Check out this article as the most comprehensive overview of this scenario we've seen so far! Say "NO" to the polarizing and politicizing of our D70 Public Ed! Share the petition again and help us get the word out!!
"Sutton is asking the CO AG to conduct a full criminal investigation into an alleged “pay-to-play” bribery scheme carried out by Education Re-envisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services (ERBOCES), ERBOCES’s legal counsel, Brad Miller and Pueblo County School District 70 Board of Education Director Anne Ochs, who abruptly resigned from the D-70 School Board in the wake of a public Christian School controversy instigated by Miller with the intent of spurring a legal test case against the school.
Miller Farmer Law is based in Colorado Springs.
The complaint alleges Miller tacitly offered Ochs a lucrative, six-figure employment contract (pdf) with ERBOCES that included health, dental, vision, life and disability insurance, a $500 monthly travel stipend, $100/month cell phone benefit and more, in exchange for Ochs fast-tracking a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to create the “Riverstone Academy,” a publicly-funded K-5 elementary school with a “Christian foundation.” The controversial school was billed as the first publicly-funded Christian school in Colorado, which would be illegal under Colorado’s Constitution:
Article IX, Section 7 of Colorado’s Constitution, titled, “Aid to Private Schools, Churches, Sectarian Purpose, Forbidden” specifically bars public funding for “any sectarian purpose” or for supporting schools controlled by religious entities.
Ochs did not disclose the job offer with ERBOCES, nor her acceptance of it, prior to using her position on the school board to advance the controversial school.
Miller is known for approaching conservative-leaning school boards, getting himself hired as their legal advisor and then convincing the board members to adopt controversial and discriminatory culture war-related policies — like library book bans, discriminatory rules against transgender students and publicly-funded Christian schools — with the goal drawing lawsuits against the school districts that could become Supreme Court test cases that could result in rulings favorable to Christian nationalist right wing causes. School districts that fall into Miller’s plots end up mired in lawsuits, drawing adverse national attention to themselves and expending their financial resources on legal quagmires instead of on students and education — all at the expense of taxpayers."