? Are our students better off than they were two years ago? Are our staff better off than they were two years ago? If the answer is yes, I ask for your vote.”
The answer is an enthusiastic “yes!”
Vote Parth Melpakam, Jason Jorgenson, Jill Haffley, and Thomas Carey for District 11 School Board.