Judge this site on its sources.

Why no names yet

Because there is nothing yet to attach names to. No issue committee has been registered, no money has been raised or spent, and no measure has been referred to the ballot. Publishing a roster now would imply a formal organization that does not exist.

That changes the moment it needs to. Under Colorado law, a group that accepts contributions or makes expenditures above the statutory threshold to support or oppose a ballot issue must register with the Secretary of State and name a registered agent — and that registration is public. When we cross that line, the committee name and its registered agent will appear in the footer of every page on this site, and our contributors will be a matter of public record.

In the meantime, an anonymous site making checkable claims is worth more than a named site making unchecked ones. Everything here is sourced so you don’t have to trust us.

Where the numbers come from

We use, in this order of preference:

1. Colorado Department of Education reporting — override and mill levy data, average teacher salary, staff turnover workbooks, CMAS results, graduation rates, per-pupil finance.
2. D38’s own published documents — budget books, board presentations and BoardDocs records, cited by document title and date so you can pull the same file.
3. Contemporaneous published reporting for election results, where a certified county canvass is not available online.

Where two credible sources disagree, we publish both and name each one. We do not pick the friendlier number.

Things we will not say

Some claims would help our argument and are not supportable. We have ruled them out in advance, and we’d ask you to hold us to it:

• That anyone’s tax bill went down. The override rate fell as assessed values rose. What an individual household actually paid depends on its own valuation, which for most properties went up.
• That the district is “sitting on” $15.9 million. That figure is unused statutory capacity — the ceiling on what a future ballot measure could ask for. It is not cash, and not a dollar of it can be spent without an election. We also won’t let the reverse stand unchallenged: D38’s year-end general-fund reserve has fallen from $13.7 million to about $6.0 million in two years, so “just use savings” is not an available answer either. Both halves of that are true at once, and we say both.
• That the failed 2022 vote caused the teacher exodus. Turnover spiked in the following year, but leadership churn, frozen salary steps, workload and morale all moved at the same time. We report what departing staff wrote on their separation forms and leave the causal claim alone.
• That disputed election margins are settled. The 2004 per-measure splits were never published, the only 2013 figure in circulation comes from the campaign that opposed the measure, and three different margins exist for 2022. We say so on the ballot history page rather than picking one.
• That D38 schools are failing. They outperform the state by a wide margin. The argument here is about what it takes to keep that true.

How we handle a mistake

If something here is wrong, this is what happens:

• Tell us at [email protected]. You do not need to be polite about it.
• If you’re right, we fix it — and we leave a note saying what it said before, what it says now, and when it changed. We don’t quietly edit.
• If we think you’re wrong, we’ll tell you why and show you the source.
• If it’s a judgment call rather than an error, we’ll say that too, and add the counterargument to the page.

Our independence

Yes for D38 is an independent, community-run effort. It is not affiliated with, authorized by, sponsored by, or endorsed by Lewis-Palmer School District 38, its Board of Education, or any of its schools. Colorado law bars school districts from spending public money to campaign for or against a ballot measure. Nothing on this site should be read as a statement by the District.

We use a color palette similar to the district’s because it is familiar to families here. We do not use the district’s logo, seal or marks, we have not coordinated this site with the district, and nothing on it should be read as a statement by the District or its Board of Education. Its official site is lewispalmer.org.

Check us

Board meeting materials are public at BoardDocs, district budgets are posted at lewispalmer.org, and CDE’s data is at cde.state.co.us. If our reading of any of it is wrong, we want to know.