January 29, 2025 • 8 mins
JEFFCO GASLIGHTS PARENTS And Jimmy Sengenberger writes about it here. This is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what I talked about yesterday when I told you about how Lotus Academy of Excellence transparently handled a kerfuffle at a basketball game. Read this to understand how dismissive this Board and District were about parent concerns when they chose not to share that the third in command in the district was investigated for child porn. I'm working to get Jimmy on the show.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
That are Monica means it's wine to talk to our
pal Anular's columnists for the Denver Gazette Villain host here
on KOA and K How Jimmy Singenburger, Hello, Jimmy. Oh,
why don't I wait?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
You know what, why don't I.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Push the button? It just makes me happy.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well, I'm glad it makes you happy. It makes a
rod happy to play it and me happy to hear it.
So there we go, Jimmy. I'm guessing that there's probably
not many school districts in the metro area that don't
have your face on a dark board in some part
of their of their room because of the reporting that
you do about the ridiculous stuff that keeps happening.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yeah, district after district has problem after problem, and they
just seem to never learn their lessons, especially when it
comes to crisis management that turns into in the case
of for example, Jefferson County School's botched damage control.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
And we're talking about the botch damage control when Chief
of Schools David Weise was found to be under investigation
for possessing child pornography and this he was fired by
the district on December nineteenth and no announcement was made
that I'm aware of. Maybe there's some announcement that went out,
but then the media got ahold of the story and
(01:17):
then mister Weiss dies of an alleged suicide. What's the
timeline for when the district got involved in this process?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yeah, well, do you mean in terms of letting the
parent family members? Yeah, the community, now, I would say
any direct contact happened a couple weeks later. He was
terminated from his position on the nineteenth of December, and
then word started coming out about his what is now
known to be an apparent suicide on the first of January.
(01:49):
And then I think it was the next day that
the district January second, had finally put out any sort
of outreach to families, to the community directly, everything else,
everything that they had heard leading up to that point
Mandy was from the media. Although what's pretty stunning is
when you have something like at this district Accountability Committee
(02:13):
meeting last week, the chief of staff at the district,
her name is Lisa Rilou. She denied that the media
was notified before families, which is hotly absurd, and was
pressed and questioned after question by members of the DACK
about this. And then finally later on, when a parent said, so,
(02:34):
can we expect that you're going to go to the
media first before coming to us, she goes and says, oh,
so we're back to this. Oh my god. Not how
you handled now like that?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
No, And you know, Jimi, I don't know if you
saw the story of a basketball game kerfuffle between Lotus
Academy of Excellence and Denver Academy of the Torah, and
I talked yesterday about how beautifully the schools handled it right.
They were completely transparent. They immediately communicated with parents via
their website. I mean, they really really handled it the
(03:11):
right way by just saying, here's everything we just did
so you all know exactly what happened. This is the
exact opposite of what Jeff Co has done over and
over and over again. I mean, Jeffco was the first
school district policy that I knew that was keeping information
from parents when it came to children and their gender.
I mean, Jeffco. Doesn't it feel a responsibility to the
parents that it serves.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Yeah, that's the stunning thing about this, especially when this
is fascinating. I write about this in my Denver is
that column yesterday. The saga that I went through to
try and get a recording of this DAK meeting last Tuesday,
because they always record them, in fact, they've been live
streaming them of late, and they didn't, And so I
(03:55):
reached out to the chair of the DAK, who's not
a district employee, who's a community man as well as
a district employee, who's one of the liaisons to the DACK,
and why this is important too. David Weiss was the
other liaison to the DAK, so he worked directly with
the DAKS. So you can understand why parents who are
on the District Accountability Committee would be particularly concerned about
(04:19):
not hearing a peep directly from the district themselves for weeks.
That's a big sensitivity. But they At first I got
a response from the chair of the DACK saying I'm
looking into it, trying to find out when the video
is going to be posted, assuming that it was. She
clearly assumed it was being recorded, which was what other
(04:41):
members had reported to me. That it had been recorded
was their understanding. But Jessco then gets back to me
in a COREL response Open Records Act Request response and
says there is no recording, and I think why, And
they get back to me and say, well, we had
trouble recording in a different room that wasn't equipped for recording.
(05:03):
And I coloredly skeptical because and I mentioned this, there
was a retreat of the board on January seventh where
they got together and it was during the day and
very little notice, and they were talking about their communications
strategy and troubles with communication. And this guy by the
name of Robert Greenawald, who is really a watchdog in
(05:23):
Jeffco Schools, and he put in a record's request for
the recording of this meeting. They denied that a recording existed.
Then he sent them proof that there was a recording,
and they sent him the recording. Well, I'm not sure
if there is there isn't really a recording.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, they don't have a lot of credibility on this issue.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
No, not at all. That's the thing in a crisis
like this, when parents are deeply concerned, students are concerned
staff at the community about how you could have the
number three in the district in this kind of situation,
and this all happens and then there's a failure of communication.
I mean, it's no wonder that there is growing outrage
(06:05):
and upset over how things have been handled here because
you do this is the thing. You just gave a
prime example of two schools that had an issue flare
up that needed to be addressed and they immediately did it.
And hear the district just like Denver Public Schools and
so many others, fails to handle the moment, to meet
(06:26):
the moment, and it's like they don't even know what
to do. It's well.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
There when your first instinct in any situation is to hide, obfuse, gate,
cover up, that to me, it says you know what
you're doing is wrong, right that that is a tacit
admission of guilt of something. And maybe they're they're afraid
that what they're doing is going to be misconstrued. Well,
then they need to get ahead of it. They need
to be making an announcement about what they're doing, why
(06:53):
they're doing it.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
They're never going to regain.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
The trust of the people of Jeff unless they change
their way significantly right now. And I have a feeling
you're gonna have something to do with that.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Jimmy.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
You keep amplifying this stuff, and you're doing a.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Great job with it well, I appreciate it. I think
really they say sunlight is the best disinfectant, and it
is so true when you talk about those schools and
what happened at that game and how they responded to it.
I think that in part is because when you are
they both charter schools, both of them.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Ah, yes, okay, I think Denver Academy the tour is
the chart. It might be a private school.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
I'm not sure, private school, private school, but they're charter
or private, they have more direct accountability and responsiveness that
has to come to parents that are there. Then you're
going to get from school district employees or members of
the school board that have some kind of insulation and
no way. You know, we're the second largest school district
in the state of Colorado. We can kind of get
(07:52):
away with this stuff. Well, they are starting to find
out from parent pushback, from my reporting in the Denver
gazad from what we're trying talking on the radio and
all of that, that actually, you're not going to get
away with it not anymore. Yep.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Amen to that, Jimmy.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I appreciate your time today and great column. Keep up
the good work.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Thank you, my friend.
That are Monica means it's wine to talk to our
pal Anular's columnists for the Denver Gazette Villain host here
on KOA and K How Jimmy Singenburger, Hello, Jimmy. Oh,
why don't I wait?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
You know what, why don't I.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Push the button? It just makes me happy.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well, I'm glad it makes you happy. It makes a
rod happy to play it and me happy to hear it.
So there we go, Jimmy. I'm guessing that there's probably
not many school districts in the metro area that don't
have your face on a dark board in some part
of their of their room because of the reporting that
you do about the ridiculous stuff that keeps happening.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yeah, district after district has problem after problem, and they
just seem to never learn their lessons, especially when it
comes to crisis management that turns into in the case
of for example, Jefferson County School's botched damage control.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
And we're talking about the botch damage control when Chief
of Schools David Weise was found to be under investigation
for possessing child pornography and this he was fired by
the district on December nineteenth and no announcement was made
that I'm aware of. Maybe there's some announcement that went out,
but then the media got ahold of the story and
(01:17):
then mister Weiss dies of an alleged suicide. What's the
timeline for when the district got involved in this process?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yeah, well, do you mean in terms of letting the
parent family members? Yeah, the community, now, I would say
any direct contact happened a couple weeks later. He was
terminated from his position on the nineteenth of December, and
then word started coming out about his what is now
known to be an apparent suicide on the first of January.
(01:49):
And then I think it was the next day that
the district January second, had finally put out any sort
of outreach to families, to the community directly, everything else,
everything that they had heard leading up to that point
Mandy was from the media. Although what's pretty stunning is
when you have something like at this district Accountability Committee
(02:13):
meeting last week, the chief of staff at the district,
her name is Lisa Rilou. She denied that the media
was notified before families, which is hotly absurd, and was
pressed and questioned after question by members of the DACK
about this. And then finally later on, when a parent said, so,
(02:34):
can we expect that you're going to go to the
media first before coming to us, she goes and says, oh,
so we're back to this. Oh my god. Not how
you handled now like that?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
No, And you know, Jimi, I don't know if you
saw the story of a basketball game kerfuffle between Lotus
Academy of Excellence and Denver Academy of the Torah, and
I talked yesterday about how beautifully the schools handled it right.
They were completely transparent. They immediately communicated with parents via
their website. I mean, they really really handled it the
(03:11):
right way by just saying, here's everything we just did
so you all know exactly what happened. This is the
exact opposite of what Jeff Co has done over and
over and over again. I mean, Jeffco was the first
school district policy that I knew that was keeping information
from parents when it came to children and their gender.
I mean, Jeffco. Doesn't it feel a responsibility to the
parents that it serves.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Yeah, that's the stunning thing about this, especially when this
is fascinating. I write about this in my Denver is
that column yesterday. The saga that I went through to
try and get a recording of this DAK meeting last Tuesday,
because they always record them, in fact, they've been live
streaming them of late, and they didn't, And so I
(03:55):
reached out to the chair of the DAK, who's not
a district employee, who's a community man as well as
a district employee, who's one of the liaisons to the DACK,
and why this is important too. David Weiss was the
other liaison to the DAK, so he worked directly with
the DAKS. So you can understand why parents who are
on the District Accountability Committee would be particularly concerned about
(04:19):
not hearing a peep directly from the district themselves for weeks.
That's a big sensitivity. But they At first I got
a response from the chair of the DACK saying I'm
looking into it, trying to find out when the video
is going to be posted, assuming that it was. She
clearly assumed it was being recorded, which was what other
(04:41):
members had reported to me. That it had been recorded
was their understanding. But Jessco then gets back to me
in a COREL response Open Records Act Request response and
says there is no recording, and I think why, And
they get back to me and say, well, we had
trouble recording in a different room that wasn't equipped for recording.
(05:03):
And I coloredly skeptical because and I mentioned this, there
was a retreat of the board on January seventh where
they got together and it was during the day and
very little notice, and they were talking about their communications
strategy and troubles with communication. And this guy by the
name of Robert Greenawald, who is really a watchdog in
(05:23):
Jeffco Schools, and he put in a record's request for
the recording of this meeting. They denied that a recording existed.
Then he sent them proof that there was a recording,
and they sent him the recording. Well, I'm not sure
if there is there isn't really a recording.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, they don't have a lot of credibility on this issue.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
No, not at all. That's the thing in a crisis
like this, when parents are deeply concerned, students are concerned
staff at the community about how you could have the
number three in the district in this kind of situation,
and this all happens and then there's a failure of communication.
I mean, it's no wonder that there is growing outrage
(06:05):
and upset over how things have been handled here because
you do this is the thing. You just gave a
prime example of two schools that had an issue flare
up that needed to be addressed and they immediately did it.
And hear the district just like Denver Public Schools and
so many others, fails to handle the moment, to meet
(06:26):
the moment, and it's like they don't even know what
to do. It's well.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
There when your first instinct in any situation is to hide, obfuse, gate,
cover up, that to me, it says you know what
you're doing is wrong, right that that is a tacit
admission of guilt of something. And maybe they're they're afraid
that what they're doing is going to be misconstrued. Well,
then they need to get ahead of it. They need
to be making an announcement about what they're doing, why
(06:53):
they're doing it.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
They're never going to regain.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
The trust of the people of Jeff unless they change
their way significantly right now. And I have a feeling
you're gonna have something to do with that.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Jimmy.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
You keep amplifying this stuff, and you're doing a.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Great job with it well, I appreciate it. I think
really they say sunlight is the best disinfectant, and it
is so true when you talk about those schools and
what happened at that game and how they responded to it.
I think that in part is because when you are
they both charter schools, both of them.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Ah, yes, okay, I think Denver Academy the tour is
the chart. It might be a private school.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
I'm not sure, private school, private school, but they're charter
or private, they have more direct accountability and responsiveness that
has to come to parents that are there. Then you're
going to get from school district employees or members of
the school board that have some kind of insulation and
no way. You know, we're the second largest school district
in the state of Colorado. We can kind of get
(07:52):
away with this stuff. Well, they are starting to find
out from parent pushback, from my reporting in the Denver
gazad from what we're trying talking on the radio and
all of that, that actually, you're not going to get
away with it not anymore. Yep.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Amen to that, Jimmy.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I appreciate your time today and great column. Keep up
the good work.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Thank you, my friend.
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
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