Grace Davis is a sophomore at Ponderosa High School in Parker, Colorado. She was upset that so many teachers left every year, and she decided to hold a student protest to call attention to the issue. (I posted about this here on May 8). She got clearance from the school. She read about her First Amendment rights. She thought everything was set.
Colorado Public Radio told the story here.
Two members of the school board asked to meet with her. One is the president of the board. Grace brought a recording device with her and taped the meeting. From her research, she knew it was legal to tape a conversation without the consent of all parties under Colorado law.
The meeting lasted an hour and a half. (Grace missed a class while she was harangued.) The board members warned her that her family would be liable for any damages. They threatened, they cajoled. Grace, on her own, with no parent or advisor, stood her ground.
The protest was held without incident.
Grace went to the next school board meeting and explained what happened. She called for the resignation of the two board members for bullying her.
The board was split; the board president hired an outside lawyer to conduct an investigation. CPR noted the ties between the school board president and the lawyer, suggesting that this will not be an independent investigation.
How owe can it be that sophomore Grace Davis is wiser than the district school board? She understands the importance of teachers. She exercised critical thinking, came to her views after personal experience and careful research. She personified the courage and independence we hope to teach all students.
I am pleased to add Grace Davis to the blog’s honor roll.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
What can we learn from this one young American?
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Kudos to the kid!
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Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
Congratulations to Grace Davis. This young woman will go far in life.
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And only a sophomore. Splendid work Grace.
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And only a sophomore. Wonderful research and investigative savvy. A great addition to the honor roll.
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The school board members made untrue intimidating threats to a minor.
” by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person”
Very ugly behavior by the two people on the board, they should resign in shame.
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Good thing Grace Davis had the wherewithal to tape the meeting.
Otherwise no one would have believed her.
And even after hearing the tape, some members of the board are still not demanding the resignations of the two board members who quite clearly meant to intimidate Davis?
What is wrong with these people?
Have they no sense of decency?
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SomeDAM Poet: you are correct, sir.
If you will indulge me, let’s expand a bit the reach of “these people” and “they” you use in your last two sentences.
What is wrong? No decency? The game’s afoot…
The very first commenters on this thread should have been Non Sequitur and Non Sequitur Jr. and ViriginaSGP aka ‘nobody’s against bullying more than I am!’
Easy Peasy Deasy, almost forgot: Mr. Whitney Tilson. Could it be—😱—that they are not as agnostic about ed “stuff” [thank you, Mr. Bill Gates!] as claimed?
Although I detect a disturbance in the rheephorm pharce…
Because we must remember that [self-described] sane people realize that nothing like this posting has existed, exists, or will exist on this blog because it implies something is dreadfully wrong with a public school and a public school system that’s needs fixing.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Forget everything I wrote above.
Rheeally! It’s easy peasy Deasy if you try in a most Johnsonally sort of way…
😎
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Just to keep you-all informed of the newest ed reforms that will be showing up where you live, here’s the big ed reform conference in MI:
https://twitter.com/hashtag/EdRevolution?src=hash
The new push in ed reform is vouchers, although public schools buying millions of dollars worth of ed tech is a growing market too.
Some big DC names are there- not sure if they’re making millions on the speaker circuit yet. Boehner is probably getting paid, I would imagine.
Look for these talking points to be part of a Arne Duncan speech in the coming weeks! 🙂
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Wow! Go Grace! So proud of you.
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One thing that the board members did that they should be called on is the fact that they met with her alone without her parents permission or attendance. They should be kicked out just for doing that. If I were her parent i’d be thinking lawsuit for their actions.
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I can just imagine how proud her teachers must be of her.
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“In order to get us engaged into a subject we need those relationships with our teachers and if they leave after one year, then we have to redevelop those relationships” — Grace Davis.
“Disruption vs Deduction”
Reformer claims “disruption
Will fix what ails the schools”
But Davis used deduction
To see that they are a fools
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While we must applaud this young lady for her willingness to stand up to the insanity of reform dictates, are we missing the fact that students have, for years, been standing up in Denver District, Jefferson District, Aurora District…and I have no idea how many more districts in Colorado? The VAM/NCLB legislation put into place in Colorado has invasively affected school after school and district after district, but very little of this protesting is covered by local news. I’ve known of districts where almost ALL teachers have been pushed out of their schools and the kids, parents and staff fought for days to little avail.
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Ciedie,
The Colorado legislation, written by Senator Michael Johnston (ex-TFA), is one of the worst and most demoralizing in the nation. It should never have been passed. Asyou know, teachers’ evaluations are based on test scores, which count for 50%.
I believe young Sen. Johnston called his law the “Great Schools, Great Teachers Act.”
How is it working out, Sen. Johnston?
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Grace Davis just got added to my “personal” Honor Roll too! A leader!
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
Good for her.
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Congratulations are due to this courageous young woman, who throws into relief the sorry record of teacher union leaders, who are unable to come anywhere near the bravery or integrity of a fifteen year old.
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Grace Davis is a worthy addition to this blog’s honor roll.
“To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.” [Frederick Douglass]
😎
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a search for #IstandWithGrace will find most of the stories about this incident, and its ongoing repercussions. I have that painted on the rear window of my car, and will leave it there until these two board members either resign or are recalled. It’s been a long fight to get these toxic Koch-funded school board members (Geddes, Reynolds, Silverthorn, Benvenuto) out of Douglas County School District, but I think there is a real chance to get rid of them at the next election in 2017.
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“I’m sorry that you felt intimidated,” Reynolds tells Davis at the April board meeting. “I was not there to intimidate.”
I do believe Grace has more maturity than either of the two board members. Reynolds can’t even give an unconditional apology! Shame on both of them!
#IStandWithGrace
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I’ve been following this, and collected some links.
BACKGROUND: thanks to the corporate reform takeover of its board, there’s been a massive annual turnover of teachers in Douglas County, Colorado — a churn more akin to the realm of the fast food industry than to that of public education.
16 year-old high school sophomore Grace Davis and most of Grace’s fellow students are upset about the high teacher turnover and also about teachers’ job conditions that lead to such turnover. Grace and others spoke to teachers privately, who shared their stories, echoing that they too were upset about the situation, but were too afraid to speak out, as they had no due process of job protections. Since the corporate reformers seized control of the board in 2013, teachers who have said or done anything have been fired, and so would any future teachers who dared to do so.
Grace then decided to organize a student protest about the situation, and in support of the teachers that those students have left, and for the teachers that will continue to leave, if this is not addressed.
Two corporate-reform School Board Members Board Members — Judith Reynolds and Meghan Silverthornee — got wind of this and visited Grace’s school site. The located Grace, then took Grace into a closed room, and proceeded to badger and intimidate her for almost an hour and a half. They engaged in this interrogation without her parents knowledge or consent, against the district’s rules.
In an attempt to scare her into cancelling the protest, they threw everything at Grace but the kitchen sink — threats that her parents will be sued, … that everyone who gets in trouble for protesting will blame her… and on and on …
They threatened Grace with some baloney about how, at a Black Lives Matter protest, “an angry motorist” struck a police officer, and that Grace’s parents would be on the hook in a civil lawsuit if such an injury occurred during Grace’s prospective protest.
LIE … the motorist that struck the police officer — coincidentally NEAR the protest, not AT the protest — did so because the motorist had a seizure. The incident of a motorist hitting a police officer with his care HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PROTEST.
They Board members didn’t count on one thing, however. Grace hid a tape recorder under her clothes and recorded the whole thing:
Here’s some TV news coverage, including this 16 year-old’s addressing the board, and reading her parents’ letter demanding that the two board members who bullied her immediately resign:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/dcsd-student-accuses-board-members-of-bullying-and-intimidation-during-closed-door-meeting
If you have time to kill, here’s the actual secret (unedited) audio of the Grace getting brow-beaten for almost an hour-and-a-half:
It starts at about …
( 04:44 – )
Board Director JUDITH REYNOLDS: “Good morning, I’m Mrs. Reynolds. Thank you for meeting with us.”
Early on, they falsely tell her that, as a teenager, she has no First Amendment right to free speech.
They mention that they know that Grace has contacted the ACLU, and linked to it on her website.
They make the claim the ACLU is wrong about Grace having any free speech. Under the law, they claims a minor with parents or guardians has no free speech rights.
Complete nonsense.
SILVERTHORN: “I’ve seen that. You link to the ACLU. That is not a student protest document. It is an adult protest document. So there are certain rights that students and people under the guardianship of others have and don’t have …
“Because you could argue that you do have rights to do certain things. Although as a minor there are limitations on some of those rights. However, with rights come responsibilities. And among those responsibilities you keep talking about the police or sheriff’s department who would take care of this because of the part of the county we live in. Um, that takes those officers away from their other duties. The district will incur a charge for that. So I should assume that you’re willing to carry that financial responsibility. Our taxpayers expect our students to be in school because our taxpayers are the ones who pay for you to be in school. They pay for the sheriff’s department. Do you understand that rights come with responsibilities?
“And if things go sideways for some reason or even on the issues of perhaps how all this gets paid for that that may land squarely on your or your parents’ shoulders since you are a minor.
It’s riveting stuff… and keep in mind that this is two middle-aged adults double-teaming a 16 year-old.
At one point, they claim that it’s teachers who are putting Grace up to this, with the implication that Grace is being used and manipulated by adults.
Board Member SILVERTHORNE:
( 24:20 – )
“What I’m hearing is…
” ‘(Teachers’) opinions aren’t valued.’
” ‘They have to jump through hoops,’
” ‘They have a lot of work. ‘
” ‘People are not compensated.’
“These are things that perhaps you’re hearing from your teachers?”
Silverthorne then claims that those teachers who are getting fired or pushed out en masse are actually the problem, not the board or its policies, or the state’s policies.
“There are people (teachers here) who don’t have very much motivation or to desire to change how they present themselves for evaluation.”
Silverthorne probes Grace about whether she is hearing these things in the context of the classroom:
“If someone is in front of your classroom talking about their compensation, and about their benefits structure, or their evaluation structure, that is inappropriate. … I don’t understand what that has to do with your education.
” … ”
“Those (conversations) are things that should occur outside of the classroom.”
GRACE: “They are.”
SILVERTHORNE: “I am getting angry emails from angry parents who are claiming that teachers are encouraging their children who are participating in the protest.”
They ridicule the very idea of students protesting:
“A protest is just the opportunity to hang out, especially when I don’t like the class… holding a protest is to invite a lot of people who only want to get out of class.”
They also claim that outside agitators will come and high-jack the protest.
“I think there will be people who have heard about this, and they will corner the media and make it about what they think. There are people who have axes to grind, and they will use you.”
They threaten her by saying any damage or injury will land “her parents’ shoulders.”
Her parents will get sued.
“And if things go sideways for some reason or even on the issues of perhaps how all this gets paid for that that may land squarely on your or your parents’ shoulders since you are a minor.”
Near the end, Grace talks about the intimidation her teachers have face, and that a student protest was the only way the teachers’ story could be heard without any teacher being targeted..
GRACE: ” And I think teachers are scared to talk about the evaluation process I guess just because it’s so closely aligned with the district that they feel like they are defying the district and they feel like that could affect their job or their job stability.
“And maybe like creating an anonymous or a like a safer environment for teachers to really voice their opinions about how they feel about extra workload or the evaluation system or whatever it is. I think that needs to be addressed.”
Silverthorne says the she will repeat “till I’m blue in the fact” that no teacher will be fired for using their free speech rights to express disapproval of district policies.
Yeah right.
——-
Another news story
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/access-of-two-douglas-county-school-board-members-to-student-at-ponderosa-raises-security-questions
… says that the two Board Members may have violated District policy by interviewing Grace without first getting the permission of the District Superintendent, or with first informing, or obtaining the permission of Grace’s parents.
They are also not allowed to “direct” or give orders to school administrators, or to students. Audio presented show them doing exactly that.
Here’s a page with links to more coverage:
http://douglascountyparents.com/grace-davis-collection-of-news-coverage/
Here’s the transcript someone did of what Grace recorded:
http://douglascountyparents.com/transcript-of-grace-davis-recording/
Here’s the text of an address to the board from Pat Crowley,
a parent supportive of Grace:
http://douglascountyparents.com/public-comment-stand-grace/
———
Read to the Board of Education during Public Comment
May 10, 2016
by Pat Crowley
“I stand here tonight in support of Grace Davis and applaud her intelligence, tenacity and outstanding moral character in standing up for the teachers and students of Douglas County.
“I have listened to the recording, and attended the last board meeting where she bravely stood up and articulated how she felt bullied and intimidated.
“I sat while she described how her parents had not consented to the meeting, and when she rightfully asked for the resignations of Directors Silverthorn and Reynolds.
“I sat and watched Grace tremble.
“I sat and witnessed numerous violations of Roberts Rules in the attempt to stifle comments and prevent the motion asking for the immediate resignations from moving forward.
“I sat and listened to Director Silverthorn and Reynolds refuse to accept responsibility for their actions, and refuse to properly apologize to Grace and her family.
“I sat and listened to the refusal of directors Silverthorn and Reynolds to recuse themselves from voting on the motion regarding their resignation.
“I sat and listened while director Benevento declared,
” ‘We make the rules’.
“I sat silently while an improper ‘phone in’ vote occurred. I sat and listened while the
perfectly named ‘Grace’ displayed just that.
“I will sit no longer. I stand with Grace.
“I stand with Grace and demand the immediate resignation of directors Silverthorn and Reynolds. I stand with Grace and the hundreds of community members who have sent emails to all board members requesting the resignations.
“I stand with the Girl Scouts and their swift action. I stand with the thousands of citizens of Douglas County who have voted to restore our school district. Directors Silverthorn and Reynolds, you have lost all moral authority to be sitting up on the dais.
“It is time for both of you to stand up for what is right, step down and sit down.
“I stand with Grace.”
————————
Here’s more coverage:
Why You Should Care About What’s Happening In Douglas County School District
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/why-should-care-douglas-county-school-district
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