This summer, Earth Knack— a school highlighted in this week’s feature article, DOUG HILL IS DEFENDING THE (MODERN) CAVEMAN WITH PRIMITIVE SKILLS CLASSES — teamed up with Arvada-based Sarqit Outdoor Learning School for a weekend-long gathering at Happy Dog Ranch south of Chatfield State Park, where primitive-skills instructors came together…
Administrators at the University of Colorado Boulder have long hated the school’s frequent appearances on lists identifying the best party schools in the country, and their concerted efforts to change the school’s reputation seem to be paying off. Note that in 2013, CU Boulder failed to make the Princeton Review’s party-schools…
Doug Hill would not be opposed to living completely off the grid. He could sport his homemade buckskin shorts every day, drink untreated water from streams, pluck his lunch from blueberry patches. He wouldn’t need to worry about a 401(k) or his ten-year goals; his only concerns would be surviving…
The parents behind a move to recall three controversial Jefferson County school board members turned in twice as many signatures today as are required to get the recall questions on the ballot. Election rules require 15,000 voter signatures, and the parents collected just under 37,000 signatures each on petitions to…
A few months back, we told you about the decision by the administration of Twin Peaks Charter Academy to block valedictorian Evan Young from delivering a speech during graduation. The reason: Young planned to come out as gay during the address. From the beginning, the school denied wrongdoing, even though…
Justin Marceau doesn’t eat animals. He represents them. And starting this fall, he will teach University of Denver law students to do the same, thanks to the school’s new Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) Professorship. Marceau is the first recipient of the professorship, which DU says is the only position…
Working on her sociology dissertation landed Maren Scull in some strange situations — like the time she ended up alone in a motel room with a newly released ex-con. Then again, most dissertations don’t involve male strippers. But Maren Scull’s did. She spent 18 months studying a strip club, Dandelion’s,…
The battle over public education policy in Jeffco is getting uglier. An effort is underway to recall three school board members: Ken Witt, John Newkirk and Julie Williams, otherwise known as “WNW.” As explained in our recent cover story, “Class Warfare,” Witt, Newkirk and Williams ran for the board as a…
A century ago, there were no free schools for would-be students over the age of eighteen. Emily Griffith changed that. The longtime Denver Public Schools teacher and two-time deputy state superintendent of schools had a dream of starting a school that was open to everyone, regardless of age, income or previous…
Elijah Huff calls himself a “’hood-walker.” “It’s amazing when I walk around…. When you walk past, you never know where your next house will be,” explains the recent Manual High School graduate. The location of Huff’s next home weighs heavily on his mind as he prepares to head to Fort Lewis…
In March 2014, we noted that the Colorado Supreme Court had agreed to hear a challenge to Douglas County School District’s controversial voucher system. More than a year later, the court has ruled — and its decision marks a victory for the plaintiffs and a setback for DougCo school board…
Earlier this week, we reported that Twin Peaks Charter Academy valedictorian Evan Young, who was prevented from speaking at a commencement ceremony in May because he’d planned to come out as gay, had been given the opportunity to deliver his address at an Out Boulder event at which he received an…
Evan Young was the class valedictorian for Twin Peaks Charter Academy in Longmont. But the school didn’t allow him to speak at his May 16 commencement. Why not? Because he planned to come out as gay during the address — subject matter rejected by the school for reasons spelled out…
Even though church and state are separate entities according to the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court has ruled that religious clubs can meet at public schools after hours. But when do such accommodations become promotion of a specific faith or doctrine? And did Florence High School cross this line over and…
Temple Grandin is a world-renowned public speaker, autism activist and animal-science academic at Colorado State University who loves connecting with her fans on a personal level. The success of the HBO movie about Grandin and her best-selling books show that there’s immense interest in her work, and the CSU social and digital media…
The Independence Institute is attempting to raise $300,000 in the next sixty days to battle the teachers’ union in Jefferson County, where the fight over public education policy has turned ugly. “Teachers’ unions are a threat to our children’s future,” Jon Caldara, the president of the Independence Institute, wrote in…
The divided and controversial Jefferson County school board continues to make headlines. The latest? A mea culpa from board member Julie Williams for posting a link on her Facebook page to a newsletter that encouraged parents to keep their kids home from school and “away from perverse indoctrination” and the…
Nine candidates have applied to fill a vacancy on the five-member Adams 12 Five Star school board. They are: Merylee Appel, Amira Assad-Lucas, Brian Batz, Andrew Been, Jessy Hamilton, Joseph Holt, Nicholas Jonson, James Joy and incumbent Rico Figueroa. The board has until May 1 to fill the vacancy. If…
The battle over public education policy in Jefferson County has gotten ugly, as we explain in this week’s cover story, “Class Warfare.” And the free-market Independence Institute is aiming to call out some of the perpetrators with a new website, MeanGirlz.org. The site, explains executive vice president Amy Oliver Cooke,…
In November 2013, three new school-board members were elected in Jefferson County. Ken Witt, John Newkirk and Julie Williams — or “WNW,” as they called themselves — ran as a group of fiscal conservatives who were in favor of school choice and opposed to Amendment 66, a statewide Democrat-backed tax…
Last week, we noted the defeat of an IUD bill in the Colorado legislature, along with statistics about how Colorado stacked up with other states when it comes to teen pregnancy. This topic got us to thinking about the topic of sex education — and judging by 2012 statistics from…
For the past three years, the CU Boulder campus has been closed to visitors on April 20 in an attempt to snuff out the 4/20 bash that annually transformed the school into what NORML executive director Alan St. Pierre once referred to as “an orgasm of cannabis consumption.” For this…
