Dear Boulder Valley School District Board,
I am writing to request that you please vote yes for Ascent Charter School to open 2019/2020.
I have attended the meetings and one thing that I have heard repeatedly is that members of BVSD school board believe the school will be lacking in diversity. That is just incorrect. We actually pulled our oldest out of BVSD 17 years ago and have been using similar curriculum as Ascent. We have 4 more children in school, are a latino and black family. We are a picture of diversity if ever that was one. Ascent is the only public school we would send our children to, but making the drive to Golden is just not an option. One of our children has special needs and we believe Ascent will be able to meet his needs.
I heard over and over in the meetings about the lack of diversity and I was really bothered that people who are not in our minority ethnic group could be making a decision for us based on what they feel and think we need/want all the while disregarding our stated requests. I noticed there was more ‘diversity’ in the interested families sitting in on the meeting than the school board and committee. Much of the ‘diversity’ you speak of is in concentrated areas and is just not representative of reality of this part of Colorado. It has absolutely nothing to do with opening Ascent and we felt it was both unfair and hypocritical to use perceived numbers before the school has even opened up.
We are not afraid to be given school choice and feel that factoring in ‘lack of ethnic diversity’ is actually racist, as you clearly do not see us as people who have our own voice, but instead as a statistic for diversity. It is my firm belief that if this school opens, there will be people of all ethnicities, cultures, religion, economic status.
I understand there are other concerns stated by the board. Please give our school a chance to meet your requests. Please do not be afraid to give so many families the choice they want. Please give so many of us homeschooling families a reason to bring our children back into the school district.
Thank you
Angela