Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And I never have a short day on Friday. I
forgot to do this at the beginning of the show altogether.
Now whooahoo, that's right, My bad, Sorry, I forgot about that.
So joining me now, my friend Jimmy Singenberger is joining
me to talk about a story that is one of
those things where you're like, you just kind of get
the ick.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
A little bit about it.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
But I'm gonna let Jimmy unfurl the sad tale of
Kyle Walpole at jeff Co Schools.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What happened? Jimmy, Hey, Mandy, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
This is one of those things where you hear about
discrimination based on politics.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
We hear it happening in the school system.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Here and there, and then you wonder, is it actually
happening in a way that you can demonstrate? And I
think Kyle Walpole might be in that circumstance. He is
a twenty year veteran even longer than that, educator in
Jefferson County Schools and the Platte Canyon School District, and
he applied last fall for a temporary position as a
(01:00):
social studies teacher at Jefferson Virtual Academy, an online school
for Jefferson.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
County schools and it seemed on the up and up.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
In mid November, he seemingly nailed his interview, had two
performance tasks he's completed, and he got a call at
about one thirty pm from the principal of the school,
Renee Williams, on November fifteenth, saying, hey, give me a call.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I really loved your interview. I'd like to talk with
you about it.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
And then he ended up not getting a callback when
he returned to her call an hour and.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Fifteen minutes later.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
And it seems that that was because two emails were
circulated showing that in twenty fourteen, when teachers walk out
of Jeffco's schools in protests of what was then a
conservative school board, he had sought the names of the
teachers from his daughter's school using an Open Records Act request,
(01:55):
and then several years later he published an obed that
was critical of HOWDI was being implemented in Colorado schools,
and those emails were circulated, and then after that boom,
he did not get the job, and eventually they canceled
the position and claimed, oh, that's why you didn't get it,
even though the position was canceled weeks after they told
(02:15):
him we're pursuing other.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Can you know?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
And this is the kind of stuff that I know there,
And I'm trying to think of a way to not
make this about me, but it's it fits here. There
have been situations where I have no that I was
invited to be on a board, for instance, and I'm
not going to name any names because I still like
the organizations and the work that they do, but I
was invited to be on a board. There was this
big email like, oh, we'd love to have you come
(02:39):
in and talk to us and everything. So I respond back, Oh,
I love what you do, blah blah blah, And then
I got one email back that didn't have the whole group,
the whole board on it.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I got one email back saying, oh, I'm so sorry
we sent that to you an error okay, And I thought, okay,
that's weird, but okay, no big deal. Found out from
the other another board man who had suggested me as
a potential member of the board that three of the
other board members threw an absolute conniption fit because of
my political views, and therefore I was iced out. But
(03:11):
what am I gonna do?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Right?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I still like the organization's work. You know, I'm not
gonna let three people who are ales stop me from
supporting somebody who's doing good work. But yeah, this stuff
happens all the time. Now here's the problem for Kyle. Kyle, unfortunately,
is a white, straight male. If he were gay, or
he were black, or he were Hispanic, he would he
(03:34):
would be able to sue. I mean, when you think
about the former superintendent of Douglas County suing about losing
his job because he said he was discriminated against racially
because he was advocating for black students, I mean, it
was so absurd. But the reality is white males don't
have any protection.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, this is this is the thing that they said
is you're not part of a protected class. I mean,
that was what was said in an email to the investigator.
From the investigator to the school principal. Don't worry. Good news.
He isn't word good news. He's not part of a
protected class.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So you don't have to worry about this.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
But what's really interesting, Mandy is that Kyle and a
friend of his who's an attorney, emailed and had exchanges
with the school district's general council Julie Tolison.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
And it's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Because when I reached out to Toulisen ask some questions
for my column in the Denver Gazette Today entitled that
one Jeffco School Conservatives need not apply, she responded in
part suggesting that I go look at the email correspondence
between Kyle Lopol's attorney friend William Eigels, and her, and
that did not support her case at all, and it
(04:47):
showed that either she was.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Playing coy or she didn't do her homework.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
To actually look at the facts and the timeline of events,
which I clearly lay out in my piece that yeah,
there is an obvious that the very least appearance, if
not pretty darn definitive, that politics were at play here
and there's no place for that in our school system.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
And jeff Co is being run like garbage.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
They're being run like hot garbage.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
The president of their school board believes that every parent
is abusing their child and that every child needs to
be told how to report their abuse, even if it's
just neglick. Can you imagine let me just say this, Jimmy,
you don't have kids yet, Okay, let me just tell
you what would happen if you empower children to say
that they're being neglected. Anytime you say no, you can't
(05:38):
have dessert. The next day they go to school, my
mom would can give me food. I mean, children understand
how to manipulate the system, even if they don't understand
the repercussions of that manipulation, right, I mean, that's just
the facts. Anybody who's ever been a child of divorced
parents knows, you know how to manipulate the system.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
You know how to play one parent against the other.
And there've got to be some changes in jeff Co.
Tracy Doorland has to go. She has to go. The
superintendent of schools is terrible. She encourages just putting the
school district between parents and children over and over again.
She's probably excited that Kyle didn't get this job. In
Kyle's last name Texters Walpole, and you can see this
(06:19):
in Jimmy's column about this, But the entire district is
going down the crapper.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
One thing I want to know that I found really
impressive when I was talking with Kyle about this story
and doing my research, is he was a teacher for
over two decades and clearly has a belief that politics
have no place in the classroom.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
He gave a story, and I loved this.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Of My favorite teachers were this way where he had
parent teacher conference and that evening, two parents, parents of
parents came in one after the other.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
First said, you're too liberal, what's going on? The next,
you're too conservative? What's going on? And that's exactly what
it should be.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Were keep the students and the families guessing because you're
actually not being political.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
And yet that is the kind of.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Teacher that Jefferson County Schools had frozen out of one
of their schools for political purposes because he dared to
work with the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, not a
conservative group, by the way, to identify who these teachers were.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
As was, and this color Supreme Court, i think affirmed.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
This, as is the right of the public to know
when you have teachers walking out from the school for protest,
the public has.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
The right to know.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
And that's the reason, one of the big reasons why
they went after this conservative teacher.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
At least that's what clearly appears to be the case.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And we'll see what happens if he does have a
retaliation claim move forward in.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Court, we shall see.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Jimmy Seckenberger's column is that the Denver has at Today
as a twice weekly column that is always good reading
because I'm not even aware of anybody in the newspaper
field that's doing the kind of investigative stuff that you are.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Jimmy.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Part of that is because you're an independent guy and
you're an independent contractor, so you can go out there
and dig into the stories that you like. But like
I said, I want to keep the pressure on Jeff
Coo and it's really really important that Jeffco's parents wake
up and start showing up and demand better and more importantly,
And I'm hoping, and I don't know if you've talked
(08:20):
to anyone at Jeffco Kids first about this, I hope
they're getting candidates ready to run for school board. I
hope they have people that we can support and give
money to and get some decent people back on that
school board.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
When I first moved here Jeffco.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Schools, they were great, they were absolutely fantastic. And then
to your point, back in twenty fourteen, the unions came
in and they decided to put their little people on
the school board, and now here's where we are anyway,
all right, Jimmy, I appreciate you, man, and great Colin.
We'll talk to you again soon. That's Jimmy Sangerburg. Everybody
seak you, Jimmy. Let's take a quick time out when
(08:56):
we get back. Fascinating discussions about you, Ukraine and the
United States' role in Ukraine are happening within the Republican Party,
and I gotta tell you, I love it. We're going
to talk about that next for a couple of minutes.
And I never have a short day on Friday. I
forgot to do this at the beginning of the show altogether.
Now whooahoo, that's right, My bad, Sorry, I forgot about that.
So joining me now, my friend Jimmy Singenberger is joining
me to talk about a story that is one of
those things where you're like, you just kind of get
the ick.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
A little bit about it.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
But I'm gonna let Jimmy unfurl the sad tale of
Kyle Walpole at jeff Co Schools.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What happened? Jimmy, Hey, Mandy, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
This is one of those things where you hear about
discrimination based on politics.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
We hear it happening in the school system.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Here and there, and then you wonder, is it actually
happening in a way that you can demonstrate? And I
think Kyle Walpole might be in that circumstance. He is
a twenty year veteran even longer than that, educator in
Jefferson County Schools and the Platte Canyon School District, and
he applied last fall for a temporary position as a
(01:00):
social studies teacher at Jefferson Virtual Academy, an online school
for Jefferson.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
County schools and it seemed on the up and up.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
In mid November, he seemingly nailed his interview, had two
performance tasks he's completed, and he got a call at
about one thirty pm from the principal of the school,
Renee Williams, on November fifteenth, saying, hey, give me a call.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I really loved your interview. I'd like to talk with
you about it.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
And then he ended up not getting a callback when
he returned to her call an hour and.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Fifteen minutes later.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
And it seems that that was because two emails were
circulated showing that in twenty fourteen, when teachers walk out
of Jeffco's schools in protests of what was then a
conservative school board, he had sought the names of the
teachers from his daughter's school using an Open Records Act request,
(01:55):
and then several years later he published an obed that
was critical of HOWDI was being implemented in Colorado schools,
and those emails were circulated, and then after that boom,
he did not get the job, and eventually they canceled
the position and claimed, oh, that's why you didn't get it,
even though the position was canceled weeks after they told
(02:15):
him we're pursuing other.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Can you know?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
And this is the kind of stuff that I know there,
And I'm trying to think of a way to not
make this about me, but it's it fits here. There
have been situations where I have no that I was
invited to be on a board, for instance, and I'm
not going to name any names because I still like
the organizations and the work that they do, but I
was invited to be on a board. There was this
big email like, oh, we'd love to have you come
(02:39):
in and talk to us and everything. So I respond back, Oh,
I love what you do, blah blah blah, And then
I got one email back that didn't have the whole group,
the whole board on it.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I got one email back saying, oh, I'm so sorry
we sent that to you an error okay, And I thought, okay,
that's weird, but okay, no big deal. Found out from
the other another board man who had suggested me as
a potential member of the board that three of the
other board members threw an absolute conniption fit because of
my political views, and therefore I was iced out. But
(03:11):
what am I gonna do?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Right?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I still like the organization's work. You know, I'm not
gonna let three people who are ales stop me from
supporting somebody who's doing good work. But yeah, this stuff
happens all the time. Now here's the problem for Kyle. Kyle, unfortunately,
is a white, straight male. If he were gay, or
he were black, or he were Hispanic, he would he
(03:34):
would be able to sue. I mean, when you think
about the former superintendent of Douglas County suing about losing
his job because he said he was discriminated against racially
because he was advocating for black students, I mean, it
was so absurd. But the reality is white males don't
have any protection.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, this is this is the thing that they said
is you're not part of a protected class. I mean,
that was what was said in an email to the investigator.
From the investigator to the school principal. Don't worry. Good news.
He isn't word good news. He's not part of a
protected class.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So you don't have to worry about this.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
But what's really interesting, Mandy is that Kyle and a
friend of his who's an attorney, emailed and had exchanges
with the school district's general council Julie Tolison.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
And it's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Because when I reached out to Toulisen ask some questions
for my column in the Denver Gazette Today entitled that
one Jeffco School Conservatives need not apply, she responded in
part suggesting that I go look at the email correspondence
between Kyle Lopol's attorney friend William Eigels, and her, and
that did not support her case at all, and it
(04:47):
showed that either she was.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Playing coy or she didn't do her homework.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
To actually look at the facts and the timeline of events,
which I clearly lay out in my piece that yeah,
there is an obvious that the very least appearance, if
not pretty darn definitive, that politics were at play here
and there's no place for that in our school system.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
And jeff Co is being run like garbage.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
They're being run like hot garbage.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
The president of their school board believes that every parent
is abusing their child and that every child needs to
be told how to report their abuse, even if it's
just neglick. Can you imagine let me just say this, Jimmy,
you don't have kids yet, Okay, let me just tell
you what would happen if you empower children to say
that they're being neglected. Anytime you say no, you can't
(05:38):
have dessert. The next day they go to school, my
mom would can give me food. I mean, children understand
how to manipulate the system, even if they don't understand
the repercussions of that manipulation, right, I mean, that's just
the facts. Anybody who's ever been a child of divorced
parents knows, you know how to manipulate the system.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
You know how to play one parent against the other.
And there've got to be some changes in jeff Co.
Tracy Doorland has to go. She has to go. The
superintendent of schools is terrible. She encourages just putting the
school district between parents and children over and over again.
She's probably excited that Kyle didn't get this job. In
Kyle's last name Texters Walpole, and you can see this
(06:19):
in Jimmy's column about this, But the entire district is
going down the crapper.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
One thing I want to know that I found really
impressive when I was talking with Kyle about this story
and doing my research, is he was a teacher for
over two decades and clearly has a belief that politics
have no place in the classroom.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
He gave a story, and I loved this.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Of My favorite teachers were this way where he had
parent teacher conference and that evening, two parents, parents of
parents came in one after the other.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
First said, you're too liberal, what's going on? The next,
you're too conservative? What's going on? And that's exactly what
it should be.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Were keep the students and the families guessing because you're
actually not being political.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
And yet that is the kind of.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Teacher that Jefferson County Schools had frozen out of one
of their schools for political purposes because he dared to
work with the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, not a
conservative group, by the way, to identify who these teachers were.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
As was, and this color Supreme Court, i think affirmed.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
This, as is the right of the public to know
when you have teachers walking out from the school for protest,
the public has.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
The right to know.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
And that's the reason, one of the big reasons why
they went after this conservative teacher.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
At least that's what clearly appears to be the case.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And we'll see what happens if he does have a
retaliation claim move forward in.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Court, we shall see.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Jimmy Seckenberger's column is that the Denver has at Today
as a twice weekly column that is always good reading
because I'm not even aware of anybody in the newspaper
field that's doing the kind of investigative stuff that you are.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Jimmy.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Part of that is because you're an independent guy and
you're an independent contractor, so you can go out there
and dig into the stories that you like. But like
I said, I want to keep the pressure on Jeff
Coo and it's really really important that Jeffco's parents wake
up and start showing up and demand better and more importantly,
And I'm hoping, and I don't know if you've talked
(08:20):
to anyone at Jeffco Kids first about this, I hope
they're getting candidates ready to run for school board. I
hope they have people that we can support and give
money to and get some decent people back on that
school board.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
When I first moved here Jeffco.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Schools, they were great, they were absolutely fantastic. And then
to your point, back in twenty fourteen, the unions came
in and they decided to put their little people on
the school board, and now here's where we are anyway,
all right, Jimmy, I appreciate you, man, and great Colin.
We'll talk to you again soon. That's Jimmy Sangerburg. Everybody
seak you, Jimmy. Let's take a quick time out when
(08:56):
we get back. Fascinating discussions about you, Ukraine and the
United States' role in Ukraine are happening within the Republican Party,
and I gotta tell you, I love it. We're going
to talk about that next for a couple of minutes.
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