The D20 Accountability Project

09/14/2026

09/14/2026

📣 HAVE YOU SUBMITTED A CORA REQUEST TO ACADEMY DISTRICT 20? WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU.

The D20 Accountability Project is beginning a broader review of how Colorado Open Records Act requests are being handled by Academy District 20.

We have received reports raising concerns about patterns that may include:

• Requests being marked “complete” even though responsive records or requested categories appear to be missing
• Portions of requests being declined, ignored, or left unaddressed without a clear explanation
• Extensions being taken with vague or questionable justification
• Little or no communication when the District claims a request is unclear or overly broad
• Failure to seek clarification before limiting the scope of a request
• Search methods that may be too narrow to reasonably locate responsive records
• Inconsistent responses to similar requests
• Records, documentation, or attachments referenced elsewhere but not produced
• Delays and procedural hurdles that make obtaining public records unnecessarily difficult
• Direct questions being sidestepped rather than answered- including responses that seem to blur the distinction between “this record does not exist” and “the District is not required to provide this record.” Those are not the same answer. If a record does not exist, say that. If the District believes it may lawfully withhold an existing record, identify that position and the basis for it.

We are also interested in situations where requesters have asked straightforward follow-up questions such as whether a record exists, whether a search was actually performed, what was searched, or why a particular item was not produced- only to receive a response that never directly answers the question, or no response at all.

One isolated problem can be a mistake.

A repeated pattern across multiple requesters is something very different.

That is what we are trying to determine.

If you have submitted a CORA request to D20 — particularly within the last several years — we are asking you to send us:

➡️ Your original CORA request
➡️ Any correspondence with the District about the request
➡️ Extension notices or fee estimates
➡️ The District’s final response
➡️ The records you ultimately received
➡️ Any follow-up questions you sent and the District’s responses
➡️ Anything you believe was missing, improperly withheld, or left unanswered

Even if you originally considered your request “completed,” we would still like to review it. Comparing requests side-by-side is one of the best ways to identify whether the same issues are occurring repeatedly.

The goal is not to speculate. It is to document.

We are compiling the requests, timelines, responses, explanations, fees, extensions, search descriptions, and outcomes so that we can identify measurable trends in D20’s CORA practices.

That includes a very basic question:

When D20 does not produce a requested record, is it because the record does not exist, because the District did not locate it, or because the District is asserting that it can legally withhold it?

Those are three different things, and the public should not have to decipher which one the District means.

If the evidence demonstrates a significant or systemic problem, the compiled information may also be provided to a legal representative for review and consideration of next steps.

Public records belong to the public.

Transparency should not depend on who is asking, what they are asking about, or how persistent they are willing to be.

If you have a D20 CORA file, send it to the D20 Accountability Project at:
[email protected]

We’re building the paper trail. The more documentation we have, the harder a pattern is to dismiss as an isolated incident.

09/06/2026

Five Academy District 20 board members. Thirty books. You.

09/05/2026

When Academy District 20 board member Eddie Waldrep says students who believe socialism might be as good as capitalism lack “facts and evidence,” he is not inviting a serious economics discussion.

He is announcing the correct answer before class begins.

Students should absolutely learn about capitalism. They should also learn about socialism, markets, labor, regulation, monopolies, public goods, incentives, inequality, and the ways every economic system can produce both opportunity and harm.

That is education.

Telling students their questions prove they are uninformed because they have not adopted a board member’s preferred conclusion is not economic literacy. It is political instruction wearing a school badge.

Students deserve analysis. Not indoctrination with better branding.

09/05/2026

At the September 3 Academy District 20 meeting, Holly Tripp asked whether teaching neutrality becomes “malpractice” when students do not draw the right conclusions about systems of government. She then said schools should be unafraid to teach “these truths.”

In plain English, students are being told not simply to study competing systems, but to reach the conclusion that America’s system is superior.

Civic education should teach history, evidence, tradeoffs, failures, rights, institutions, and competing arguments. It should give students the tools to think.
It should not hand them an ideological answer key and call that critical thinking.

ASD20’s job is to educate students, not to turn the classroom into a place where a sitting board member’s political conclusion is the required destination.

09/05/2026

The book-purchase pause was ridiculous before anyone even mentioned an exception.

Libraries are supposed to buy books through professional collection practices. Instead, Academy District 20 turned ordinary school work into a political traffic jam.

Then Holly Tripp described telling a school leader that a book on the Battle of the Books list could be purchased anyway.

She acknowledged that board members are not supposed to speak individually for the whole board. Then she did it anyway.

If an exception is appropriate, the board should adopt it collectively. The superintendent should communicate it. Staff should know the rule.

Board members do not get personal waiver cards.

Where does this end? Can individual directors now give individual directions to principals and librarians whenever they decide the board’s own pause is inconvenient? What happens when another director says something different?

The pause itself was a dereliction of duty. The one-off exception exposed why.

09/05/2026

He said it out loud. At an Academy District 20 board meeting. Into a microphone.

Eddie Waldrep floated “starting from scratch,” scrapping the library books, and rebuilding the collection from an approved list.

That is not a paraphrase. Watch the clip.

His answer to a public-school library was not a transparent review process for a specific title. It was to clear the shelves and begin again with books somebody approves.

Who decides which books survive? Who chooses the approved list? What happens to the books taxpayers already bought? How much does it cost to reinvent a library because an elected official finds professional collection development insufficiently obedient?

There are trained librarians. There are processes for reviewing individual books.

There are parents, students, educators, and established policies.

But apparently the plan is to scrap the whole thing.

This is not thoughtful governance. It is an ideological reset dressed up as “curation.”

Students deserve libraries. Not a board-approved reading bunker.

09/05/2026

At the September 3 Academy District 20 meeting, Derrick Wilburn says “I’m TCA,” raises “mission creep,” and calls for The Classical Academy to be brought before the D20 board over its direction, parental engagement, and board appointments.

Charter oversight has a legitimate purpose. If a charter violates its contract, the district has responsibilities.

That is not what makes this remarkable.

The remarkable part is a district board member pressing this deeply into a charter school’s internal governance and appointments while the same political world endlessly lectures everyone else about charter autonomy and school choice.

We have not heard of another district board digging this far into a charter’s internal operations. If there is a comparable example, show us.

There is also relevant public context. A TCA founder endorsed other school-board candidates, but not Wilburn. That doesn't prove motive. It does make this performance of ownership at the D20 board table more than a little interesting.

Does charter autonomy matter only when the charter board reaches the “right” conclusions?

Wilburn also criticizes TCA's board appointments, which is rich considering the D20 board HAD JUST DONE THE SAME THING earlier in the evening.

09/04/2026

There is just so very much to unpack about tonight's board meeting, but quickly, since Eddie Waldrep again brought up the supposed "Mississippi Miracle", the "miracle" has been throughly debunked.

https://tultican.com/2025/03/21/questioning-the-mississippi-miracle-again/

Perhaps his general lack of rigor explains why he would suggest, as if it's a completely normal and reasonable idea, that Academy District 20 libraries should just *start over from scratch* and replace contents only with books from a board approved list.

By Thomas Ultican 3/21/2025 The national assessment of education progress (NAEP) is a biennial effort of the Department of Education. At the end of February, Chad Aldeman of The 74 – a billio…

09/03/2026

BREAKING: Kelli Hawkins is appointed to the vacant Academy District 20 board position. Zero substantive discussion. Zero debate. No other nominees.