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Two slates of Westminster Public Schools’ candidates sounded off on issues ranging from test scores to cyberbullying during an Oct. 4 board of directors candidate forum.

One group says the district is doing well and should continue on its current path, while the other says WPS needs greater accountability and financial transparency.

The forum, held at the Westminster Grange Hall, was hosted by the League of Women Voters.

The Nov. 7 election is the first time in six years the WPS board election has been contested. The WPS board includes just five members, so no matter the outcome, the election will add new voices. Adding to future changes at WPS, longtime Superintendent Pamela Swanson is retiring at the end of the academic year.

Six candidates are running for three at-large seats. Board treasurer Christine Martinez is seeking a second term. The other two vacancies come as current board President Ken Cianco and Vice President Max Math, both term-limited, step down from their seats.

Martinez, Mary Beth Murphy and Audrey Yanos are running as the MMY slate. The three women advocate for expansion of the district’s Career and Technical Education programs, reinforcing school safety and mental health programs, and recruiting and retaining high-quality staff. They have the support of both the Westminster and Colorado education associations.

Husband and wife Charles and Brenda Gallegos have joined Anthony Sisneros to run as the ABC slate. They say they’ll take a new direction from the current board, which doesn’t acknowledge “the challenges we face as a district.” Those promised changes include improving student achievement, adding more fiscal transparency, and stepping up parent involvement.

Brenda Gallegos said she aims to be a liaison to the Spanish-speaking segment of the community. She delivered all her responses during the forum in both English and Spanish.

WPS adopted a competency based system (CBS) of education in 2009, which does away with grade levels and allows students to advance based on their ability. The system was referred to repeatedly during the forum.

Here are their responses to three of the questions posed at the forum.

WPS students’ math and reading proficiency scores have slipped. What do you plan to do?

Brenda Gallegos: This topic hits very close to home for me because my child is a part of this. The system has failed her in a way. I want to be able to open pathways for the community and for more tutors to be able to help the struggling students advance.

Murphy: When I look at the school accountability framework, I see WPS has indeed been successful in educating students and moving them forward. Since CBS began, there has been marked improvement. There is nothing I would want to change. Students are not defined by a test that is taken on one day. They do no measure what students are learning or what we are teaching.

Charles Gallegos: I agree, looking at a snapshot in time of test scores doesn’t tell the whole picture. But looking over the course of 10 years, we start to see a trend. That trend, in my opinion, has flatlined. I support CBS, but I do believe these scores show there are some inherent flaws that would need to be remedied in order for us to see if CBS works when it’s operating at peak level.

Yanos: When I saw the CMAS (Colorado Measures of Academic Success) scores, I didn’t think it was a reflection of our students whatsoever. That CMAS score is a zip code test. Depending on the ethnicity and income level of your population dictates what your CMAS score is going to be. Our fight is at the capital for better assessment tests… a test that reflects our community and our students. It is not in our boardroom.

Sisneros: It’s critical to state a single test does not tell the whole story, but it is a crucial chapter in a year. We need to grade these students on an international standard so we can know how we’re doing in the world. I would ask what conditions created these outcomes. We know students of color are fully capable of demonstrating and achieving success. Why are our systems not fostering their ability?

Martinez: There is nothing standard about our children. They each have their own experiences, backgrounds and histories, and using a single standardized test created by white men to measure our kids and then rank our teachers is ridiculous. One state test on one day is nothing. We’re here … to teach, not prepare kids to take a test.

How do you plan to continue the current school board’s momentum? What do you hope to change?

Brenda Gallegos: I want all of us to be able to communicate with all of our parents, and all our students, so everybody can all be on the same page. I think there’s a lot of good that’s happening, but I feel we really need to open the communication for everyone.

Murphy: As a former CTE teacher, I would like to continue CTE courses. I would like to offer advanced courses in the pathways, so students can continue to learn and be job ready when they come out. I’d like to offer CTE classes to the adults in our community. I would continue the CBS. I would like to continue to have the highest salary schedules. There’s nothing on my radar right now I would like to change.

Charles Gallegos: We have to collaborate with the community, parents, teachers, with everyone across the board and figure out what are the problems. Otherwise we’re going to get a flawed conclusion. With CBS, I believe in the potential. But I do feel there are some inherent flaws. At least have the self awareness to say yes, this is a great system but there are problems with it, let’s address it.

Yanos: I believe the current board is doing a fantastic job. I am not a stranger to nor am I opposed to change. But I think my leadership style can best be described as pivot. Let’s keep doing what we’re doing, but find opportunities for growth and move in that way.

Sisneros: One thing I would want to change is the way we treat our marginalized students. I have a son with Down syndrome student. He was not able to attend school with his brother, I was told based on resources. I would do everything I could for these students. When we say students, I say all students.

Martinez: We have so much positive momentum happening. I want to keep running on all of these opportunities. We need more. How can we get all of the kids involved? We’re giving as many opportunities to our kiddos as we possibly can and I want to continue to see that happen.

How would you proceed in recruiting and hiring a new superintendent?

Brenda Gallegos: I feel we should have a search. We should make sure we’re finding the right person for our community, our school and for our people, and someone who’s going to understand our demographics.

Murphy: Somebody that already knows our system is best. We want somebody that would be supported by the staff and would continue the things Westminster Public Schools are doing. I would not be interested in a national search. Those are usually very expensive and not very successful.

Charles Gallegos: The superintendent that is chosen needs to share the same vision as the school board, so there are no conflicts of interest and the plan can be implemented seamlessly. I feel that search needs to be handled on a national basis, where we can draw from a diverse pool of candidates, and determine who shares our vision and who truly represents what we want to do for the district.

Yanos: I think it’s really important we hire somebody who understands our competency-based system … because it takes years to train that program (and) it’s not something anyone else is doing. We need to look for a superintendent who really understands it so … they can hit the ground running and keep us moving in the right direction.

Sisneros: I feel when we pay someone $300,000-plus a year, our community deserves a national search. Yes, CBS is great. But they shouldn’t be appointed just because you’ve served here. Whether the best person is in house or not, the community deserves the search.

Martinez: I think a national search would do us harm. We are hosting conferences where international people are coming to learn CBS from us. Are we going to train our national superintendent at this conference? Absolutely not. We have bench strength. We have people who have lived and breathed this experience, and that is where our focus needs to be.

Watch the full candidate forum on the Heart of Westminster website.

Tagged: CandidateselectionForumpublic schoolsWestminster

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In keeping with promises to deliver thousands of affordable homes, the groundbreaking for what’s called the Uplands included something for almost everyone: local food from Westminster’s Valente’s Deli, craft beer from hometown brewery Kokopelli’s, music by the Westminster High School drumline, balloons, bulldozers and star power in the form of speeches from local, county and state dignitaries.

All of it unfolded under a brilliantly sunny late September sky.

The hosts of the private event did not, however, extend an invitation to neighboring homeowners, many of whom have fought the project for years. Several of them protested the Sept. 27 groundbreaking and then continued the following day, standing at the entrance of the old farm property with signs reading, “Save the Farm,” “No Uplands development” and “Who paid who?”

Historically a working farm, 2,350 homes will be built on it. Those homes will be developed in a mix of styles and price points, including single-family houses, townhomes and apartments, including rentals. The 234-acre project is a partnership that includes Oread Capital & Development, Varde Partners, Peak Development, and Dream Finders Homes.

While supporters of Uplands say many of the homes will be affordable, price points have yet to be set.

“The first homes will begin construction in 2025, so prices won’t be determined until closer to that date since there are so many factors, like the price and availability of materials,” said Sara O’Keefe, a consultant hired to help the Uplands developers with communication. “We have a tremendous amount of horizontal infrastructure to get in place before we can start building homes.”

It’s taken about a decade for the project to get to this point. Oread Capital president Jeff Handlin joked at the ceremony that he had hair when he began work on the Uplands.

“Today we stand at the threshold of something extraordinary,” he said. “The Uplands was never intended to be just another housing development. From the beginning, our vision was to create a model of sustainability and affordability, with plentiful missing middle housing. And above all, we were passionate about leading on water conservation, design innovation, and thoughtful placemaking.”

He was flanked by officials, including Gov. Jared Polis.

Polis praised Uplands’ planned mix of housing types, public parks, bike lanes and efficient water usage.

Like much of the Western U.S., Colorado suffers from an acute housing shortage, pushing up home prices and rents and also causing homelessness. Municipal and state officials have been struggling against intense local opposition to increase housing construction and ease these pressures.

“This project will be an inspiration for other parts of Colorado, and indeed across the country,” Polis said. “It’s exactly the kind of development we need more of.

“We have a major problem with lack of housing in Colorado. We simply need more units that individuals and families can afford. These homes will be accessible for first-time home buyers, seniors looking to downsize, young professionals and so many others. Not only that, but this community is being built with affordability, mobility and sustainability as the foundation.”

Polis has made creation of affordable housing a priority in the past year. In August, he issued an executive order to streamline developments that are centered around transit. In issuing that order, his office stated that nearly one in three Colorado households spend more than 30% of their income on housing and the state is expected to add an estimated 1.72 million more people by 2050.

Westminster Mayor Nancy McNally also praised developers for compromises in the planning process, including reducing some of the originally proposed density and preserving popular mountain viewpoints.

“The Uplands has listened,” she said. “They heard the community. They heard us as a council. I can’t thank you enough for caring about the community.”

Adams County Commissioner Steve O’Dorisio and Westminster Public School Deputy Superintendent Dr. Jeni Gotto also gave short speeches, citing benefits the development will bring to the region and the school district.

Meanwhile, protesting neighbors, who stayed at the entrance to the groundbreaking event for hours, view the development in a very different light. They’re disappointed to see the project moving forward, and said many questions remain.

John Palmer, a 60-year area resident whose Lowell Boulevard home is across the street from the site, opposes the development and believes multi-story housing shouldn’t be built there. “Multi-story units are not conducive to our neighborhood.” The existing housing, he adds, ”is all single-family detached homes.”

Palmer’s many concerns also include water runoff and potential flooding he believes could result from converting open land to a development with large areas of hard surface and increased traffic.

Palmer doesn’t feel heard. “Our city council … they not once listened to our community concerns or needs. It was all basically rubber stamped for the convenience of the developer.”

And he feels housing costs will not be as affordable as the developers say.

Karen Ray, a resident of the adjacent Shaw Heights neighborhood and a member of the Save the Farm citizens group, said that opponents fought the development for years.

“Most importantly the priority was around the open space,” she said. “It’s pristine, beautiful land, and it’s been a landmark in this city for over 100 years.”

She worries for the character of the neighborhood.

“It’ll completely change the dynamic of this whole area,” she said.

Full buildout of the Uplands is expected in about 15 to 20 years at the site, which is located between Federal and Lowell boulevards and 84^th and 88^th avenues. It was owned by The Pillar of Fire Church until it sold to Uplands developers.

Operation to flatten tents – watched by vulnerable men and women – should be a watershed moment

The tent clearances

FRESH from being booted out of his own party’s conference for heckling Suella Braverman – that Queen of the Culture wars who is surely a shoo-in for a talk show on GB News should she want one – Andrew Boff is back in the more sedate surrounds of his favoured stomping ground, the London Assembly.

Indeed, yesterday you could find the long-serving Tory on his feet in the main chamber (Harrington’s most loyal readers will know this place as the “Ultra Low Efficiency Zone”) and hear him asking London mayor Sadiq Khan how Labour types could be so critical of Braverman’s bravado on homelessness and her desire to stop people handing out tents to rough sleepers, but not feel the same revulsion for Labour-run Camden Council.

The neighbouring authority, after all, was caught up this week in an operation to flatten tents close to Tottenham Court Road, and this just as every Labour councillor in London was taking it in turns to source more adjectives to describe Ms Braverman, the now former home secretary.

Over the road, vulnerable men and women, some in tears, watched as the shelters were tossed into a rubbish truck.

Mr Khan yesterday responded in the only appropriate way, by telling The Boff that he was appalled at the video.

It’s easy to draw parallels with this incident and Ms Braverman’s heartlessness but at least Camden’s council leader Georgia Gould broke off her maternity leave to apologise at a public meeting last night – her new baby strapped into a sling in front of her as she did – and Mr Khan too made no attempt to conjure up some wordy excuse for what has happened.

Maybe that’s the difference. After her recent comments, would Ms Braverman be similarly appalled and apologetic by this shameful episode, or would she be ordering the next round of vans to blast through her small tents crisis?

More interesting perhaps is how the crushed shelters have escalated into a national story. Not just a Camden New Journal exclusive, it has bounced around Fleet Street.

It’s interesting because this isn’t the first time this has happened in the United Kingdom at all. Outreach workers and groups like Streets Kitchen know tents are ripped up and confiscated up and down the country for spurious reasons every week; mainly because somebody somewhere decides they do not want to walk past a living illustration of our stark inequality.

In fact, there will surely have been people in local authorities in lots of areas who saw the national coverage of the tent clearances this week and mumbled to themselves… haven’t we done this before.

Maybe even one not too far from where you are reading this newspaper.

We’ve seen spikes added to doorways and street furniture specifically designed to make a bench impossible to sleep on. A hostile environment has expanded with hardly a peep from those who can influence policy – or write for the masses about it.

Of course, anything that happens in Camden is always amplified beyond how would if the same thing was happening in [insert the name of any town outside of London].

And that’s a problem. Homelessness is only ever really a national story if a) it’s happening in rich London or b) something outrageous is caught on a cameraphone and posted on social media in a way which can be translated into a quick and easily shared web story.

You see, it wasn’t apparently a national story that 15 people were so desperate that they’ve spent a year clinging to a hospital’s back end air-conditioning system for warmth. Many people will now only know they were there all that time because of the awful way they have been treated this week. A scandal untold.

Anything deeper than a shock horror video, or anything aiming to start a considered debate about how to actually end homelessness won’t score high enough on the web metrics to be seen.

Our newspapers in this office have resolutely reported on the issue for years now and Harrington pays particular tribute to reporters Isabelle Stanley and Frankie Lister-Fell for their compassionate journalism, but they were often pressing on when nobody wanted to listen.

Sadiq Khan

Now a viral clip has provided a brief window to try and have that conversation. If that’s the only way, so be it – but it must not be wasted.

At the same meeting that Georgia Gould was apologising at last night, other Labour councillors were bemoaning the Right to Buy policy for depleting affordable housing stocks, and insisting so much more could be done if the Conservative governments of the past 13 years had not scissored local council budgets.

Sadly, such comments from the Labour camp rarely move on to the next obvious sentence, which surely should be: So if we win power next year, we’ll end Right to Buy and pledge millions into new council homes to get people off the streets.

As we know, none of this has been pledged by Keir Starmer so far, nor his would-be chancellor Rachel Reeves, that voracious reader of Wikipedia. No, we haven’t forgotten!

Mr Khan could make it front and centre of his mayoral election campaign next year: how about less hardly-used second homes in London and properties lost to Airbnb, and more long-term empty buildings being used to help.

It won’t be, but the video of the tent clearances should be a watershed moment.

The Labour ranks should see how horrified people are about the way rough sleepers have been treated here and understand that voters might – might – just be interested in policies that actually help people on the streets rather than ones that persecute them.

It may cost a little more than the wondrous strategy of not doing much, but how long can rows of sleeping bags in this city and others not be a daily topic of conversation for all of us?

Rather than copying her rhetoric, doing the exact opposite of anything Suella Braverman suggests could be the right starting point. Then move upwards from there.

Joaquin Phoenix stars in beautiful film that's sometimes awful, but always mesmerising

Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon

NAPOLEON Directed by Ridley Scott Certificate: 15 ????

PICTURE a classic French countryside scene. A country lane with a mature avenue of trees either side. This is a legacy of Napoleon. One of the thousands of laws passed under his rule was to compel landowners to provide shade for peasants walking their produce to market.

This minor aside illustrates the untold stories of Napoleonic rule, and is the type of tale no film-maker has ever tried to relate.

In Ridley Scott’s grand epic, he carries on with the usual image of Napoleon formed partly by the British press, who lampooned him as the devil across the Channel. Apart from being beaten at Waterloo, his story is taught as a war-hungry conqueror whose godlessness was illustrated by his dislike of monarchy.

But read Vincent Cronin’s biography and a different picture emerges, a story of a man who rose from lowly beginnings, who never wanted to be an emperor, who sought to run a collective government, ensured a separation of Church from State, laid down what equitable justice meant, founded state schools, and saw the care of the peasantry as the reason to wield power.

Scott’s biopic does not seek to understand what special powers he possessed, nor his motivation to wield them bar through the prism of his infatuation with his wife, Josephine.

Instead, we get a monstrous film whose size and scale is beautiful, sometimes awful, and always mesmerising.

He could hardly have done it any other way, when Abel Gance’s 1927 Napoleon film is considered a religious relic by film buffs, its cast of thousands breaking ground in visual bravado. Scott does this in spades.

With a lot of history to get through, we understandably swoosh over much. Scott starts with the Corsican artillery officer who has shown nerve mixed with tactical intelligence. The French Revolution has collapsed into Robespierre’s Reign of Terror, and a royalist faction is emerging to threaten the Republic.

Napoleon’s (Joaquin Phoenix) skill is recognised by the men at the top, and called on by statesman Barras (Tahar Rahim). Along the way, Napoleon falls in love with Joséphine de Beauharnais (Vanessa Kirby) who enjoys her power over the most powerful man in France, but isn’t so enamored to ignore dashing cavalry officers while Napoleon battles in Egypt.

This relationship is the narrative drive, making this a personal story of the impact two individuals had on each other.

Watching Napoleon win the battle of Austerlitz, his march on Moscow, and Waterloo are big-screen choreographic perfection.

After a decade-long and at times bitter struggle to convert 234 acres of mostly farmland in southern Westminster into a new community, the Uplands is finally turning dirt.

“From the beginning, our vision was to create a model of sustainability and affordability, with plentiful missing middle housing. And above all, we were passionate about leading on water conservation, design innovation, and thoughtful placemaking,” said Jeff Handlin, president of Oread Capital & Development, during a groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday afternoon.

The “moderate” density community expects to provide 2,350 new housing units targeting middle-income buyers who are increasingly left on the sidelines in a housing market where the median price of a single-family home sold runs $650,000.

Besides market-rate single-family homes, the master-planned community will include for-sale courtyard cottages, townhomes and duplexes better priced to meet the needs of first-time buyers, growing families and older adults looking to downsize.

In a “new urbanism” nod to pre-war designs in Denver, Uplands will have alleyways and garages in the back, small parks throughout and local retailers, restaurants and office space concentrated in the center of the neighborhood.

Also on the drawing board are 300 deed-restricted rental units affordable to lower-income households, including seniors. The affordable component represents about 13% of the total number of units.

“I hope this project serves as an inspiration for other parts of the Denver metro area, as well as communities across our state,” Gov. Jared Polis said at the groundbreaking.

Polis, who has taken a more vocal stance to boost Colorado’s housing supply, said the lack of attainable housing forces people to live farther away from their jobs, creates hiring challenges for businesses, adds to traffic and pollution and puts the dream of homeownership out of reach for many.

“There’s no question that Colorado faces a housing crisis. We simply need more units that individuals and families can afford,” he said.

But Uplands faced considerable opposition for many years from the surrounding community. The land being developed, located primarily between Federal and Lowell boulevards and between 84th and 88th avenues, is on a high point with commanding views of the mountains to the west and downtown Denver to the south.

Those views, combined with the lack of open space and inadequate public investment in that part of Westminster, motivated some nearby residents to block development efforts and push for preservation.

Other concerns raised by opponents, who protested the groundbreaking, included Upland’s higher density and building heights compared to the surrounding community, the added traffic generated on nearby roads, Westminster’s limited water supply, and the small percentage of homes designated as affordable.

Handlin said an irony of the whole fight was that the land was slated to become a housing development in the early part of the last century. The owner at the time, Westminster University, offered free tuition to the children of people who bought lots, and it sold a good number.

The university, also known as Belleview College, had the unfortunate timing of switching to all-male enrollment right before World War I broke out and by 1917 it shut down. The Pillar of Fire church acquired the college building and surrounding land in 1920.

It held onto the undeveloped land for more than a century, renting it out to farmers who raised feed for livestock. All those acres became defacto open space, albeit privately owned, as the surrounding area was built out.

The church, which also runs a private school and the KPOF radio station at 910 AM, will continue to hold onto 100 acres. However, the majority of the church’s land was sold and the money was placed into an endowment.

It may be about 105 years behind schedule, but the new community comes at a time that the metro region desperately needs more new homes, Handlin said.

YIMBY, a group of mostly millennials advocating for more housing supply, was key in helping sway the public narrative, he said. So too was the local school district.

As the surrounding neighborhoods grew older, nearby schools struggled with declining enrollments. Uplands not only held out the promise of a large property tax base but also housing options that teachers and staff could better afford.

But winning approval wasn’t easy, and the debate over the development, led by a group called Save the Farm, merged with other issues to create one of the most politically volatile periods in Westminster’s history earlier this decade.

“Uplands has listened, they knew what they were up against,” said Westminster Mayor Nancy McNally during the groundbreaking.

Uplands will use significantly less water than other new communities, thanks to more water-efficient fixtures, appliances and landscaping. A Village Center will include local small-scale commercial space, should promote walkability and reduce the number of trips otherwise needed on nearby thoroughfares.

Developers will donate 34 acres to the city to develop public parks and are setting aside six acres for dedicated view corridors and another seven acres for publicly-accessible pocket parks. Residents of the new community will be within a 10-minute walk of a park.

Among the land being set aside for the public is an area where drivers regularly stop to take in the views on the Lowell Boulevard side of the Pillar of Fire campus.

“This is the first time we have been on this field legally,” said Adams County Commissioner Steve O’Dorisio, who highlighted the public improvements the area will receive, including new parks, stormwater upgrades and better traffic lights.

Handlin said he and his partners were drawn to the area in 2013 because it sits along the U.S. 36 corridor, which he described as over-employed and underhoused. The land represented one of the largest and most strategic infill opportunities in the region.

And on Wednesday, rather than a tractor blade turning the soft soil, as had been the case for decades, he and other dignitaries pushed shovels into the ground.