Westminster’s Adams 50 school board is split over reforms and embroiled in ongoing conflict that one board member’s wife said was akin to terrorism.
“Everyone has an opinion,” said Adams 50 Superintendent Roberta Selleck, who has not had full support from her five-member school board for two years.
At the center of the conflict is board member Marilyn Flachman, who was re-elected last November and will serve through 2013.
Flachman twice voted against renewing Selleck’s contract and has been critical of the 10,000-student school district’s new “standards-based” program, which no longer groups elementary and middle school students by their ages but instead by their academic levels.
“There are some good pieces of it,” said Flachman about the standards-based program. “What we are hearing from the community is frustration with how this is interfacing with their students. What I would advocate is we should open up some public engagement and listen to them.”
Neither Flachman or new board member Sharon Whitehair have signed a proclamation saying they support the district’s reform strategy.
An e-mail was sent to various community members last month by Kim Massey, wife of board member Kevin Massey, calling on the community to flood Tuesday’s board meeting to demand Flachman and Whitehair resign.
In the e-mail, Massey says the two board members have bullied and intimidated staff and called their actions “terrorism” and feared there would be a mass resignation, including Selleck and three board members, if the two board members remained.
Then, she said, the district’s reforms would end.
“We, as a lighthouse district for the nation, will see that light extinguished and deserve nothing more than to hide our faces in shame for allowing it to happen,” she wrote.
Selleck, reached before Tuesday’s meeting, said she is not resigning.
Board President Vicky Marshall also said she didn’t anticipate any mass resignations.
Nevertheless, Selleck said the conflicts have been difficult.
“Any organizational change of this magnitude is hard,” she said. “We are in a place where it is fragile. If leaders are going to peel off and start pointing fingers, we may fail. We may implode. We need strong leadership right now.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
