Logan Ruths, center, has regularly attended Woodland Park School District board meetings since he was fired by the district in March, including this April 12 meeting.A former employee of a Colorado school district was banned from school board meetings because of his criticism of the conservative administration, a lawsuit filed Thursday by the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union alleges.
Logan Ruths was fired from his informational technology specialist role at Woodland Park School District in March after he raised concerns that the administration had improperly withheld files and redacted information in response to open records requests, which Ruths processed as part of his job. Ruths alleges in his lawsuit against the district and Ken Witt, its superintendent, that the district used a small remark Ruths made during a recent school board meeting as pretext to retaliate against him for speaking out against school board members and administrators, including in an NBC News article. He alsoin the Colorado Legislature about his experience in support of a bill to submit school boards to an ethics oversight commission.
The school district in Woodland Park, a small mountain town outside Colorado Springs, has been embroiled in bitter discord over recent changes.Since a group of conservatives took control two years ago, a small mountain town outside Colorado Springs, the community has been embroiled in bitter discord over changes to the district.
The Woodland Park board hired Witt as a superintendent; he’d previously been booted off of another county’s school board after he pushed for courses that would “promote positive aspects of the United States.” The board also adopted a right-wing group’s social studies standard, placed a gag order on school employees and approved the community’s first charter school