August 29, 2013
A Colorado Community Media Publication
ourarvadanews.com
Jefferson County, Colorado • Volume 9, Issue 14
inBloom debate blossoms Parents vocal in concern over new student data system By Vic Vela
vvela@ourcoloradonews.com
Returning classmates
Lou Vinquist, Joe Bohe, Dick Nelson, Velma Nelson, Nancy Bohe, Betty Corder and Don Corder, left to right, catch up during the annual Arvada Day Reunion Picnic on Aug. 25. Presented by the Arvada Historical Society, all of the former Arvada Redskins pictured, with the exception of Joe Bohe, are from Arvada High School’s class of 1953. Bohe graduated in 1950. The Nelsons, Bohes and Corders are high school sweethearts, coming up on their 60th anniversaries. The oldest Arvada High School class represented during the picnic was 1937. Photo by Amy Woodward
Stop Arvada Walmart comes up short Petition drive falls short, PIF to become ordinance By Sara Van Cleve
svancleve@ourcoloradonews.com After a month of circulating petitions and collecting thousands of signatures, the grassroots group Stop Arvada Walmart was not able to collect enough to put the Arvada Plaza redevelopment to a referendum. Stop Arvada Walmart sought to put the public-private partnership portion of the redevelopment of the Arvada Plaza, including a Wal-Mart, to referendum and onto this November’s ballot so residents can vote on the issue. The public-private partnership includes a public improvement fee collected in lieu of the city’s portion of the sales tax from the new Wal-Mart store as well as 20,000 additional square feet of retail space and Independence Center. The PIF, which would be in place of the city’s 3 percent sales tax, would then be refunded to California-based owner of the Arvada Plaza, Industrial Realty Group to total $5.8 million of the $9.1 million necessary to cover public improvements to the property. Without enough signatures to put the PIF to referendum, it will become a city ordinance. “Unless you have a lot of money or volunteer time, the process is nearly impossible, having gone through the process to get something on the ballot,” said Rob Hoge with Stop Arvada Walmart. “Our failure to get it on the ballot is a reflection, not that the people don’t support it, but that we didn’t have enough volunteers, money and time to get the number of signatures.” The group had 30 days to collect 7,246 signatures of registered Arvada voters for the referendum to be considered on the ballot; the deadline for the signatures was Aug. 22. City charter mandates that petition deadlines be set for 30 days after a letter of
Gail Kolelle, left, signs a petition with volunteer petition collector Ascenzo DiGiacomo during a Stop Arvada Walmart rally Sunday, Aug. 18. The grassroots group was collecting signatures to put the public-private partnership portion of the Arvada Plaza redevelopment, including a Wal-Mart store, to referendum and on the ballot this November. Photo by Sara Van Cleve intent is filed with the city, Arvada Communications Manager Wendy Forbes said. By Aug. 22, the group had collected thousands of signatures, Hoge said. The group chose not to disclose the exact number. “If we had another two or three weeks it’d be on the ballot,” Hoge said. “Or if we had $25,000 to pay somebody full time to be out collecting signatures, I’m confident it’d be on the ballot. I’m disappointed from the standpoint that we can see the numbers are there and this is a failure of not having enough volunteers to get them.” Hoge said, in most of the Stop Walmart petition circulators’ experiences, if residents opened their doors or stopped and talked petition circulators in public places,
70-80 percent of residents would add their name to the petition. “We understand some people are unhappy with the results of the new ordinance that will go into effect, but we hope that we can all come together and support the fact that the area does need to be revitalized and we hope it can bring elements to the area that even the opposition would like to see,” Forbes said in reference to the redevelopment of the north side of Ralston Road. People volunteered to circulate petition and signed petitions for a variety of personal reasons, Hoge said, whether it be not agreeing with Wal-Mart, concerns about Walmart continues on Page 20
Parents packed a feisty Jefferson County Public Schools Board of Education meeting Aug. 22 to hear the pros and cons of a student data gathering system that the district is expected to pilot sometime next year. Supporters hailed the system, called inBloom, as a long-time-coming classroom enhancement intended to help teachers better tailor instruction through a centralized student database. But inBloom detractors are concerned primarily about the privacy and security of children’s school records and per- Stevenson sonal information, and how the new system might end up mining and utilizing that data. It was clear which side of the issue the majority of the audience was on, judging from their often boisterous reactions to comments that were made by a panel of education experts. “If this is a great idea, and there are really are no privacy concerns, give the parents the right to choose whether their children take part,” said Barmak Nassirian of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, through audience applause. Nassirian participated in the panel via video from Washington D.C. He was one of several panelists to give their opinions of inBloom, a $100 million system that is being funded primarily by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. inBloom will provide the “middleware” in a data dashboard system that will collect student information in a single database that supporters believe will better assist teachers in developing a specific curricula for individuals in the classroom. Colorado is one of only three states to pilot inBloom, with Jeffco being the lone district in the state expected to try it out, beginning in the 2014-2015 school year. The program will not cost Jeffco anything until 2015, if it chooses to continue using the system after the pilot project. After that, the cost to the 86,000 student district will be $3 to $5 per student. The system has been the subject of controversy across the U.S., as some states that initially had committed to pilot the system ended up backing out because of privacy and security concerns. inBloom is capable of storing demographic information, such as race, economic status and other metrics. However, the district is adamant that the dashboard will only include data fields inBloom continues on Page 20
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