The following account was written and provided to us with permission to print, by Dr. Terre Davis.
November 9, 2021
My BOCES report is a recap of 8 years of involvement as the Custer County Board representative:
SCBOCES stands for South Central Board of Co-Operative Educational Services. It is comprised of 12 rural school districts and is funded with special education and grant funding from the state and national government and local district fees. The primary purpose is to provide services to students with special needs.
I had asked many questions of our local board regarding the $70,000+ funding we were spending each year with SCBOCES and could never get an answer. When I was elected to the board, the members appointed me to be the board representative.
I attended my first conference with the CASB (Colorado Association of School Boards) the month after I was elected and gathered as much information as possible to become familiar with the purpose of a BOCES.
The first meeting I attended with SCBOCES was in January, 2014. I knew no one in attendance other than our superintendent. The Executive Director started the meeting with a 45 minute review of the purpose of a BOCES. I asked several questions regarding the budget and district services which she could not, or would not, answer.
After her presentation it was time to elect board officers. It was obvious the election was pre-planned. However, another new board member nominated me. A vote was held and I was elected President.
I was informed through a letter from the former Board President that there were many concerns that needed to be addressed, such as inappropriate expenditures by certain employees. The board had no elected treasurer so the executive director, a paid employee, was serving as treasurer which is an obvious conflict of interest. We elected a treasurer at the next regular board meeting.
The new board became actively involved in the many issues which came to light and in March, 2014, following all the proper protocols and procedures and following our attorney’s advice we placed six persons on paid administrative leave without renewal of contracts, which included the Executive Director, Special Education Director, IT Director, two special education secretaries and one special education teacher. The board also changed attorney representation as it felt that the current attorney was working for the employees instead of the board.
We employed Dr. Henry Roman, a well-respected former superintendent in Pueblo to assist us in the transition. We then posted the position and hired a superintendent from Colorado. That appointment was not positive as we negotiated a buyout of his contract. Dr. Roman then came back and was employed as a part time Executive Director for next three years. We once again posted the executive director position but this time as a part time position and combined it with special education director position as it was determined that the executive director position did not require full time employment status. All went well for the first year but has since detonated.
In June, 2020, a conflict arose regarding pay out for vacation time and several reasons were exposed as to why employees were not able to take their vacation days. One thing led to another and the executive director did not seem to try or want to try rectifying the situation. Employees became unappreciated and the workplace seemed to become extremely negative and oppressive. Superintendents became involved as did their respective board members and instead of trying to work together to rectify the situation, people were split against each other over issues which should have been corrected by the SCBOCES leadership. I could see that there was a plan in place to change the direction of the SCBOCES which was a direction I could not condone and decided that I would no longer want to be the captain of a ship that I knew was sinking fast, so I resigned as Board President in December, 2020. A new board president was immediately elected and she lead the meeting in January, 2021. At the January meeting the executive director recommended non-renewal of the CFO’s contract without ever alerting the CFO that she was going to recommend this serious action and gave no reason why this action was taking place. A new organizational plan was provided in the board packets but was never discussed. The entire meeting was very tense and I was the only board member questioning the action being taken. It was obvious that all actions were pre-planned by certain superintendents and board members. Two weeks later, the executive director placed the CFO on paid administrative leave with no reasons given. No performance evaluation was ever completed on the CFO by the current executive director nor was there any duty performance counseling. A private company was hired to replace the CFO. The new board president promptly resigned two weeks later with no reason given.
The vice-president then decided that he would just stay vice president without voting consent from the board and proceeded to lead the board. I pointed out that the State Statute rule says that every board must have a president but the board continued to violate that rule until April when the election finally appeared on
the agenda.
The board violated many rules since January 2021 which include the following:
..wrongful dismissal of an employee
..violation of the open meetings act
..did not follow parliamentary procedures
..did not follow any version of Robert’s Rules of Order
.. violated board policies—evaluations, approval of new organizational plan, etc
..allowed unauthorized signatory on bank accounts
..approved minutes that were wrong—for three months
..many others
Again, I was the only board member asking questions and not getting answers.
My major concern is the budget and how much extra cost is coming our way?
We reduced CC-1 annual costs by 35-40K and have not increased any fees for the past four years. However, I fear it will go up dramatically as SCBOCES can’t keep hiring companies for contracting services to our students and adding positions which seem to lack justification such as going from an Executive Director/Special Education Director as one position paying $100K to a full time Executive Director paying $125K and a special education director at $80K. I see troubled waters ahead in many ways and I feel that the boat has sunk.
Doreen, who has been our alternate board representative, and I investigated the possibility of joining a different BOCES at our board’s request, but we found out that it takes a full year with lots of extra time and effort and our board felt that we needed to go with the flow for another year and allow the new board to address and correct the problems which have surfaced.
I will welcome the new board representative to SCBOCES to spend some time with me to go over all of the concerns and share my many documents with that person.
As an aside, I pose the concern that too many school boards and organizations of school boards have forgotten that they work for parents and the taxpayers who fund schools and have instead become their own self governing entity. When boards like SCBOCES lose focus on why they exist, then things such as I have described in this letter happen and must be corrected.
Dr. Terre Davis, President
Custer County C-1 Board of Education
SCBOCES Board Representative
Heaven gained a genuine soul on November 10, 2021. Calvin “Cal” Kent Leslie, a week shy of his 74th birthday, passed away peacefully at Parkview Medical Center in Pueblo, Colorado. He died the way he lived, on his own terms, strong minded and with the unwavering stubbornness we all loved about him. Well, mostly loved.
Carol Dee Hepp, 67, of Westcliffe, CO went to be with our Lord November 5, 2021, at Penrose hospital
