Colorado Springs Education Association

District 11 and Colorado Springs –

Where We Stand  - and What’s Next

In October, we’ve seen pages ripped out of our student’s Health textbooks. 

In October, our middle school students were supposed to be reading about Frederick Douglass after having read about John Calhoun’s defense of slavery, but it was crickets after a districtwide email was sent by Krystal Rasmussen the new Chief of Curriculum that began with the words, “we’re pulling Frederick Douglass…” Teachers were instructed to skip that unit. Who would have ever dreamed that Callhoun and pro-slavery arguments would prevail in 2025? 

In October, Dr. Angel Givler-Viers was placed on administrative leave—for merely talking about district policies on social media where she has more than 20,000 followers. She was walked out of her 5^th Grade classroom, told not to speak with her colleagues, parents and students. She was given no specific reason for being put on leave, while the district began the search to find one.  While at home, her students were without their teacher.  The school board and a new Chief of Curriculum that likes to talk about “liberty.” Censorship is not liberty. 

In October, for the first time, in the more than a half -century that CSEA has existed, teachers went on strike. It was a one-day strike. A rare for Colorado “unfair labor practice strike”. Why, did we walk those picket lines? It wasn’t over wages. It was to protest the district’s policies and because teacher working conditions directly correlate to student learning conditions.  

In November, Colorado Springs voters pushed back against the policies of Mom’s for Liberty and the other extremist groups that have captured the school board’s agenda by electing two pro-public education and union advocates: Leann Bacca-Bartlet and Charles Johnson. These Champions of D11 will be seated on the School District 11 Board of Education in December.  

In November, hundreds of community members and students joined fellow CSEA members in protest of the Board of Education’s plan to enact policies that will impose censorship of materials offered in libraries and classrooms all around the district. We will not be silent. The freedom to read is under attack, we will fight to ensure the students of D11 have access to different perspectives, are not subject to imposing values, and can see themselves reflected in literature. The D11 BOE needs to keep politics out of our classrooms!!  

On December 3, Dr. Angel Givler-Viers will be recommended for dismissal to the BOE based on unfounded allegations of unprofessional conduct in conjunction with social media posts leading up to the October 8 Unfair Labor Practice Strike. The district is terrified of her voice and is attempting to silence it. 

Since the strike, a few teachers have been removed from the classroom under the guise of allegedly violating BOE policy GBEG and other assorted provisions in the daily evolving D11 Employee Handbook. Many others have been reprimanded for letting potential substitutes know they would be subbing for striking employees in advance of October 8. These threatening, intimidating scare-tactics by D11 are disrupting education. Disrupting student learning conditions and employee working conditions. Colorado Springs School District 11 was once a destination district for students and employees, alike. However, actions like these are driving away highly qualified staff and the students they teach. Let teachers teach, let students learn and join us on December 3^rd in protest of these actions and in support of the educators, students, and community that make D11 an amazing place to be.