The first thing to know about Woodland Park is that it’s a conservative town. Last year, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance received more than twice as many votes in Teller County, where Woodland Park is located, than Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. The second thing to know is that not a lot of people in the small mountain town agree on what that word means: conservative.
With less than a week left until ballots are counted and with none of them seeking re-election, the four-member conservative bloc of Woodland Park’s controversial School Board is making plans to go out with a bang. After years of accusations that they have shown favoritism to Merit Academy, the district’s only charter school, the outgoing Board is now attempting to lease the district’s middle school building to the Merit Academy Building Corporation for 30 years. At least two members of that Board, however, may be ineligible to cast that vote on account of allegedly having moved out of state.
A lot of ink has been spilled about the unusual happenings in the Woodland Park School District over the last four years. The dramatic conservative takeover in 2021, the immediate Open Meetings Law violations, the controversial chartering of a new school, the even more controversial hiring and tenure of superintendent Ken Witt. The American Birthright curriculum. The nexus with the growing trend of Christian nationalism and the troubling ties to the charismatic Seven Mountains Mandate. Despite the desperate wishes of locals, the district has not seen many dull moments since the current crop of seniors were in eighth grade.
Andrew Wommack has not been shy about his desire to take over Woodland Park, the small Teller County town where his global ministry has its headquarters. Ever since the prosperity gospel minister exhorted his followers to conquer the town in 2021, they have been working to do so. First, they took control of the local school board. Then they came for the city council. Now, a year after the conquering ministry’s first attempt to control the council was beaten back, forces aligned with Andrew Wommack Ministries and Charis Bible College are once again working to reshape the town’s local government, this time through recall elections.
In the dusty, red-hued southwestern corner of Colorado, a rural school district finds itself mired in a saga of drama and controversy which, despite receiving coverage in the local paper, has not yet broken into Front Range news outlets. On the surface, it’s a local affair, but the ongoing story in the Montezuma-Cortez School District is noteworthy for its ties to attorneys, administrators, and activists associated with Colorado’s network of right-wing education reformers, and for the way their actions in the district are flipping the script which they and their allies have run in districts across the country.
When the Woodland Park City Council convened for a special meeting on Monday morning, no one expected the vote to be unanimous. No one was even quite sure which way the vote would go. By the time the adjourning gavel fell two and a half hours later, though, all seven members of council had converged on the same page, determined to put an end to the latest crisis triggered by the town’s controversial school board.
Students at Woodland Park High School are getting their sex education instruction from Choices, an anti-abortion “pregnancy resource center” with ties to Andrew Wommack’s ministry.
Campaign signs are packed in tight clusters on the roadside as Highway 24 emerges from the mountain pass and levels-out into Woodland Park. It’s a familiar scene by now in the small town which has spent the past three years fighting for its own future. The conflict has well-defined lines by this point, and the campaign signs – which have sprung like Columbines from the snow over the past month as the town’s April 2nd municipal election draws near – are clustered to reflect them.
Earlier this month, the Woodland Park School District issued a press release thanking the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for “recognizing the value and merit of the American Birthright standards implemented at Woodland Park High School.”
Situated 45 miles southeast of Denver, Elizabeth School District has just 2,474 students, fewer than many high schools in Denver, Cherry Creek and Aurora. As a result, it’s easy to overlook the day-to-day workings of the small district in favor of the attention-grabbing antics of its larger neighbors.
