Dear Editor,

My name is Lorrin Marsh. I’m a 14 year parent at Nederland schools.

We obviously have a lot of concerns going on here with the new restructuring and principal appointment being sprung on us. The community is outraged by it for many reasons. I’ll give you three:

1. FTE- there is no long term plan and the FTE one-time money for a transitional Dean does not set us up for long term success.

2. Experience- Caleb Melamed has ZERO secondary education experience and Sean DePaula would have been a better choice as he has the experience, is actually respected, and is a true leader in our school who has good relationships with the kids, where Caleb does not. (Many kids are devastated with this news as well which sets them up for a negative school environment). 

3. Unresolved workplace harassment complaints and unanswered parent complaints about Caleb’s “in or out” culture and bullying issues that have become prominent at NES.

The third is where Robbyn Fernandez comes in…

She preached about how allegations as such are taken very seriously by BVSD and immediate investigations are held… well another parent put in a formal complaint to advocate for a former assistant to the principal who was a huge asset to our school, took a pay cut, demotion, and an hour commute to get away from the unresolved issues. They were 3rd generation in our school. This was several years ago and was just ignored. Something wasn’t adding up so I called them. They said that Robbyn never emailed or called her to follow up. They are still willing to share her experience with Caleb if anyone would bother to listen. When I brought it up at the meeting you could see the look on Robbyn’s face as she quickly dismissed my question with repeating the protocol that she didn’t follow. Many others pushed for an answer and she just said enough about it, moving on. Hmmm. 

Obviously people are now clinging to that in speculation and rightfully so.

Dozens of us have experienced Caleb’s poor leadership that has a very defensive style which lead people to be afraid to communicate about it because they fear it will negatively impact their children. Staff is afraid to speak because they don’t want to lose their jobs or suffer added workplace tension. I tried advocating for an anonymous online free thought survey which Robbyn shot down. She said it was possible to do but they won’t be doing that. Why?! Probably because it would also reflect negatively on her! 

They also wouldn’t zoom for these major meetings or allow it to be recorded for many parents who couldn’t attend and many question why. 

This person was selected with no community input and many unresolved issues that linger and this has gotten to be a very heated situation for our community as you can imagine.

There are a few schools of thought around this… 

Some want to sue the district for its negligence around these matters. Some want a formal investigation into Caleb and Robyn. Some merely want the decision to be revoked and to allow for community input on this MAJOR decision that deeply affects our community and moving forward we would like language written into the framework for our school to have major decisions be made always with community input.

I personally think that’s very reasonable.

Our Mayor will speak at the board meeting Tuesday advocating for a town hall to help our community members be heard.

We have had several meetings this week and while Robbyn preached consistency, she showed none of her own and was caught in several lies which further fueled community anger and frustration causing many to question the district’s integrity.

Her sidekick Rob told us as we spoke up to address the lies and lack of integrity that, “Hey, the decision has been made, stop complaining and put your energy into making this work.” That also did not go over well and showed a major lack of empathy.

We have had 7 families withdraw already. Twelve are on the fence because this announcement was conveniently made after open enrollment closed. Many just feel stuck and frustrated. 

I wanted to reach out to you directly as an advocate for parents and staff who are struggling with this situation. We even have bus drivers threatening to quit because they don’t feel supported by Caleb.

Everyone makes mistakes… this was a bad decision that was hastily pushed through with no regard for our community. Our wonderful neighbors down the hill are great but you are not here daily dealing with the ins-and-outs of our community challenges and should not be making blind decisions on our behalf. 

I have taught my children it’s ok to make mistakes…it’s how they are handled that reflects whether you have integrity or not. This is being handled with no integrity and slapping a band aid on a bad decision and telling people repeatedly to just hope for the best is a crap plan and just further infuriates people.

To reflect integrity an apology would be given and action to follow… like…

“I’m sorry, we weren’t aware of this additional information and we would like to pause on our decision, learn more, and move forward accordingly.”

I think many would celebrate and praise the district for it rather than recoil from it which is what is happening now.

Thank you, 

Lorrin Marsh

Gilpin County