On October 16, Ark Valley Voice (AVV) reported that the far-right Christian nationalist group known as the Truth and Liberty Coalition had targeted the Buena Vista and Cañon City school boards for takeover. It now appears that this is not just a local and rural grab for power; it is a statewide effort targeting at least 30 of the state’s 178 school districts.
Traditionally, school board races are non-partisan local affairs, focused on the local budgets, supporting school sports, and perhaps state test scores. No more.
A movement led by Christian nationalist/dominionist televangelist and Charis Bible College founder Andrew Wommack appears determined to force a far-right version of education on Colorado school districts.
His organizations based in Woodland Park, include not just the Truth and Liberty Coalition which AVV covered in our news article, but an action group it launched called Transform Colorado.”
It is this movement, Transform Colorado, that has recruited and trained candidates and filled ballots across dozens of school districts with far-right candidates. According to its website and Wommack himself, they have a stated goal, “that unites Christian leaders to restore biblical values in the public square.”
This is the same group that seized control of the Woodland Park School District in 2021, making it the first (and only) school district in the nation to adopt the radical American birthright history curriculum that waters down our history so that “white kids aren’t made to feel guilty” and celebrates the Doctrine of Discovery” that claims white Europeans were divinely inspired to discover and settle America as a Christian nation.
According to an article by Steve Rabey in the November 1 issue of Religious News, this is a statewide power push. While locally we have witnessed a play for the school boards of Buena Vista and Cañon City, these are only two of 30 targeted school boards. Their play has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with opposing and controlling teachers’ unions and gaining political power to bend curriculums and leadership to their worldview.
Their worldview opposes hot-button topics included in conservative Christian campaigns nationwide: transgenderism, “boys in girls’ sports,” sex education, parental rights, and social studies and history curriculums. The school districts that have been targeted range from small rural school districts of less than 1,000 students such as Buena Vista, to giant metropolitan school districts such as Cherry Creek, with close to 50,000 students.
The list of school districts it has targeted for the 2023 consolidated elections crisscrosses the state:
Academy 20
Adams 12
Archuleta County
Brighton 27J
Buena Vista
Cañon City
Cherry Creek
Cheyenne Mountain
Colorado Springs
Delta County
Douglas County
Estes Park
Falcon District 49
Fountain District 8
Fremont
Garfield
Greel
Harrison
Jefferson County
Lewis-Palmer
Littleton
Mesa County Valley
Poudre
Pueblo 60
Pueblo County
Thompson
Weld RE-8
Widefield
Windsor
Woodland Park
Colorado Public Radio has a more comprehensive recap of some of the school board battles going on in individual school districts. A few highlights outside Chaffee County:
- In Douglas County, the far-right Moms for Liberty group has already taken control of the Elizabeth School Board, but hasn’t yet managed to wrest a curriculum change. A new board majority elected Douglas County School District-fired Superintendent Cory Wise, students and staff walked, and a lawsuit against the school district cost them $800,000. The community is still fractured over the school board’s next move; to change the district’s equity policy.
- No surprise, school districts across El Paso County, most of which are already conservative, are in turmoil. In D-11, they threw out an equity policy, and in Academy District 20, the rallying cry is against “the ‘woke’ ideology infiltrating our schools”. They are aggressively courting evangelical and LDS churches in the district for support.
- In Pueblo 60 they are “Forging the Future” supporting four biblically-minded candidates in a campaign led by the pastor of a local church. The message: parental rights, district transparency and calls for “God, Family and Country” to be respected in school.
- Weld County — In the Greeley-Evans 6 district there are seven candidates running for three seats. Two of the candidates have been active in trying to get books banned, and their registered agent is an officer with Greeley Republican Women.
Per a recent CPR article: “Federal political campaign regulations prohibit nonprofit charities and churches from “participating or intervening in, (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”
While Wommack might say he doesn’t lead a church, that is hard to square with his televangelist role.
The practice of some evangelical churches declaring which presidential candidate is more godly goes back at least to the days of former President Jimmy Carter and former President Ronald Reagan. In those days evangelicals declared that Reagan, a divorced Hollywood movie star was more godly than the Sunday school teaching Carter.*
What is different now is the strident insistence that those who disagree with the far-right positions taken by televangelists such as Wommack are somehow not just less godly, but dangerous. Not only is this not true, it is both anti-religious and anti-democratic to suggest it.
Editor’s note: *This journalist personally witnessed an evangelical non-denominational pastor stand before a congregation during the Reagan-Carter race and declare that God was on Reagan’s side and any of us who voted otherwise might have a visit coming with hell.
And thank you, Paula, for your very enlightening question.
As a former BVSD board member and president, I’ve invested hundreds of hours during the early 1990s promoting an agenda designed to get BVSD students and teachers ready for the 21st Century.
Looking back, I think we have generally succeeded in accomplishing that goal.
Myself, I will never surrender BVSD to any board candidates or group of right-wing extremists whose goal is to replace our student’s intellectual freedom with some type of rote, off-beat, political dogma.
Any board member expressing such inclinations is serving on the wrong board and in the wrong town. In my not-so-very humble opinion, they should be held to account for their efforts to undermine our kid’s educations…
Great article, Jan! In my day on the BVSD Board, it was all about kids, teachers, and education. Now it’s all about the political indoctrination of our young kids so the far right can build their future power base, much like Adolf Hitler did in 1930s Germany.
Jan- In your article it states that Transform Colorado has recruited and trained candidates and filled ballots with far-right candidates. Is there any documentation of the recruiting and training occurring in the Buena Vista race? I know the campaign piece created by the truth & liberty coalition was created and passed out at specific organizations to use to help persuade BV conservative voters to vote for candidates the organization believed would most closely align with their groups beliefs and interests, but is their any documentation that these candidates were recruited and trained by Transform Colorado?
When I read this article, I interpret it (possibly incorrectly) as saying the candidates that were questioned for this campaign piece (as we have learned only three were ever asked these questions as far as we know) were specifically recruited and trained. I don’t like the idea of thinking that of any of our school board candidates unless there is proof, and would appreciate clarification on that part of the article.
Thank you for continuing to dig into this story as I do believe it is one to pay attention to. It is extremely disconcerting that our small town local school board race has been pulled into this mess by this outside organization.
I do question anyone not looking into who was asking the questions to create a voter information piece and whether they had any local ties, especially if they are not answering questions from other local organizations. That being said, I do not want to assume anyone was recruited and trained by this extremist organization without fair knowledge of that fact.
Thank you for your questions, Paula, if you go to the Transform Colorado website, to their voter guide section, you can see that their long list of voter guides includes Buena Vista. We in the mainstream news media are taking the Truth and Liberty Coalition (which created Transform Colorado) at their word when they say they have trained and recruited candidates who represent their values. That might be reality, or hyperbole — we don’t know; but they are claiming it and no one locally has disputed it. So far, none of the local candidates listed will answer questions, which is usually a pretty good sign that they don’t want to reveal their connections.
The media list of those of us pointing out this Christian nationalist action across the state is getting longer, and include not just Ark Valley Voice, but the Colorado Sun, The Canon City Times, Religion News, Christianity Today and Colorado Pubic Radio.
Thank you so much for the additional clarification on the recruiting and training part of this article. It was extremely helpful.
I have been following a lot of the reporting on Truth & Liberty Coalition’s influence on so many school board elections, including the school board election here in Buena Vista. I feel it is extremely important for our community and communities across Colorado to understand what priorities are being pushed by this hate-group (Truth & Liberty Coalition and the affiliated organizations). I stand with others in our community saying this is not ok in Buena Vista. I would hope that the candidates that did respond to questions by this organization would clarify their position on the issues brought up by the Coalition.
I appreciate your reporting on this group’s attempts to influence our local elections.