September 15, 2025 • 34 mins
Heidi Ganahl continues to fill in for Dan, joined by general counsel Will Trachman of Mountain States Legal Foundation, talking about workplace discrimination founded in DEI principles.
John Castillo, father of STEM school shooting hero Kendrick, discusses the importance of having dedicated School Resource Officers on-site at all Colorado public and private schools.
John Castillo, father of STEM school shooting hero Kendrick, discusses the importance of having dedicated School Resource Officers on-site at all Colorado public and private schools.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Dan Capless and welcome to today's online podcast
edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to
give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind,
and to subscribe, download, and listen to the show every
single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
This is Heidi Ganal filling in for Dan Kaplis. We've
got another hour to talk about. Oh my goodness, it's
been a tough, tough week and the last week in Colorado,
and it's just it's sad. I'm really just sad and
generally just depressed about where things stand right now when
you see the vitriol online and you see our children
(00:37):
being afraid of going to conservative events and speaking up
because they just saw their friend and leader influencer murdered
on TV, but also going to school and having to
deal with school shootings. And I talked a little bit
with Beverly about my frustration in Colorado working on that issue.
There's lots going on in Durango School District too that
(00:58):
we've been exposing on Rocky Mountain FO. It's called nine
R School District and just I think it is competing
with Jefferson County for the most woke school.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
District in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
So we're going to bring Will Traichman on with the
Mountain States Legal Foundation on at five thirty six to
talk about those issues. But in the meantime, I wanted
to first give a shout out to Brandy Bradley. She's
a representative. Her son was in a terrible accident. He's
doing okays, getting better, but he's got a lot of
issues from the accident. He needs a lot of prayers.
(01:31):
So if everybody can ping Brandy online or just send
prayers and hope that Cole heals up, heals up, well,
it's terrifying to have your child in that situation and
my heart goes out to her. And then I want
to talk to you guys about a post I just saw.
I actually saw this yesterday. Kyle Clark was talking about
our our service that we did at Brave Church yesterday,
(01:54):
and instead of just saying this was a great group
of Christians that got together to honor one of their
favorite pace well, he says a number of far right
leaders packed a church outside Denver for a remembrance of
Charlie Kirk. That was a memorial service, a political rally,
and a soft launch for a ministry leader's potential run
for governor. It's one of the readers or the tweets out.
(02:18):
Nine News is so broken, complete garbage. This merger with
Next Her cannot happen soon enough. Ryan, how much do
you know about Next Her? Are they any less woke
than the folks that have nine News Tanga?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
It's quite the opposite, as a matter of fact, because
there are many stations throughout the country that when they
are under the Next Star umbrella, Uh, they're Cheryl Atkinson.
You may have heard of her. She has a show
that airs on those stations a lot of the nationwide
and the form of syndication they tend actually to lean.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
To the right.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Yeah, So there's a lot of speculation. Well, there's a
lot of speculation, and I have mixed feelings about this.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
I want to preface it that way, but that.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
What we're seeing, and it's generally not good for journalism
and for localism, is the mergers of these companies, these buyouts,
et cetera, are eliminating newsrooms throughout and Denver's a top
twenty market nationally, and yet we've seen that happen already
in the form of a Channel two I believe it
was and Katievr Fox thirty one here in Denver, and
(03:23):
that eliminated one of those newsrooms and they melded into one.
Now there's thought, there's speculation that Fox thirty one and
nine they merge, and then who's left and how many
news departments are there on the television side in the
Denver market, because you would still have obviously CBS Colorado
Channel four, you would still have Denver seven ABC affiliate.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
And that then we've seen this and it used to
be just like the.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Smaller markets like Marquette, Michigan or something like that. But
now it's happening in Denver, and you know, there's speculation
that it might be nine News the one that gets
cleaned out.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Well, I mean, I think that gosh, Kyle, which is
so mean.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
He's just got such a.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Mean spirit about him, a vengeful spirit about him. And
with two daughters, the way he treats conservative women is
shocking to me. God forbid one of his daughters grows
up to be conservative.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
Oh, let's hope so.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
And run for politics, like run for office.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
I would love that.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Goodness gracious.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
But another comment or on Twitter says nine News in
Kyle Clark, can you define far right?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Were you there?
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Yeah, that's what really stood out to me. Was it
really far right?
Speaker 5 (04:27):
But what is far right to him? Over to window right?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Far right is probably you know, I don't know barely
one inch to the right of left time lunatic.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Right of Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. Oh, is that
far right? Anything to the right of them? I honestly
feel that's how people in his silo view us. Is
that anything remotely conservative, that's far right you will never hurt. Here,
for instance, Kyle Clark say the term or, and he's
not the only one far left.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
It's far right, right left. There's no far left to them.
That does not exist in their world.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Well, and I was talking to the gentleman Victor Marx
who's thinking about running for governor, and Victor, I love Victor.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
He's a great guy.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
He would make a big splash and cost some waves
in that primary. But I was saying to Victor, you know,
it's not like it's not your messaging.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
That you necessarily need to worry about.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
It's how the liberal media is going to frame you,
and then how the Democrats are going to use the
tens of millions of dollars to drive that messaging in
about you and defining you through ads and flyers and
just a you know, an onslaught of influence over the voters.
And that's what our candidates are a little naive about sometimes.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
And I was too.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
You go in thinking I've got this great policy platform.
I'm going to talk about kids and crime and cost
of living, and I've got these solutions, and I'm a
great person, i have a great experience, I'll do a
great job.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
And then you you look.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Up and there's a tsunami of negative messaging that just
powers over you.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
And we don't have the money or.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
The media machine to fight back, which is why we
started Rocky Mountain Voice.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I mean, we've got all of you on the radio.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
We've got some good conservative journalists out there, but we
I mean, we pale in comparison when we try and
go up against the liberal media here in Colorado and
the liberal or the Democrat machine, the money, the organization,
the power that they have in Colorado to really drive messaging.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
And I think voters are just naive.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I don't think they know the truth about the people
who are representing them on the left or what we
really stand for on the right. And that was the
most frustrating thing for me as a candidate was not
voters not being able to know who I was, what
my heart was, and what my solutions were. I mean, right,
it cracks me up that I ran on all the
things that they're saying, we should really do this now
(06:54):
because your on income tax and reducing the bureaucracy and
you know, keeping our kids safe at school and reducing crime.
Not the Democrats are running that, but everybody is generally
talking about it.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
But you couldn't get the message out.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So that's my biggest fear for twenty six for Colorado candidates,
whether it's the congressional candidates, the governor candidates, you know,
the state level candidates. How are you going to get
your message through the fog that is the liberal media
and the money that is spent to define you and tell.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Voters who you are, even if it's a lie. Like,
what do you think about that?
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Brian, I'm sorry you're talking to me. I've got a
lot of things going on back.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
You never mind, it was really important, profound question.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
You're talking about platforms, exposure.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
It's talking about money and the influence and the ability
to get your message out as a candidate, and whether
you can actually break through the liberal media and the
amount of money that they spend against you to define
you without you having any say in how they define you.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Let me ask it to you this way, because I
think this is you know, it's the devil's bargain if
you were too and I'm sure you did this assessment
this and I've had this conversation with Representative Lauren Bobert,
with other in particular, I'm gonna call it what it is,
conservative women with whom Kyle Clark seems to have some
kind of bizarre, twisted fixation.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Dennis, what kind of fetish.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
Daniel Jerinsky being another one.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
There are many, There are many, but you were one,
baby b That would be another one. You were one,
and he really focused in and you don't want to
hear this, but the furry thing, which what again was
happening and in fact, this shooter they're getting a lot
of information from his transgender roommate lover whatever you want
to call.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
It, at a video.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Guess what, you know, the whole furry thing. So to
roll out this canard like it's a fantasy, it's a
feature of your imagination, like Jared Poulis said with Daniel
Jerensky about the trendy Arago gangs in Aurora.
Speaker 5 (08:53):
No, it was not.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
So they're trying to gaslight in that form. And then
you have a decision to make, Heidi, and that is
do you try to bat that in other spheres.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
Or do you go right into the lions Den.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Sit down face to face with Kyle Clark and have
it out. So, I mean, what went into that decision
for you? Because was there a winning equation for you
that included that kind of engagement with the very media
that's looking to take you down.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I mean, yeah, we tried that a little bit and
it they just didn't even give me a chance to respond.
They asked the question in such a crazy way. You're like,
that is not what I said. Jimmy asked me what
the craziest thing I'd heard on the campaign trail was,
and I said, a lot of parents are telling me
that there's kids in the schools that are dressing up
like animals.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
It's called furries.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
And it turned into this big thing and we weren't
talking about it after that. We just pivoted back to
what we cared about crime kids cost a living. But
the media took it ran with it, and of course Jared.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Pull Us made some comment.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
The minute she said that I knew I win the
election because they knew they were going to take that
SoundBite and just ram it down my throat.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
I know we got to break. But this bear's mentioning
this is the Kyle Clark pattern. He's not the only
one that left it does that. First of all, it's
not happening. You're crazy for thinking that high that they
even would happen. Secondly, though, if it did happen, well,
these would be marginalized kids that are just looking for
their own identity.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
Bully Heidi, that's what it turned into. Let's call this
what it is.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Because that evolved into yeah, it's happening, and as a
matter of fact, we should be sensitive to these kids
because a lot of them are gay or trans and
they don't not express themselves, and we should let them
meow or bark and be animals in the classroom. It
turned into oh, not only is it happening, but how
dare you?
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Hi?
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Do you big it for not endorsing it or giving
them that compassion and understanding to allow them to express
themselves the way that they want to do it. Hold on, Kyle,
I thought it was not happening. You said it was
not happening, and then it turned into what it turned into.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah, that's Kyle. He's paidon. I believe he's.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Incentivized by the Democrats to do this to destroy the right.
But that's my conspiracy theory. So Kyle, have at it.
But I know we need to go to break. This
is Heidikanal filling in for Dan Caplis. We'll come back
afterwards and talk more about all the crazy stuff going
on in this beautiful state. We'll see after the break.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
And now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Welcome back.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
This is Heidi Ganal filling in for Dan Caplis.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Ryan.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
In just a little bit, I'm going to bring on
Will Traickman, who's the head of Mountain States Legal Foundation,
and they have filed three different Office of Civil Rights
complaints on Durango's school district. It's also called nine R
School District La Platta County down in southwest Colorado, and
it's a like used to be the wild Wild West,
like the best of Colorado. It's beautiful and it's turned
(11:42):
into one of the most liberal areas of our state,
and they have a school board race coming up and
there's gonna be some different choices. But what we wanted
to do at Rocky Mountain Voice was kind of exposed
all the things we're finding out, because when you see
it here and there, you can't necessarily put it all together,
so that it's this one district that's just gone off
the rails. So we call it the Durango Dirty Dozen.
(12:05):
And I think we're on number eight. I'm filming today later,
and we are exposing the twelve ways that they are
not taking care of our children, not focused on academic success,
and not respecting families. So I'm going to quickly go
through the list so far, I don't want to let
loose on the rest of them yet, and then we'll
bring Will on to talk after the break about specifically
(12:27):
the complaints that they've filed.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
So that's number one or the complaints.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Complaints are about discriminatory practices and hiring programs and policies,
and I'll let Will talk more about that.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Number two. Get this Benjamin Smith, a.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Band teacher hired during COVID, pushed a queer agenda and
molested thirty seven plus kids. He's been federally indicted on
fifty six counts, including production and possession of child pornography, pornography,
and sexual assault. And I should say he's not convicted,
he's accused of doing these things, but the evidence is
pretty overwhelming, and the investigation brought in Homeland Security.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
And the FBI.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
So how the heck did he get hired? And how
the heck did this go on so long without the
school district board or the teacher, the other teachers, the
other staff know that this was going on. So that's
number two. Number three, the school board spent two hundred
and nine thousand dollars of taxpayer money on third party
DEI Diversity Equity Inclusion experts, with one professional day for
(13:33):
the teachers costing sixty nine thousand dollars. Now, this money
could have funded textbooks or teacher training, yet it went
straight to ideology. This at a time when our kids
aren't learning how to read, write, or do maths. So
what comparents do about this? Well, they can go to
a board meeting. School board meeting on September twenty third,
I think it's at six o'clock and you have two
(13:55):
minutes to comment, be ready comment, Ask questions. Demand the
board provide a breakdown of the spending and why it's
being prioritized over education. Ask them how Benjamin Smith, the
band teacher that molested potentially molested thirty seven kids, how
that happened, what they're doing about it. Ask them about
the three complaints that have been filed with the US
(14:15):
Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights Number four or
exposing concerns with the gender support plan. It was developed
with CASBY guidance. CASBY is the Colorado Association of School Boards,
so their guidance around gender support plans includes therapists and
counselors and staff deciding if parents are notified or not
(14:37):
about a student's gender transition.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
I think most of us have heard.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
About this in Colorado, where a student can decide to
change their gender and they hide it from the parents.
And they also when this happens, they can use all
gender bathrooms or those that they identify with, so a
boy can go in a girls bathroom or vice versa.
They can change their names or pronouns in school records.
So parents need to ask, why are we being excluded
(15:01):
from this process? That is not okay? Next step Number five.
Former teachers Vivian and Joanna Smotherman, also ex Senate District
six candidates, like they ran for the legislature, took a
student transitioning to a boy without the mother, Cindy Stein's knowledge,
so you could say it's kidnapping or hiding, you know,
(15:24):
just convincing to stay with them and not go home regardless.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
It's terrifying for parents.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Now this portrayal raises questions about nine are the school
district's oversight, So parents need to ask questions about this
and demand answers on how did this happen and what's
being done? And can this happen to my child? What
makes you decide that it's okay to take a child
into your home against the parents' wishes.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
It's nuts.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
This is all part of the Durango nine R School
Districts Dirty dozen ways they're doing our kids wrong that
Rocky Mountain Voice has been putting out. Number six, a
group of active School of volunteers rejected a gift of
sixty American flags for classrooms. Now, this is while the
board is making resolutions that progress, Pride, and Black Lives
Matter flags are protected under government speech.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
They did that in January.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
But yet the volunteers who run a little volunteer group
at Durango's schools rejected a gift of sixty American flags
to put in the classrooms. Now a lot of parents
down there are seeing this as prioritizing ideology over patriotism.
So you've got ideology over patriotism in the classroom. You've
got them spending money on DEI instead of teaching our
(16:35):
kids how to read, write, and do math. You've got
complaints about discriminatory practices in hiring and programs and policies.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
And then you have a group of volunteers rejecting the
American flags. What is so wrong about having an American
flag in the classroom. It's nuts.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
So number seven, we all know about House Bill thirteen twelve.
I call it the most egregious bill ever proposed in
the Colorado legislature, which allows kids to access mental health
services without consent to the parents at age twelve.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
So your twelve year old.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Can go get mental health care by someone you haven't
even met, don't know anything about, without your knowledge.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
And get this Representative Kate Stewart, who's also on the
board of school school Board of Directors down there. She's
the representative for House District fifty nine.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
She voted for this.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Undermining family authority, so parents need to ask why this
is happening.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
And finally number eight that I think I just filmed.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Actually they put this one out, so today it'll be
number nine. The twenty twenty five c mass scores are dismal.
Kids can't learn to read and write down there. We've
got to demand better. We'll talk more about this after
the break.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
You're listening to the Dan Kapliss Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
This is Heidigan all Back filling in for Dan Kaplis.
Great to join you today. Man, it's been a rough
week though. It's been a lot of emotional trauma to
deal with. And I'm gonna miss Charlie Kirk tremendously. He's
just a great, great guy, great mentor, great person all around.
But we've been talking about issues that he would care
(18:35):
about us telling the truth about, and one of those
is Durango School District nine. Are I'm bringing a friend
of mine on, Will Traikman, who's the general counselor Mountain
States Legal Foundation.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Will. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 6 (18:48):
Thanks so much, Hearty, great to be here.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Thanks for joining will.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Your organization has filed some complaints with the Office of
Civil Rights.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Tell us a bit about that.
Speaker 6 (18:58):
Yeah, well, I really appreciate it. What you just said
now about Charlie Kirk, which is the work that he
targeted involved a lot of really important issues. So free
speech was one and anti DEI work is another, where
we're talking about equality and equality under the law. Mountain
Stains Lego Foundation has filed three civil rights complaints with
(19:20):
the US Department of Education. So sometimes lawsuits go to court.
These are going to an administrative agency, the Department of Education,
and they involve race discrimination that's happening within the Durrengo
School district. Now the three separate complaints, and they involve
three separate issues. I'm happy to talk about.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yes, tell us more.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
I've been doing this Durango Dirty Dozen all the different
ways they're hurting our kids and families, and this is
an important component about it.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
So break those down for us.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
Yeah, I don't think I durngo as this you know,
haven for wackadus, but differently have something negative in the
water going on in the school district. The first one
involves Native American programming, you know, you're allowed to have
reservations and you know, federal Native American programs, but this
(20:12):
school district has taken it way too far. They have
a graduation ceremony that you're only allowed to attend if
you're a Native American. They have all these college readiness programs.
You know, everyone needs college readiness if they're going to college.
It's not only for Native Americans, but in Durango, if
you want access to this program, you have to be
a Native American. So that's complaint number one. Complaint number
(20:34):
two is that they have this flags and symbols policies
that says, if you're a teacher and you want to
put up a flag or a symbol in your classroom
that supports an ethnicity other than white, you are allowed
to do that with the support of the district. But
if you put up an All Lives Matter sign or
(20:54):
maybe a symbol to memorialize white South Africans who are
being murdered, that that's the violation of district policy. So
if the ethnicity that you're supporting is white, that's a problem.
If it's anything else, you're fine. And then the third
involves hiring. It's very clear that Durngo is trying to
(21:14):
racially Jerry Mander who gets hired as teachers. And this
is so obvious that the superintendent in his own self
review said, I'd like a race I'd like a good
review because I've been drastically changing the makeup of the
teachers in our district by hiring more non white teachers.
Oh yeah, yeah, hard to believe that it's happening, although
(21:36):
is it. I mean, these days it's kind of part
of the course that we see blue states and blue
school districts doing these aggressive things and just hoping to
get away with it.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
So, well, what happens now with these complaints?
Speaker 6 (21:50):
Ye, that's a good question. So mount Sas has a
lot of these ocr the Office for Civil Rights complaints
going on. If you haven't noticed, though, there's a little
bit of in Washington, d c. About the Department of
Education and how many people should work there and what
they should do. So it's possible that these complaints get
(22:10):
transferred to the Department of Justice if the Civil Rights
Office there kind of fades away in line with President
Trump's priorities. So it's true that we file these complaints
with an agency that may cease to exist. As we
know it going forward. But in the meantime, we filed
the complaints, we're hoping to get investigations open and then
(22:32):
findings made against these districts.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
How long does that typically take if the agency does
stay in place.
Speaker 6 (22:39):
Well, I used to work there, so thank you for
the question about my old tenure and ocr So the
Trump administration the first term, we did a great job
speeding things up trying to get resolutions on these complaints,
because justice delayed is justice snide. The Biden administration didn't
do much, and in some ways that's just a function
(23:02):
of what you know, government under Democrats means, it means
slower pace, it means sprawling investigations. Rather than trying to
address this specific complaint at heart, they try to do
an investigation that may loop it in systemic violation. So anyway,
things have slowed down under Biden, and it can take
(23:22):
a year or two unfortunately to get an investigation through
the process. The wheels of justice sometimes grind.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Slowly, and will what's the penalty if they are found
to be definitive or accurate?
Speaker 7 (23:37):
These complaints, right, so they're not federal court complaints, so
it's not like we're going to a jury trial, and
the jury trial makes a big award in our favor.
Speaker 6 (23:47):
These are administrative complaints, and the big tool in the
toolbox for the department is stripping federal funds from the district.
So you've seen probably the news about Jefferson County School
District having an open investigation. I'm sure most of the
listeners have seen about Tender Republic schools having open investigations.
So those districts are in danger of losing all of
(24:09):
their federal funds, which is millions of dollars if they
don't comply with federal civil rights laws.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
That's wild, and so they're willing to put that at
risk by placing these policies or continuing these policies even
though they're told not to by the administration.
Speaker 6 (24:26):
Yeah, these school districts were cut off their own noses,
despite their face. I mean, that is some of it.
They're willing to go toe to toe with the federal
government even though it's the federal government's money, it's our
money as citizens, and they're willing to say, we'll take
our chances, We'll risk the safety, security, the resources of
our district, our students, our teachers in order to take
(24:49):
a stand on aggressive anti civil rights positions, like we're
going to treat people differently based on rates. That's just
what they do. They can't help it.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
What can parents do about this that live in Durango
or other districts where this is happening, Well, definitely call me.
Speaker 6 (25:07):
You know, I've got a number on the website if
you've got an issue that revolves civil rights or free speech.
Those are two of msllefts bread and butter. You know,
we're actively looking for other cases involving race discrimination or
suppressing free speech. Keep an eye out. You know, we
as parents have a tremendous amount of power. I've got
(25:27):
four kids in the school district, and I'm never afraid
to bite some ankles and be a wet blanket and
make it clear that they're not going to get away
with something without hearing from me. So that's something you
can do informally in addition to the legal process, and
ultimately we just have to change the culture. I know
that's an easy thing to say and a harder thing
to do, but that is something that we have to do.
In Charlie's memory. I think it's important that we renew
(25:50):
that charge and renew the vigor that we pursue it with,
because unless we change the culture in the long run,
the left is going to win on these battles.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
So we just have a minute left.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
But your counsel for the school board down in Douglas
County when the whole voucher thing went down.
Speaker 6 (26:06):
Correct, that's right, Yeah, a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
What control does Polis and the Democrats have in just
like thirty seconds over this issue.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Could they squash it if they wanted to?
Speaker 6 (26:18):
Well, the governor and the state do have the power
of state law. I mean, that's why they're trying to
impose these rules on school districts, even if it means
losing federal funds. So ultimately, Polis and the other Democrats
in the state have the power to tell local school
districts you can't accept federal funds because there's a conflict
(26:39):
and the only remedy to violating civil rights is to
lose your federal funds. So that is a difficult position
that we may yet see the state put our school
districts in and it'll make our students and our education
system suffer.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Well, well, thank you so much for coming on and
explaining that issue. This is Heidi Ganal filling for Dan Caples.
We'll be back after the break with John Castillo, Kendrick's dad,
to talk a little bit more about school safety.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
And now back to the Dankaplas Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
This is Heidi Ganol filling in for Dan caplis our
last segment and the perfect person to come on and
help us wrap this show about the craziness that's gone on,
but specifically school safety. This is one of my favorite
people on the planet. John and Maria Castillo are just
the best. John, Welcome to the show. Glad to have you.
Speaker 8 (27:31):
Yeah, thank you, Heidy, I appreciate you. You know, ruined me
to be on the show today.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Thank you, John.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I know you are probably one of the top experts
on school safety at this point.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
And Kendrick we at door. Kendrick.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
He is a hero to all of us and so
are you and Maria. So tell us what your thoughts
are about what Beverly said and what's happening at Evergreen.
Speaker 8 (27:53):
All right, yeah, you know seeing Evergreen play out just
got back every thing from May seventh, and I have
to say the sro part of this is just angered
Marie and I so bad that here we are six
years later, and that the needle for safety has not moved,
(28:15):
literally has not moved in Colorado, especially where you know,
all these events have seemed to have been taking place.
I mean, I know they they go on across the country.
But when we look at things and we see that
an SRO wasn't present, when the shooter was able to
reload multiple times, and the length of time that the
(28:36):
SRO is going to be absent, there was shared coverage.
You know, these are things that take place around our
state in different school districts, and they fall on deaf
ears and the irony of it and the pain is
that the end result will be a political movement by
both parties using some of this to bring awareness to
(28:59):
school safe DEEEP that we may not see solid results
once again, won't be at the same place that we
were six years ago. Money is going to flood in
that will allow for a school resource officer now to
be in that school. But that's a little bit too late.
That's a little bittersweet. You know, those families that have
kids in the hospital right now that potentially could die
(29:22):
and are affected by this, does it matter to them
that now they're going to have an SRO after the
shooting took place. That's how we feel, and we just
have to express that that we're grateful that there's protection
in schools and they're trying to get crows. But I
think the whole program could be improved. We protect our
(29:46):
sporting venues, all of these different places. In most jobs,
if somebody doesn't show up, you know, there's somebody else
that takes their places there. And we're talking about six
hours a day for kids. How tough can that? You know?
We have to do better to protect our children. Well really,
you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
John, I don't know if you've heard me talking about Durango,
but here's a school board that spent two hundred and
nine thousand dollars of tax payer money on DEI experts
and one day, one day of their consulting costs sixty
nine thousand dollars. And I would bet you that not
every school in Durango nine our district has at full
time SRO in those schools and all the safety measures
(30:27):
implemented to protect our kids.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
What do you think?
Speaker 8 (30:31):
No, you're absolutely right. I mean, we're paying superintendents of
school districts enormous salaries. Well, kids are unprotected why is that?
And our schools aren't safe. We need to make them safe,
and you know we have to start by looking at
practical things. You're absolutely right. This money is being squandered,
(30:53):
and after these shootings, the money will come in from
somewhere who knows where. It'll fix some problem. Think till
the next one went overshadows the last. That's really unfortunate.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I know, John, Isn't it exhausting?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I mean, I've been working on this since sixteen when
I was on that committee which done absolutely nothing, and
I created the school Safety three sixty plan, and every
time there's a tragedy, I bring it back out, the
same plan. I put it in front of people, nothing happens,
and it's just it's it's hard on the soul, it's
hard on the heart, and it's hard to know that
(31:28):
there are solutions that can be put in place and
no one's doing a dang thing.
Speaker 8 (31:34):
You're absolutely one hundred percent correct. I have been on
committees to try to address school safety, and I get
the gut feeling that people come together for these meetings
just to have a plan to say that they're doing something,
but nothing really gets deployed and gets put out there
(31:56):
and we have to start making sure that that happens.
Parents to get involved. You know, it breaks my heart
that they had a meeting the night before bringing up
the subject about a school shooting, and bam, the next
day it happens. You know, you know, this is going
on in more places. There are brave you don't want
a dog and teachers or like local administrators. Some are
(32:21):
very bad other ones. You know, it's been my experience
speaking at some of these schools. They welcome an SRO
and they have a safety plan that's going up and
beyond the minimal things that they're required. And I love
that those schools, you know, are doing a good job.
The leaders of the schools, the principals and the admin
care about their staff and their kids. But why hasn't
(32:44):
that in every school? Why is it that you know,
we can put an SRO in a you know, a
liberal leading school and they won't be welcome. They don't
have an office, they don't have a place to do
their paperwork. I mean, they're there, but are they really
welcome in that environment to do their best work? Not always?
(33:04):
You know, it's troublesome. It's troublesome. We have to address
things like that. So even when we're doing the right thing,
I have an SROs and other protectors. Are we welcoming them?
Are we using them to the best of their ability?
Are they like directing traffic at the drive up line?
Are they actually participating in safety? I mean, there has
(33:25):
to be a standard.
Speaker 6 (33:27):
John.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
We've got to go to break, We've got to finish
up the show. But thank you for coming on. You
are always welcome whenever I'm hosting. We adore you guys
and are sending big prayers and hopes that we can
actually fix something at some point.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Thank you for coming on today.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (33:43):
Absolutely. I hope this resonates with people and you know,
a stronger stance comes out of it.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Thanks John, we'll talk next time.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Well, thanks everybody for giving me a chance to hang
out with you today and talk about the craziness in
our world. Thank you Ryan for always being strong and
having a great voice. We'll see you tomorrow, actually Tuesday,
I'll be co hosting, or if guest hosting again co
hosting with Ryan. Take care and have a great day.
This is Dan Capless and welcome to today's online podcast
edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to
give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind,
and to subscribe, download, and listen to the show every
single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
This is Heidi Ganal filling in for Dan Kaplis. We've
got another hour to talk about. Oh my goodness, it's
been a tough, tough week and the last week in Colorado,
and it's just it's sad. I'm really just sad and
generally just depressed about where things stand right now when
you see the vitriol online and you see our children
(00:37):
being afraid of going to conservative events and speaking up
because they just saw their friend and leader influencer murdered
on TV, but also going to school and having to
deal with school shootings. And I talked a little bit
with Beverly about my frustration in Colorado working on that issue.
There's lots going on in Durango School District too that
(00:58):
we've been exposing on Rocky Mountain FO. It's called nine
R School District and just I think it is competing
with Jefferson County for the most woke school.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
District in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
So we're going to bring Will Traichman on with the
Mountain States Legal Foundation on at five thirty six to
talk about those issues. But in the meantime, I wanted
to first give a shout out to Brandy Bradley. She's
a representative. Her son was in a terrible accident. He's
doing okays, getting better, but he's got a lot of
issues from the accident. He needs a lot of prayers.
(01:31):
So if everybody can ping Brandy online or just send
prayers and hope that Cole heals up, heals up, well,
it's terrifying to have your child in that situation and
my heart goes out to her. And then I want
to talk to you guys about a post I just saw.
I actually saw this yesterday. Kyle Clark was talking about
our our service that we did at Brave Church yesterday,
(01:54):
and instead of just saying this was a great group
of Christians that got together to honor one of their
favorite pace well, he says a number of far right
leaders packed a church outside Denver for a remembrance of
Charlie Kirk. That was a memorial service, a political rally,
and a soft launch for a ministry leader's potential run
for governor. It's one of the readers or the tweets out.
(02:18):
Nine News is so broken, complete garbage. This merger with
Next Her cannot happen soon enough. Ryan, how much do
you know about Next Her? Are they any less woke
than the folks that have nine News Tanga?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
It's quite the opposite, as a matter of fact, because
there are many stations throughout the country that when they
are under the Next Star umbrella, Uh, they're Cheryl Atkinson.
You may have heard of her. She has a show
that airs on those stations a lot of the nationwide
and the form of syndication they tend actually to lean.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
To the right.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Yeah, So there's a lot of speculation. Well, there's a
lot of speculation, and I have mixed feelings about this.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
I want to preface it that way, but that.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
What we're seeing, and it's generally not good for journalism
and for localism, is the mergers of these companies, these buyouts,
et cetera, are eliminating newsrooms throughout and Denver's a top
twenty market nationally, and yet we've seen that happen already
in the form of a Channel two I believe it
was and Katievr Fox thirty one here in Denver, and
(03:23):
that eliminated one of those newsrooms and they melded into one.
Now there's thought, there's speculation that Fox thirty one and
nine they merge, and then who's left and how many
news departments are there on the television side in the
Denver market, because you would still have obviously CBS Colorado
Channel four, you would still have Denver seven ABC affiliate.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
And that then we've seen this and it used to
be just like the.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Smaller markets like Marquette, Michigan or something like that. But
now it's happening in Denver, and you know, there's speculation
that it might be nine News the one that gets
cleaned out.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Well, I mean, I think that gosh, Kyle, which is
so mean.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
He's just got such a.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Mean spirit about him, a vengeful spirit about him. And
with two daughters, the way he treats conservative women is
shocking to me. God forbid one of his daughters grows
up to be conservative.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
Oh, let's hope so.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
And run for politics, like run for office.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
I would love that.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Goodness gracious.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
But another comment or on Twitter says nine News in
Kyle Clark, can you define far right?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Were you there?
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Yeah, that's what really stood out to me. Was it
really far right?
Speaker 5 (04:27):
But what is far right to him? Over to window right?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Far right is probably you know, I don't know barely
one inch to the right of left time lunatic.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Right of Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. Oh, is that
far right? Anything to the right of them? I honestly
feel that's how people in his silo view us. Is
that anything remotely conservative, that's far right you will never hurt. Here,
for instance, Kyle Clark say the term or, and he's
not the only one far left.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
It's far right, right left. There's no far left to them.
That does not exist in their world.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Well, and I was talking to the gentleman Victor Marx
who's thinking about running for governor, and Victor, I love Victor.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
He's a great guy.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
He would make a big splash and cost some waves
in that primary. But I was saying to Victor, you know,
it's not like it's not your messaging.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
That you necessarily need to worry about.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
It's how the liberal media is going to frame you,
and then how the Democrats are going to use the
tens of millions of dollars to drive that messaging in
about you and defining you through ads and flyers and
just a you know, an onslaught of influence over the voters.
And that's what our candidates are a little naive about sometimes.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
And I was too.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
You go in thinking I've got this great policy platform.
I'm going to talk about kids and crime and cost
of living, and I've got these solutions, and I'm a
great person, i have a great experience, I'll do a
great job.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
And then you you look.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Up and there's a tsunami of negative messaging that just
powers over you.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
And we don't have the money or.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
The media machine to fight back, which is why we
started Rocky Mountain Voice.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I mean, we've got all of you on the radio.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
We've got some good conservative journalists out there, but we
I mean, we pale in comparison when we try and
go up against the liberal media here in Colorado and
the liberal or the Democrat machine, the money, the organization,
the power that they have in Colorado to really drive messaging.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
And I think voters are just naive.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I don't think they know the truth about the people
who are representing them on the left or what we
really stand for on the right. And that was the
most frustrating thing for me as a candidate was not
voters not being able to know who I was, what
my heart was, and what my solutions were. I mean, right,
it cracks me up that I ran on all the
things that they're saying, we should really do this now
(06:54):
because your on income tax and reducing the bureaucracy and
you know, keeping our kids safe at school and reducing crime.
Not the Democrats are running that, but everybody is generally
talking about it.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
But you couldn't get the message out.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So that's my biggest fear for twenty six for Colorado candidates,
whether it's the congressional candidates, the governor candidates, you know,
the state level candidates. How are you going to get
your message through the fog that is the liberal media
and the money that is spent to define you and tell.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Voters who you are, even if it's a lie. Like,
what do you think about that?
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Brian, I'm sorry you're talking to me. I've got a
lot of things going on back.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
You never mind, it was really important, profound question.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
You're talking about platforms, exposure.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
It's talking about money and the influence and the ability
to get your message out as a candidate, and whether
you can actually break through the liberal media and the
amount of money that they spend against you to define
you without you having any say in how they define you.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Let me ask it to you this way, because I
think this is you know, it's the devil's bargain if
you were too and I'm sure you did this assessment
this and I've had this conversation with Representative Lauren Bobert,
with other in particular, I'm gonna call it what it is,
conservative women with whom Kyle Clark seems to have some
kind of bizarre, twisted fixation.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Dennis, what kind of fetish.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
Daniel Jerinsky being another one.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
There are many, There are many, but you were one,
baby b That would be another one. You were one,
and he really focused in and you don't want to
hear this, but the furry thing, which what again was
happening and in fact, this shooter they're getting a lot
of information from his transgender roommate lover whatever you want
to call.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
It, at a video.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Guess what, you know, the whole furry thing. So to
roll out this canard like it's a fantasy, it's a
feature of your imagination, like Jared Poulis said with Daniel
Jerensky about the trendy Arago gangs in Aurora.
Speaker 5 (08:53):
No, it was not.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
So they're trying to gaslight in that form. And then
you have a decision to make, Heidi, and that is
do you try to bat that in other spheres.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
Or do you go right into the lions Den.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Sit down face to face with Kyle Clark and have
it out. So, I mean, what went into that decision
for you? Because was there a winning equation for you
that included that kind of engagement with the very media
that's looking to take you down.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I mean, yeah, we tried that a little bit and
it they just didn't even give me a chance to respond.
They asked the question in such a crazy way. You're like,
that is not what I said. Jimmy asked me what
the craziest thing I'd heard on the campaign trail was,
and I said, a lot of parents are telling me
that there's kids in the schools that are dressing up
like animals.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
It's called furries.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
And it turned into this big thing and we weren't
talking about it after that. We just pivoted back to
what we cared about crime kids cost a living. But
the media took it ran with it, and of course Jared.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Pull Us made some comment.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
The minute she said that I knew I win the
election because they knew they were going to take that
SoundBite and just ram it down my throat.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
I know we got to break. But this bear's mentioning
this is the Kyle Clark pattern. He's not the only
one that left it does that. First of all, it's
not happening. You're crazy for thinking that high that they
even would happen. Secondly, though, if it did happen, well,
these would be marginalized kids that are just looking for
their own identity.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
Bully Heidi, that's what it turned into. Let's call this
what it is.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Because that evolved into yeah, it's happening, and as a
matter of fact, we should be sensitive to these kids
because a lot of them are gay or trans and
they don't not express themselves, and we should let them
meow or bark and be animals in the classroom. It
turned into oh, not only is it happening, but how
dare you?
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Hi?
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Do you big it for not endorsing it or giving
them that compassion and understanding to allow them to express
themselves the way that they want to do it. Hold on, Kyle,
I thought it was not happening. You said it was
not happening, and then it turned into what it turned into.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah, that's Kyle. He's paidon. I believe he's.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Incentivized by the Democrats to do this to destroy the right.
But that's my conspiracy theory. So Kyle, have at it.
But I know we need to go to break. This
is Heidikanal filling in for Dan Caplis. We'll come back
afterwards and talk more about all the crazy stuff going
on in this beautiful state. We'll see after the break.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
And now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Welcome back.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
This is Heidi Ganal filling in for Dan Caplis.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Ryan.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
In just a little bit, I'm going to bring on
Will Traickman, who's the head of Mountain States Legal Foundation,
and they have filed three different Office of Civil Rights
complaints on Durango's school district. It's also called nine R
School District La Platta County down in southwest Colorado, and
it's a like used to be the wild Wild West,
like the best of Colorado. It's beautiful and it's turned
(11:42):
into one of the most liberal areas of our state,
and they have a school board race coming up and
there's gonna be some different choices. But what we wanted
to do at Rocky Mountain Voice was kind of exposed
all the things we're finding out, because when you see
it here and there, you can't necessarily put it all together,
so that it's this one district that's just gone off
the rails. So we call it the Durango Dirty Dozen.
(12:05):
And I think we're on number eight. I'm filming today later,
and we are exposing the twelve ways that they are
not taking care of our children, not focused on academic success,
and not respecting families. So I'm going to quickly go
through the list so far, I don't want to let
loose on the rest of them yet, and then we'll
bring Will on to talk after the break about specifically
(12:27):
the complaints that they've filed.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
So that's number one or the complaints.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Complaints are about discriminatory practices and hiring programs and policies,
and I'll let Will talk more about that.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Number two. Get this Benjamin Smith, a.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Band teacher hired during COVID, pushed a queer agenda and
molested thirty seven plus kids. He's been federally indicted on
fifty six counts, including production and possession of child pornography, pornography,
and sexual assault. And I should say he's not convicted,
he's accused of doing these things, but the evidence is
pretty overwhelming, and the investigation brought in Homeland Security.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
And the FBI.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
So how the heck did he get hired? And how
the heck did this go on so long without the
school district board or the teacher, the other teachers, the
other staff know that this was going on. So that's
number two. Number three, the school board spent two hundred
and nine thousand dollars of taxpayer money on third party
DEI Diversity Equity Inclusion experts, with one professional day for
(13:33):
the teachers costing sixty nine thousand dollars. Now, this money
could have funded textbooks or teacher training, yet it went
straight to ideology. This at a time when our kids
aren't learning how to read, write, or do maths. So
what comparents do about this? Well, they can go to
a board meeting. School board meeting on September twenty third,
I think it's at six o'clock and you have two
(13:55):
minutes to comment, be ready comment, Ask questions. Demand the
board provide a breakdown of the spending and why it's
being prioritized over education. Ask them how Benjamin Smith, the
band teacher that molested potentially molested thirty seven kids, how
that happened, what they're doing about it. Ask them about
the three complaints that have been filed with the US
(14:15):
Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights Number four or
exposing concerns with the gender support plan. It was developed
with CASBY guidance. CASBY is the Colorado Association of School Boards,
so their guidance around gender support plans includes therapists and
counselors and staff deciding if parents are notified or not
(14:37):
about a student's gender transition.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
I think most of us have heard.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
About this in Colorado, where a student can decide to
change their gender and they hide it from the parents.
And they also when this happens, they can use all
gender bathrooms or those that they identify with, so a
boy can go in a girls bathroom or vice versa.
They can change their names or pronouns in school records.
So parents need to ask, why are we being excluded
(15:01):
from this process? That is not okay? Next step Number five.
Former teachers Vivian and Joanna Smotherman, also ex Senate District
six candidates, like they ran for the legislature, took a
student transitioning to a boy without the mother, Cindy Stein's knowledge,
so you could say it's kidnapping or hiding, you know,
(15:24):
just convincing to stay with them and not go home regardless.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
It's terrifying for parents.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Now this portrayal raises questions about nine are the school
district's oversight, So parents need to ask questions about this
and demand answers on how did this happen and what's
being done? And can this happen to my child? What
makes you decide that it's okay to take a child
into your home against the parents' wishes.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
It's nuts.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
This is all part of the Durango nine R School
Districts Dirty dozen ways they're doing our kids wrong that
Rocky Mountain Voice has been putting out. Number six, a
group of active School of volunteers rejected a gift of
sixty American flags for classrooms. Now, this is while the
board is making resolutions that progress, Pride, and Black Lives
Matter flags are protected under government speech.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
They did that in January.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
But yet the volunteers who run a little volunteer group
at Durango's schools rejected a gift of sixty American flags
to put in the classrooms. Now a lot of parents
down there are seeing this as prioritizing ideology over patriotism.
So you've got ideology over patriotism in the classroom. You've
got them spending money on DEI instead of teaching our
(16:35):
kids how to read, write, and do math. You've got
complaints about discriminatory practices in hiring and programs and policies.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
And then you have a group of volunteers rejecting the
American flags. What is so wrong about having an American
flag in the classroom. It's nuts.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
So number seven, we all know about House Bill thirteen twelve.
I call it the most egregious bill ever proposed in
the Colorado legislature, which allows kids to access mental health
services without consent to the parents at age twelve.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
So your twelve year old.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Can go get mental health care by someone you haven't
even met, don't know anything about, without your knowledge.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
And get this Representative Kate Stewart, who's also on the
board of school school Board of Directors down there. She's
the representative for House District fifty nine.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
She voted for this.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Undermining family authority, so parents need to ask why this
is happening.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
And finally number eight that I think I just filmed.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Actually they put this one out, so today it'll be
number nine. The twenty twenty five c mass scores are dismal.
Kids can't learn to read and write down there. We've
got to demand better. We'll talk more about this after
the break.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
You're listening to the Dan Kapliss Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
This is Heidigan all Back filling in for Dan Kaplis.
Great to join you today. Man, it's been a rough
week though. It's been a lot of emotional trauma to
deal with. And I'm gonna miss Charlie Kirk tremendously. He's
just a great, great guy, great mentor, great person all around.
But we've been talking about issues that he would care
(18:35):
about us telling the truth about, and one of those
is Durango School District nine. Are I'm bringing a friend
of mine on, Will Traikman, who's the general counselor Mountain
States Legal Foundation.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Will. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 6 (18:48):
Thanks so much, Hearty, great to be here.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Thanks for joining will.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Your organization has filed some complaints with the Office of
Civil Rights.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Tell us a bit about that.
Speaker 6 (18:58):
Yeah, well, I really appreciate it. What you just said
now about Charlie Kirk, which is the work that he
targeted involved a lot of really important issues. So free
speech was one and anti DEI work is another, where
we're talking about equality and equality under the law. Mountain
Stains Lego Foundation has filed three civil rights complaints with
(19:20):
the US Department of Education. So sometimes lawsuits go to court.
These are going to an administrative agency, the Department of Education,
and they involve race discrimination that's happening within the Durrengo
School district. Now the three separate complaints, and they involve
three separate issues. I'm happy to talk about.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yes, tell us more.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
I've been doing this Durango Dirty Dozen all the different
ways they're hurting our kids and families, and this is
an important component about it.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
So break those down for us.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
Yeah, I don't think I durngo as this you know,
haven for wackadus, but differently have something negative in the
water going on in the school district. The first one
involves Native American programming, you know, you're allowed to have
reservations and you know, federal Native American programs, but this
(20:12):
school district has taken it way too far. They have
a graduation ceremony that you're only allowed to attend if
you're a Native American. They have all these college readiness programs.
You know, everyone needs college readiness if they're going to college.
It's not only for Native Americans, but in Durango, if
you want access to this program, you have to be
a Native American. So that's complaint number one. Complaint number
(20:34):
two is that they have this flags and symbols policies
that says, if you're a teacher and you want to
put up a flag or a symbol in your classroom
that supports an ethnicity other than white, you are allowed
to do that with the support of the district. But
if you put up an All Lives Matter sign or
(20:54):
maybe a symbol to memorialize white South Africans who are
being murdered, that that's the violation of district policy. So
if the ethnicity that you're supporting is white, that's a problem.
If it's anything else, you're fine. And then the third
involves hiring. It's very clear that Durngo is trying to
(21:14):
racially Jerry Mander who gets hired as teachers. And this
is so obvious that the superintendent in his own self
review said, I'd like a race I'd like a good
review because I've been drastically changing the makeup of the
teachers in our district by hiring more non white teachers.
Oh yeah, yeah, hard to believe that it's happening, although
(21:36):
is it. I mean, these days it's kind of part
of the course that we see blue states and blue
school districts doing these aggressive things and just hoping to
get away with it.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
So, well, what happens now with these complaints?
Speaker 6 (21:50):
Ye, that's a good question. So mount Sas has a
lot of these ocr the Office for Civil Rights complaints
going on. If you haven't noticed, though, there's a little
bit of in Washington, d c. About the Department of
Education and how many people should work there and what
they should do. So it's possible that these complaints get
(22:10):
transferred to the Department of Justice if the Civil Rights
Office there kind of fades away in line with President
Trump's priorities. So it's true that we file these complaints
with an agency that may cease to exist. As we
know it going forward. But in the meantime, we filed
the complaints, we're hoping to get investigations open and then
(22:32):
findings made against these districts.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
How long does that typically take if the agency does
stay in place.
Speaker 6 (22:39):
Well, I used to work there, so thank you for
the question about my old tenure and ocr So the
Trump administration the first term, we did a great job
speeding things up trying to get resolutions on these complaints,
because justice delayed is justice snide. The Biden administration didn't
do much, and in some ways that's just a function
(23:02):
of what you know, government under Democrats means, it means
slower pace, it means sprawling investigations. Rather than trying to
address this specific complaint at heart, they try to do
an investigation that may loop it in systemic violation. So anyway,
things have slowed down under Biden, and it can take
(23:22):
a year or two unfortunately to get an investigation through
the process. The wheels of justice sometimes grind.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Slowly, and will what's the penalty if they are found
to be definitive or accurate?
Speaker 7 (23:37):
These complaints, right, so they're not federal court complaints, so
it's not like we're going to a jury trial, and
the jury trial makes a big award in our favor.
Speaker 6 (23:47):
These are administrative complaints, and the big tool in the
toolbox for the department is stripping federal funds from the district.
So you've seen probably the news about Jefferson County School
District having an open investigation. I'm sure most of the
listeners have seen about Tender Republic schools having open investigations.
So those districts are in danger of losing all of
(24:09):
their federal funds, which is millions of dollars if they
don't comply with federal civil rights laws.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
That's wild, and so they're willing to put that at
risk by placing these policies or continuing these policies even
though they're told not to by the administration.
Speaker 6 (24:26):
Yeah, these school districts were cut off their own noses,
despite their face. I mean, that is some of it.
They're willing to go toe to toe with the federal
government even though it's the federal government's money, it's our
money as citizens, and they're willing to say, we'll take
our chances, We'll risk the safety, security, the resources of
our district, our students, our teachers in order to take
(24:49):
a stand on aggressive anti civil rights positions, like we're
going to treat people differently based on rates. That's just
what they do. They can't help it.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
What can parents do about this that live in Durango
or other districts where this is happening, Well, definitely call me.
Speaker 6 (25:07):
You know, I've got a number on the website if
you've got an issue that revolves civil rights or free speech.
Those are two of msllefts bread and butter. You know,
we're actively looking for other cases involving race discrimination or
suppressing free speech. Keep an eye out. You know, we
as parents have a tremendous amount of power. I've got
(25:27):
four kids in the school district, and I'm never afraid
to bite some ankles and be a wet blanket and
make it clear that they're not going to get away
with something without hearing from me. So that's something you
can do informally in addition to the legal process, and
ultimately we just have to change the culture. I know
that's an easy thing to say and a harder thing
to do, but that is something that we have to do.
In Charlie's memory. I think it's important that we renew
(25:50):
that charge and renew the vigor that we pursue it with,
because unless we change the culture in the long run,
the left is going to win on these battles.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
So we just have a minute left.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
But your counsel for the school board down in Douglas
County when the whole voucher thing went down.
Speaker 6 (26:06):
Correct, that's right, Yeah, a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
What control does Polis and the Democrats have in just
like thirty seconds over this issue.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Could they squash it if they wanted to?
Speaker 6 (26:18):
Well, the governor and the state do have the power
of state law. I mean, that's why they're trying to
impose these rules on school districts, even if it means
losing federal funds. So ultimately, Polis and the other Democrats
in the state have the power to tell local school
districts you can't accept federal funds because there's a conflict
(26:39):
and the only remedy to violating civil rights is to
lose your federal funds. So that is a difficult position
that we may yet see the state put our school
districts in and it'll make our students and our education
system suffer.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Well, well, thank you so much for coming on and
explaining that issue. This is Heidi Ganal filling for Dan Caples.
We'll be back after the break with John Castillo, Kendrick's dad,
to talk a little bit more about school safety.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
And now back to the Dankaplas Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
This is Heidi Ganol filling in for Dan caplis our
last segment and the perfect person to come on and
help us wrap this show about the craziness that's gone on,
but specifically school safety. This is one of my favorite
people on the planet. John and Maria Castillo are just
the best. John, Welcome to the show. Glad to have you.
Speaker 8 (27:31):
Yeah, thank you, Heidy, I appreciate you. You know, ruined me
to be on the show today.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Thank you, John.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I know you are probably one of the top experts
on school safety at this point.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
And Kendrick we at door. Kendrick.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
He is a hero to all of us and so
are you and Maria. So tell us what your thoughts
are about what Beverly said and what's happening at Evergreen.
Speaker 8 (27:53):
All right, yeah, you know seeing Evergreen play out just
got back every thing from May seventh, and I have
to say the sro part of this is just angered
Marie and I so bad that here we are six
years later, and that the needle for safety has not moved,
(28:15):
literally has not moved in Colorado, especially where you know,
all these events have seemed to have been taking place.
I mean, I know they they go on across the country.
But when we look at things and we see that
an SRO wasn't present, when the shooter was able to
reload multiple times, and the length of time that the
(28:36):
SRO is going to be absent, there was shared coverage.
You know, these are things that take place around our
state in different school districts, and they fall on deaf
ears and the irony of it and the pain is
that the end result will be a political movement by
both parties using some of this to bring awareness to
(28:59):
school safe DEEEP that we may not see solid results
once again, won't be at the same place that we
were six years ago. Money is going to flood in
that will allow for a school resource officer now to
be in that school. But that's a little bit too late.
That's a little bittersweet. You know, those families that have
kids in the hospital right now that potentially could die
(29:22):
and are affected by this, does it matter to them
that now they're going to have an SRO after the
shooting took place. That's how we feel, and we just
have to express that that we're grateful that there's protection
in schools and they're trying to get crows. But I
think the whole program could be improved. We protect our
(29:46):
sporting venues, all of these different places. In most jobs,
if somebody doesn't show up, you know, there's somebody else
that takes their places there. And we're talking about six
hours a day for kids. How tough can that? You know?
We have to do better to protect our children. Well really,
you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
John, I don't know if you've heard me talking about Durango,
but here's a school board that spent two hundred and
nine thousand dollars of tax payer money on DEI experts
and one day, one day of their consulting costs sixty
nine thousand dollars. And I would bet you that not
every school in Durango nine our district has at full
time SRO in those schools and all the safety measures
(30:27):
implemented to protect our kids.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
What do you think?
Speaker 8 (30:31):
No, you're absolutely right. I mean, we're paying superintendents of
school districts enormous salaries. Well, kids are unprotected why is that?
And our schools aren't safe. We need to make them safe,
and you know we have to start by looking at
practical things. You're absolutely right. This money is being squandered,
(30:53):
and after these shootings, the money will come in from
somewhere who knows where. It'll fix some problem. Think till
the next one went overshadows the last. That's really unfortunate.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I know, John, Isn't it exhausting?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I mean, I've been working on this since sixteen when
I was on that committee which done absolutely nothing, and
I created the school Safety three sixty plan, and every
time there's a tragedy, I bring it back out, the
same plan. I put it in front of people, nothing happens,
and it's just it's it's hard on the soul, it's
hard on the heart, and it's hard to know that
(31:28):
there are solutions that can be put in place and
no one's doing a dang thing.
Speaker 8 (31:34):
You're absolutely one hundred percent correct. I have been on
committees to try to address school safety, and I get
the gut feeling that people come together for these meetings
just to have a plan to say that they're doing something,
but nothing really gets deployed and gets put out there
(31:56):
and we have to start making sure that that happens.
Parents to get involved. You know, it breaks my heart
that they had a meeting the night before bringing up
the subject about a school shooting, and bam, the next
day it happens. You know, you know, this is going
on in more places. There are brave you don't want
a dog and teachers or like local administrators. Some are
(32:21):
very bad other ones. You know, it's been my experience
speaking at some of these schools. They welcome an SRO
and they have a safety plan that's going up and
beyond the minimal things that they're required. And I love
that those schools, you know, are doing a good job.
The leaders of the schools, the principals and the admin
care about their staff and their kids. But why hasn't
(32:44):
that in every school? Why is it that you know,
we can put an SRO in a you know, a
liberal leading school and they won't be welcome. They don't
have an office, they don't have a place to do
their paperwork. I mean, they're there, but are they really
welcome in that environment to do their best work? Not always?
(33:04):
You know, it's troublesome. It's troublesome. We have to address
things like that. So even when we're doing the right thing,
I have an SROs and other protectors. Are we welcoming them?
Are we using them to the best of their ability?
Are they like directing traffic at the drive up line?
Are they actually participating in safety? I mean, there has
(33:25):
to be a standard.
Speaker 6 (33:27):
John.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
We've got to go to break, We've got to finish
up the show. But thank you for coming on. You
are always welcome whenever I'm hosting. We adore you guys
and are sending big prayers and hopes that we can
actually fix something at some point.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Thank you for coming on today.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (33:43):
Absolutely. I hope this resonates with people and you know,
a stronger stance comes out of it.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Thanks John, we'll talk next time.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Well, thanks everybody for giving me a chance to hang
out with you today and talk about the craziness in
our world. Thank you Ryan for always being strong and
having a great voice. We'll see you tomorrow, actually Tuesday,
I'll be co hosting, or if guest hosting again co
hosting with Ryan. Take care and have a great day.
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