Arapahoe High School Shooting Victim Dies

Arapahoe High School shooting victim Claire Davis.

FOX 31, very sad news this Saturday evening:

Claire Davis, the 17-year-old student wounded in the shooting at Arapahoe High School last week, has died of her injuries, Littleton Adventist Hospital announced Saturday.

“It is with heavy hearts that we share that at 4:29 p.m. this afternoon, Claire Davis passed away, with her family at her side,” the hospital said in a Facebook post. “Claire’s death is immensely heartbreaking for our entire community, …our staff and our families.”

In the days since the attack, Davis had been the subject of a massive outpouring of support. Groups ranging from local equestrian team members to the international pop band One Direction had expressed their affection and worked to ease the burden on her family.

A public memorial service is reportedly being planned. In the meantime, please consider a donation to the Denver Foundation's Arapahoe High School Community Fund Honoring Claire Davis.

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BREAKING: School Shooting At Arapahoe High School

UPDATE #3: A statement now from Gov. John Hickenlooper:

?This is an unspeakable horror and something no child, no family should have to endure. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Arapahoe High School community and those affected by this senseless act of violence. We thank law enforcement and first responders for their swift work. All of Colorado is with you.

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UPDATE #2: Arapahoe Sheriff's Department now reporting that the shooter is dead.

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UPDATE: The Denver Post's Ryan Parker reports via Twitter that two students have been shot injured in addition to the shooter. The condition of the victims and the shooter is not yet known.

Hearing this is bad. #ArapahoeHighSchool pic.twitter.com/ft4uFgCnQS

— Ryan Parker (@ryanparkerdp) December 13, 2013

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#BREAKING pic from Arapahoe HS. Students running, evacuating school @CBSDenver pic.twitter.com/rnUsJXPqqr

— Heather Burke (@HeatherCBS4) December 13, 2013

We interrupt our political coverage for this breaking report from CBS4's Tim Wieland:

#BREAKING Arapahoe County Sheriff: "Active shooter" situation at Arapahoe HS. Possibly two injured. Large police response.

— Tim Wieland (@CBS4Tim) December 13, 2013

We'll update with details as they become available. Our thoughts are with Arapahoe High School students, teachers, and families.

UPDATE: FOX 31's Will Holden:

As of 1 p.m., the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s office had confirmed two individuals were injured during a shooting at Arapahoe High School in Centennial on Friday afternoon.

The confirmation from the sheriff’s office came after emergency scanner traffic indicated there was an active shooter and a fire at the Centennial are high school, and that at least one student had been critically injured.

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New Jeffco School Board Members Already Breaking Law, Spending Money

UPDATE: There may be much more to this story than originally thought. Check out this information from Examiner.com:

Although Witt did not provide the board or the public with information about the terms of compensation, the Loveland Reporter-Herald states that Thompson School Board is currently considering a contract with Miller’s firm, Miller Sparks LLC, to represent their school board at hourly rates of $225 and $205, respectively.

The Reporter-Herald also stated that on Wednesday, Dec. 11, Thompson School Board President Bob Kerrigan told his school board that Miller Sparks was the “Colorado Springs-based law firm that currently represents Jefferson County schools.”

Kerrigan’s comment raises additional questions, because Jeffco’s contract with Miller was not approved until 24 hours later at Jeffco’s regular school board meeting on Thursday and key details of that contract are still not available to the public. [Pols emphasis]

That last sentence is a doozy. It seems that members of the Thompson School Board knew about a new attorney in Jefferson County before some members of Jeffco's school board (let alone the public).

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The three new members of the Jefferson County School Board were sworn-in just three weeks ago, but they've already managed to break the law.

Republicans Ken Witt, John Newkirk and Julie Williams were elected in November and gained majority control of the school board when they were inaugurated on Nov. 21. The pro-charter school, anti-tax conservative slate has been quiet about their intentions since Election Day, refusing to comment in a Denver Post story published one day before their swearing-in ceremony, but all three were supported by Alex Cranberg-funded pro-voucher groups — the type that have advocated for recent "reforms" similar to those that have plagued Douglas County Schools in recent years.

At last night's Jeffco School Board meeting, Witt, Newkirk, and Williams surprised fellow board members Lesley Dahlkemper and Jill Fellman by announcing that they had extended an offer to Colorado Springs-based attorney and charter-school advocate Brad Miller to represent the board on legal matters — even though the district already has a chief legal counsel (Allen Taggert is retiring at the end of the month, but the school district already had a transition plan in place for a new attorney). Witt told the board that it was important to have Miller in place before Saturday's Board Retreat, though he did not provide information about the cost or other specifics regarding Miller's offer. Witt, Newkirk, and Williams shrugged off questions about why there was such a rush to spend taxpayer funds on another attorney for the school district, and pushed the matter through by a vote of 3-2.

If you didn't already catch the legal violation in the last paragraph, here's the problem: under Colorado's "Sunshine Laws," elected officials cannot hold secret meetings or discussions of the type that led to a contract offer for Miller. Witt, Newkirk, and Williams offered Miller a contract BEFORE informing the rest of the board and voting on the matter. Whatever your political affiliations, the law is pretty clear that you can't do this sort of thing — though Miller was apparently unconcerned since he was in attendance at the board meeting last night. The whole point of Colorado's open government laws are to prevent elected officials from holding discussions or conversations that are not accessible to the public. Witt and friends don't have much of a defense here given that they extended an offer to Miller sometime before last night's board meeting; they didn't just talk to Miller, they made a decision, in secret, unbeknownst even to other board members.

If you are so inclined, the board meeting can be viewed on YouTube. We'll update on whatever happens this weekend at the board retreat, which Witt signaled was the impetus for rushing Miller's "contract" through the board. Perhaps the new board members will have more "decisions" to announce to Dahlkemper and Fellman.

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Douglas County School Board Should Be Shown The Classroom Door

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Well the evidence is in and for all the upheaval over the past four years in the Douglas County schools because of the 2009 election of so called conservatives to the board of education and the subsequent implementation of their policies to terminate the ever evil teachers union and to send public money to private sectarian schools, they have nothing (repeat nothing) to show for it. The scores below represent the percentage of children in the Douglas County school district proficient in the three primary areas of learning:

                   2009        2013

Math            69%        70%

Reading        81%        82%

Writing         68%        69%

In words, after all the hoopla and gnashing of teeth over how bad those unionized teachers are and how all we have to do is stop bargaining with the union and set-up our own teacher evaluation system, establish charter schools, and launch a program to send public tax dollars to private sectarian schools nothing has changed. For all the nonsense expounded by the four so called conservative candidates who were elected in 2009, they haven't improved public education in Douglas County one bit. The nonprofit funding arm of the Douglas County schools paid Bill Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education, to come out to Douglas County in September and deliver a speech praising the school board reforms. In other words, even though there hasn't been any appreciable improvement in student performance, they're going to pay nationally known figures to endorse their reforms because the board can then proclaim they have worked, even though the evidence shows they haven't improved academic performance. The present board is attempting to fool the public.

The test numbers above aren't the only statistics that support the futility and uselessness of the board's so called reforms. The Colorado Department of Education rates each school district by awarding a composite score for academic achievement. Since the present board was elected, Douglas County schools composite rating has dropped:

                  Annual Rating by CDOE

?2010                      78.2

2011                      72.7

2012                      73.7

What does all of this mean. The Republican Party, which intervened directly in 2009 and again this year in the Douglas County school board elections (and now in the Thompson School District elections in Loveland, Colorado), has wasted the last thirty or more years using the teachers union as its whipping boy and proclaiming that if it wasn't for the union we could educate our kids. Surprise, surprise, it turns out the union wasn't the culprit after all. What a waste of time at the expense of our children. Again, the Republican Party refuses to deal with the real reasons some kids have difficulty learning but of course to deal with those realities we all know costs money and that goes against one of the other sacred Republican principles – "There's a problem – cut taxes."

Apparently, the Douglas County school board members have and are resisting the request from some quarters that they establish performance standards for the board and their reforms. I wonder why? Could it be this has all been a waste of time and money, and in reality has been nothing more than the pursuit of hard line ideological myths that have no basis in reality?

Link

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School Finance Campaign Pre-Buts Opposition

A lengthy release yesterday from Colorado Commits to Kids summarizes and rebuts in advance the arguments against this year's ballot initiative to raise revenue for public education via a two-tiered progressive income tax increase. As an added bonus, what may soon be known as the "Yes on Amendment 66" campaign grabbed an opposition domain name, coloradansforrealeducationreform.com, and posted the same pre-buttal of opponents' talking points there:

3. FICTION: The Colorado Commits to Kids Initiative doesn’t include line-by-line transparency or accountability measures.
FACT: Districts are already subject to line by line accounting by way of Colorado's common chart of accounts. We will be adding the additional requirement that they not only report line by line relative to district spending, but also according to individual school spending. For example, we already require districts to report how much they spend as a district on reading coaches. We will now be requiring that they report how much they spend on reading coaches for individual schools. The same can be said about every other expenditure within a district. (3)
Additionally, Senate Bill 213 requires the state to publish regular reports that will be used to continually improve our system. The first will determine how much funding is needed for schools to meet all the requirements in our state’s education policies and laws. A second report will look at the return on investment for taxpayers by examining the relationship between education spending and student outcomes. Together, these reports will be powerful tools to ensure Colorado’s education system is effective, efficient and ensuring students continue to achieve. (4)
4. FICTION: It doesn’t do enough for charters or school choice. 
FACT: Colorado has a robust school choice movement, but charter schools and district schools have not been funded equally. The Colorado Commits to Kids Initiative would support school choice by helping to provide equal funding to charter schools and district schools, ensuring that students receive the same support no matter the type of school they attend. (5)
Additionally, the financial transparency website mandated by SB 213 helps improve parental choice, as they are able to compare how schools spend money when deciding where to send their kids.  
5. FICTION: State Treasurer Walker Stapleton says nothing will prevent districts from simply taking the new money and, through “substitution,” using it to pay for other items – notably pension liability.
FACT: Similar to the current State Education Fund, money raised by Colorado Commits to Kids is constitutionally and statutorily prohibited from ever being used directly to fund PERA. It’s that simple.
6. FICTION: We don’t need to increase money for schools, as demonstrated by collections this year that exceeded projections:
FACT: The State Education Fund is currently not sufficient to support the annual and on-going needs of our students. The higher-than-expected revenues are largely one-time in nature and are not guaranteed to be available in future years. (6)

Because of the higher-than-expected revenues, the State Legislature transferred additional money into the State Education Fund. The additional money constitutes a one-time boost, however, and cannot be relied upon in future years. (7) According to the nonpartisan Legislative Council, it is not expected that these transfers will continue beyond the 2013-2014 fiscal year. Colorado requires on-going, sustainable funding to support our students via the reforms outlined in Senate Bill 213.
For more facts, visit www. ColoradoCommitstoKids.com
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CITATIONS

(1) Source: “Initiative 22” and CRS 22-54.5-102

(2) Source: “Initiative 22 title”

(3) Source: Senate Bill 213, p. 131

(4) Source: Ibid., pages  24-25.

(5) Source: Ibid., pages pgs 70-74.

(6) Governor’s Office of State Planning and Budgeting, "The Colorado Outlook Economic and Fiscal Review" June 2013 and Colorado Legislative Council, "Economic and Revenue Forecast, June 2013" June 20, 2013.

(7) Transfer Of General Fund Surplus to State Ed Fund, HB12-1338, Sixty-eighth General Assembly (2012).

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School Finance Ballot Initiative Raises $1 Million

FOX 31's Eli Stokols:

Lawmakers passed legislation last session, hoping to change the way Colorado funds its schools, directing additional money to full-day kindergarten across the state and distributing more money per pupil to districts with higher percentages of at-risk students.

But none of it will take effect unless voters approve $950 million in new tax revenues to pay for it.

Initiative 22 would set a flat tax rate of 5 percent — up slightly from the current 4.6 percent rate — for all incomes of less than $75,000 a year.

But the proposal those earning more than that would see their income taxed at two different rates:  the 5 percent flat rate for income up to $75,000 annually and then a 5.9 percent rate for all earnings above that threshold.

And the Denver Post reports today:

Colorado Commits to Kids surpassed the $1 million mark in overall contributions with $739,250 taken in during the July reporting period. Combined with more than $260,000 raised in June, the effort moved to $1,081,550 primarily with the help of a few deep-pocketed donors.

The Post reports diverse funding sources for this campaign, ranging from Democrat Pat Stryker and Sam Gary of the Piton Foundation to the right-leaning education reform group Stand for Children. Along with backing from Gov. John Hickenlooper, Initiative 22's hefty war chest should underscore the seriousness of this effort compared to 2011's Proposition 103–which failed after attracting only tepid support. It's worth noting that some of the lack of support for Proposition 103, particularly on the left, can be attributed to concerns that it doesn't raise enough revenue to address the problem. This latest initiative is no "band-aid," but a real attempt to solve the longstanding and growing problem of paying for public education in Colorado.

And unlike two years ago, this campaign will have the resources it needs to succeed.

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Gala2012. school show

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