BSVDWatch.org

PLAN Boulder has posted a letter on their website directed to the Boulder Valley School District. It outlines many issues it sees that BVSD needs to address.

Click here to read the whole article. Below is a quote from the opening paragraphs.

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Fair and Open Government: Lessons for Our Children
Letter to the Boulder Valley School District Board
February 26, 2008

The awe-inspiring turnout at our Colorado Caucuses this year brought home a powerful realization of the importance of citizen participation in an open government process. Unfortunately, the BVSD has not recognized the importance of such a public process in its decision making regarding historic significance and environmentally sensitive school decisions.

In Fall 2006, the citizens of the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) approved a Bond Issue for $296.8 million to be used for purposes described in the District's Educational Facilities Master Plan. Citizens within BVSD clearly support improving our educational facilities, and our schools and teachers in general, and we are happy to see significant facility improvements marching forward. However, many aspects of the process and decisions about individual schools have led to significant citizen concern. These concerns include:

   1. Design Advisory Teams (DATs) have been populated by staff and BVSD-appointed community members for each school to provide advice on construction and improvement decisions. However, the DATs have been dominated by District staff. Furthermore, no communication has been allowed among individual DATs to discuss common issues and solutions and to have a common information source. Basically many in the community feel strongly that the DATs have not been provided complete or unbiased information. The little communication that has occurred with the communities has been too little and too late. Many believe citizen input is being ignored.

   2. Historic Preservation — Despite significant citizen protest, the DAT for Louisville Middle School (LMS) and BVSD recently decided to completely demolish the historically significant 1939 building because of "design compromises" and projected cost overruns. Suggestions that the process be delayed so that additional funds might be raised by a Louisville ballot initiative or through State and Federal historic funding programs were not accepted. A Louisville resident and architect whose expertise is historic renovations questioned the costs associated with preservation of LMS and this testimony was dismissed without discussion.

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Click on the link above to read the rest of the letter.