In this enlightening episode of Restoring Education in America, host Priscilla Rahn uncovers the tumultuous developments within Cherry Creek Schools. Joined by Lori Gimmelstein, founder of the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, they dive into the investigation that reveals a toxic work environment fostered by the now-retired Superintendent Chris Smith and his wife, Brenda. This discussion sheds light on the lack of appropriate measures to handle such a problematic administration and the urgent need for change.
00:00:03 Introducing Restoring Education in America
Welcome to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Rahn. She’s a master educator and author leading the conversation to restore the American mind through wisdom, virtue, and truth.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Restoring Education in America. I’m your host, Priscilla Rahn. I’m so excited that you decided to join the conversation today. This fall, there is a new school that’s opening. It’s called Excalibur Classical Academy, and their mission and vision is restoring America’s heritage by developing servant leaders who are keepers and defenders of the principles of freedom for which our founding fathers pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. And if you’re interested in sending your children to school this fall to Excalibur Classical Academy, please go to their website, ExcaliburClassicalAcademy.org. They’re opening with kindergarten through third grade, and they’re also hiring. Well, I want to get into the conversation today. It’s breaking news, and I’m not going to delay. I’m going to bring my dear friend, Lori Gimmelstein, to the stage. She is the founder of CPAN, which is Colorado Parent Advocacy Network. Welcome to the show, Lori. Thank you, Priscilla. I appreciate the opportunity to join you on your show. Well, I know we’ve been talking and you have some not yet released information. And so thank you for coming on today. I just want to get right into the conversation about what’s happening in Cherry Creek schools. So we know recently the superintendent, Chris Smith. was caught misbehaving along with his wife, who was the head of HR there. Both of them are no longer employed in Cherry Creek. Talk a little bit about what happened.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, so Denver 7 ABC affiliate here in Denver actually did an investigation at the request of multiple teachers that came forward in confidence to describe a very toxic, hostile work environment in the district. that was led by Superintendent Christopher Smith since 2021. And his wife, Brenda Smith, is the chief human resources officer. She was put on administrative leave this past week. And Christopher Smith announced his retirement effective January 30th after Tony Kowalewski with Denver 7 ABC did multiple stories really exposing that Cherry Creek is fostering a very hostile work environment. Teachers, faculty, they genuinely do not have a place to go to complain, especially if it’s about the superintendent because his wife plays the chief HR role. Teachers have reported through the incident reporting tool at coloradoparents.org, very similar scenarios to the teachers that went forward with ABC. And they describe being brought into what is called the crying room. where they are intimidated, where they’re threatened. And we actually facilitated a lawsuit against the Cherry Creek School District because we received an incident report from a campus middle school dean. And he was essentially let go for saying that he was a proud American during a DEI mandatory professional development training. And the America First legal team took that case pro bono and it is currently in litigation. And so we know that a hostile work environment has existed for a very long time. But we also know that Christopher Smith and his wife, Brenda Smith, are really just the tip of the iceberg for creating this hostile work environment. I will go on record saying that the past school board and the current school board are complicit in fostering that toxic work environment, along with the Cherry Creek Education Association, which is our local teachers union.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, Lori, I know most school districts have a conflict of interest policy. So Brenda was the HR director at the time. Her husband was being considered for superintendent of the school district. And the school board hired him anyway. I mean, how…
SPEAKER 02 :
How did that happen? Well, I think and I don’t actually know the details on when Brenda was hired off the top of my head. I would have to look into that a little bit more in depth. But from my understanding, what their practice was, was that she would not report to Superintendent Smith, her husband, that she would report to the deputy superintendent, Jennifer Perry, who is second in line in the organizational chart and is now our interim superintendent.
SPEAKER 03 :
OK, let’s put a a pin in that right there. Okay. Because you had a conversation with Dr. Jennifer Perry and with all of this conversation around respecting parents and raising virtuous children, you had a very interesting conversation. Why don’t we play it for our listeners right now?
SPEAKER 02 :
Then why do you have gender specific plans if you’re not supporting that child? What do you mean? So the plans that the district has when a student goes to a teacher and shares that they want to be a different name and go by different pronouns and use a different bathroom, where there’s the gender specific plan that’s actually documented within the district so that there’s documentation that the staff will be calling this child by their intended pronouns. With these plans, doesn’t that go opposite to what you just said? No.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, so how? Because the kid has rights too.
SPEAKER 02 :
And when their teachers are telling them that one student is now a different gender and they’re going to go by different pronouns, and then that isn’t communicated to the parents at home. And then, you know, for example, my daughter says, well, I don’t know what to do when I see him in public because they told us that his parents don’t know. And so I don’t know if I have to call him a him or a her. And I’m like, well, do you feel like you have to lie? And she’s like, yeah. So they’re teaching my kid that she has to lie in the community.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, they’re teaching children to lie. They’re teaching teachers to lie. I know this for a fact as a full-time public school teacher that they tell us, and I have emails and I have evidence where they say, do not tell parents that their child wants to be called by a different pronoun or a different name. And so why is this a problem, Lori, that now we have an interim school district superintendent who believes this?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I find it very alarming. So this conversation occurred back in 2023 after my daughter had come home and shared with us that her friend Stella was now going to be River. And River was going to use he, his, him pronouns and use the boys’ room. And at the time, I didn’t really know. Actually, I apologize. This was like in 2021. And the recording was a year later. I made a comment, wow, that’s really progressive of River’s parents to ask the school to do a workshop. And my daughter’s comment was, no, no, River goes home every day as a girl. His parents have no idea. And I thought for sure my child must be mistaken when she shared that. And I went to the teacher principal school board and then I ended up in this conversation that I recorded with Deputy Superintendent Jennifer Perry. And what’s alarming about this conversation is that she denied it when I first asked her about the use of these gender transition plans that we had Cora using Colorado Open Records Act request and had received. And so she denied it. And then when I slid the paperwork over to her that we had received under Cora, she immediately went to defend it by saying kids have rights too. And I do wanna make it clear to our viewers that for years, the district was denying this publicly and then she defended it after denying it and then in 2024 governor polis signed into law house bill 24 10 39 non-legal name changes so it made that practice where schools could hide gender transitions from parents. And it’s very alarming that if a child is in so much distress that they believe that they were born in the wrong body, that parents are involved in all decision-making around that. And we do know that the practice of social transitioning, allowing a child to choose A name that goes along with their newly declared gender identity, newly and using new pronouns, using spaces of the opposite sex is a intervention. It’s a medical, psychological intervention.
SPEAKER 03 :
So here’s the point. It is not the proper role of government to interfere in parents raising their children. Parents do not send their children to school for the school to keep secrets from them. This is an overreach, in my opinion, even as a classroom teacher. I’m not going to be a part of separating parents. If I’m going to do anything, it’s to help bring parents and their children together to problem solve these things because no one’s going to love your children more. than the parent. OK, there’s no way I can love your kids. I can love being their teacher and all of that. There’s no way that I can do a better job of raising your children. And so it’s really critical that we start to turn this Titanic in public education because we’re seeing a mass exodus. school districts are desperate to hold on to those dollars because they see children as dollars and they’re doing anything that they can to to keep the lights on but if you’re if you want to do that you need to start paying attention to what parents are saying they’re saying don’t divide me and my children don’t keep secrets between me and my children if my child is expressing concern about something call me so that i can be the first responder to say i want to talk to my child because i love my child And you know what? I think we need to give parents the benefit of the doubt. There’s a lot of assumptions that are made about how parents are going to respond when their children say, I want to be a boy if I’m a girl, or I want to be called by different pronouns. Give parents the first opportunity to sit down and love their child. That’s all we’re asking for. That’s all we’re saying.
SPEAKER 02 :
And we shouldn’t even have to ask for it. It’s our constitutional right to direct the upbringing care and education of our children, not the government’s.
SPEAKER 03 :
100%. Okay, let’s talk about these ICE protests. This is insane that entire school districts closed in Denver. They closed, Lori, the schools where special education children needed to get special education services. They kept all of the schools open except for the ones that were serving students with special needs. Now, make it make sense. Okay, but you are saying that this is breaking news. You’ve got some live video. Why don’t you talk about what you witnessed?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, so we started receiving reports last week on Friday from families from different school districts in Denver and Adams that they were very concerned that the schools were promoting COVID students to go out and protest immigrations and customs enforcement. So we started to receive reports indicating that there were potential ICE protests and walkouts in the middle schools in Cherry Creek School District. And parents were sending text messages that they had received from their children, sending screenshots. that actually showcased ICE protests walk out at 105. And I actually live a mile from our Cherry Creek School District, local middle school, Infinity Middle School. And I decided that I was going to go over to the school at 105 to see what that looked like. What does this protest look like with 11, 12, and 13-year-old children? I did record the students. I think it’s really important to ask questions. Do these students really know what ICE is? Have they been given balanced viewpoints? had thoughtful, engaging discussions. A lot of these students brought out signs and the question that I have were, were those signs made at home or were they made during instructional time during the school day? So we know a lot of parents were very upset that this happened and they received notification in the morning that there might be a protest in some of the middle schools but they weren’t sure which ones um and when i arrived on scene at the infinity middle school uh a security showed up at one o’clock one vehicle so they knew that the students were going to be coming out and parents weren’t notified until after that over 250 students left the school and then it was found out that students actually did not return to class so they were a few students that actually left permanently, not just to walk out. Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
So before we cue this up, this is a middle school. I teach middle school. 11, 12, and 13-year-olds. This is not a high school. This is a middle school. These are basically babies. They typically are not that organized. So some adult, I’m I’m just going to go out on a limb and say some adult helped these students organize this walkout. So students are walking out with their signs screaming, no more ice, no more ice.
SPEAKER 02 :
And here they are now leaving school property, walking down public sidewalk to go to the main street. Students leaving school campus, walking down the street. . The kids are now turning right onto the main road. What does ICE stand for? Do you know what ICE stands for? Yeah. What are the words? Why are you protesting? She actually responded, because I’m in middle school. You can see students just running over the hill. to go down to the main road, leaving campus.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Well, you know, any reason for kids to walk out of school and not learn and protest because someone told them that that was an activity they should participate in without any knowledge or understanding of why they’re being asked to quote unquote protest. And they can’t tell you what ICE stands for. This is public education. This is what’s happening to our students. young children you know when parents send their kids to school and it’s preposterous that a school district like cherry creek you you are a parent they’re a taxpayer there this is supposed to be a flagship school district And this is what’s happening. And I just I don’t understand why there’s not more outrage from parents in the district. So what lessons do you think other school districts and other parents should be learning from what’s happening in Cherry Creek?
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s really important for parents to reach out to their school districts and ask what the policies are for students that are leaving campus during the day. What the school district’s response in Cherry Creek’s case is that they’re exercising their First Amendment right. But I wonder why we’re leaving instructional time. Why are we not choosing to protest on a day where students are not in school? And we also need, there’s significant security risks with students leaving campus and going under the guise of exercising their First Amendment rights. We have students that are leaving campus, going to local stores, walking down the street without parental supervision or notification. um students were running into the street at other schools horizon middle school their reports have 20 kids just running into the street and almost getting hit by a car you know where where where does the legal responsibility of the school when they are supposed to be supervising our students begin and end when a student exits a school to exercise their first amendment right and you know what is the school’s school district’s response when there’s other types of first amendment protests that students want to organize and walk out of school for. So there’s a lot of concerns. We have a great resource on our website at coloradoparents.org. We always have resources under our parents tab. But on our homepage, we always have a red button with our most recent call to action. And we have some great parent guidance on how to talk about protests and activism and political mobilization and how emotional influence can make students just react instead of reflect and think about all the different perspectives and viewpoints so they can come to their own opinion. We want parents to read through that because we know students feel very compelled to participate in these types of protests. You know, everybody around them is doing it. If they choose not to, they’re going to be singled out. They’re going to be made fun of. We actually had reports of that happening. We had students that did not participate in yesterday’s walkout at Infinity Middle School that called their parents again without saying yesterday. Oh, yes. We had reports of from parents that their children were singled out. We had students calling their parents crying from the bathroom. because they didn’t feel safe at school. And it’s just, it’s really upsetting and it’s alarming. We actually even had a report from a parent who has a child that’s on the autism spectrum and the special education teacher encouraged her to walk out, said, it’s okay for you to go walk out, that’s fine. And so, you know, we have to look at the emotional and physical development of these children, you know, where they are in their brain development and, how we are promoting civic engagement in education.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, and I’m also wondering, did all of those students who walked out return back to school safely, or did they end up walking around the neighborhood or hanging out with their friends, you know?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, we do know that happened. The school even sent out a memo to families saying that there were students that did not return and that they were trying to find them. And so it is a significant issue and it really goes to what are the legal ramifications for a school district when they’re supposed to be supervising our children during instructional time.
SPEAKER 03 :
you know and this is um a good segue into the civics b uh which daniel’s fund helps uh support but it’s the national civics b where they encourage students to think about something in their community that they want to change what process they would go through what principle and what civic virtue is aligned with what they’re trying to change and i would go out on a limb again and say, if we were to randomly ask these students, if you really are upset with ICE being in your neighborhood, what would be the process to go to your local government and go to your representative? and make changes. And what changes would you like to see? They wouldn’t be able to articulate it, Lori, because they’re not being taught how to go through the process and how to protest to make changes. And this is the problem because they grow up to be adults who go to city council meetings and just yell and scream and cuss without actually bringing solutions that can be changed. And so- You know, so going to your website, you do have this wonderful new guidance for parents on political activism. Talk a little bit about what is on your website and name the website so parents can go there.
SPEAKER 02 :
Sure, so parents should definitely go to coloradoparents.org and on our homepage we always have our red action button and we just published our parent guidance for talking with students in elementary, middle and high school about political activism and mobilization in the schools. And we present some talking points to help guide those conversations We want parents to really take back their authority on who is influencing them and how they’re thinking critically about very polarizing issues in our country. And so we hope parents will go there, click on the red button and download that tool for them to review. We also have a great parents tab with other phenomenal resources for parents to review to help them take back their responsibility and authority in education.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, Lori, this is really key because you have a tool here about how to ask better questions. And this is not about parents telling their children what to think. It’s about engaging in conversation with their parents. My dad used to do this really well. I would come home from college and he’d say, so what are you college kids talking about? And I’m like, I’m too busy to talk to my parents. You know, I’m busy in the classroom and doing my work and practicing. But he was so smart to ask me that question every single time. He would just say, what are you guys talking about, you young people? And this is a great question for parents to ask their elementary, middle school, and high school students. You know, what are kids talking about at school? What did you hear? How did that make you feel? And get them to open up and to discuss because that’s going to help parents, A, build a stronger relationship with their children, B, but also to get more information about what is happening in the schools, because you have to trust that when you send your children to school, that they’re not going to be fed things that are contrary to what you expect them to be learning about at school. You want your children to first be able to be proficient in the standards But also you should know if there are teachers saying things in the classroom. Like I know on your website, you have a lot of audio of some really appalling things where teachers are encouraging students to cuss. Their teachers are flipping desks in the classroom. They’re encouraging their students to get angry. Like, that’s not beneficial. You can be angry about things that are unjust, of course, but isn’t there a more… productive way of having these civic conversations. I think that’s really critical. So you have it broken down, Lori, on your website by age group, elementary, middle, and high school appropriate questions, which I think, again, is very smart to do to help parents just start talking to their children.
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 03 :
Who was involved in helping you create this document?
SPEAKER 02 :
We put this document together with colleagues from across the nation. We worked with our colleagues at Courage is a Habit. Families can go to their resources at courageisahabit.org. They have really incredible parent resources. We put in the seven questions that they developed for families to ask their school districts. Then we worked with child development specialists, on the types of questions that we would be asking our elementary, middle and high school students so that parents can really engage in bonding and discussion with their children and really understand what’s happening in the classroom environment.
SPEAKER 03 :
Lori, what would you say to parents who are listening to the show or they’re watching the encore on YouTube or Rumble and they’re really disturbed and they’re finally kind of like at their wits end of seeing all of this evidence? What would you encourage them to do?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I’m very encouraged because we’re starting to see the culture shift here in Colorado and across the nation. There is more exposure of what is happening. You know, I think a lot of people, their first response is just to be like, well, what can we do? You know, this is too overwhelming. This is insane. I don’t understand how this could be happening. But talking with your kids, Take back your authority. You are the expert on your child, no matter what any government official states or any teacher states or board of education. You are their authority. If you don’t believe that your child is in a good learning environment, you have the right to remove them from that learning environment. And there’s so many great school choice options for families. And if they need help, we always encourage families to reach out to our organization and You can go on to colorado and submit an incident re
SPEAKER 03 :
And if you’re a teacher and you are frustrated that the teachers union is constantly using your dues to sabotage parents and they are standing for values that are different from your own, you can walk away and join organizations like Teacher Freedom Alliance and get free $2 million liability insurance. So give yourself a raise and you can stop supporting these things that are damaging families. But thank you, Lori Gimmelstein, for your time. I would encourage parents to go to coloradoparents.org to learn more. To my listeners, thank you so much for tuning in and catch me next time. And remember, educating the mind without the heart is no education. So seek wisdom, cultivate virtue, and speak truth.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thanks for tuning in to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Rahn. Visit PriscillaRahn.com to connect or learn how you can sponsor future episodes to keep this message of faith, freedom, and education on the air.
