Thousands of Colorado students opted out of the state’s Colorado Measure of Academic Success tests over the last couple of weeks, with at least one Douglas County high school at 800 students who took a pass, according to a well-placed source. High school CMAS/PARCC tests are only for ninth graders.

During testing weeks, school work slows down or stops. High school students get days off when their grades aren’t being tested.

On April 19, the president and vice president of the Douglas County School Board, Meghann Silverthorn and Judith Reynolds, were called out by Grace Davis, a student at Ponderosa High School. Davis planned a protest at Ponderosa over the high rate of teacher resignations.

Directors Silverthorn and Reynolds pulled Davis from class for a 90-minute discussion, without the consent of Davis’s parents. Davis said she felt “small,” “intimidated” and “uncomfortable” during the confrontation.

An audio of the session confirms Davis’s account. Hundreds of parents have petitioned the Board advocating for the resignations of Silverthorn and Reynolds based on the Board’s own Education Policy on “ethical, businesslike, and lawful conduct, including proper use of authority and appropriate decorum when acting as Board members.”

Silverthorn and Reynolds rejected Davis’s claim that they initimidated her. There will be an investigation, but no investigator has been named.

The Senate Education Committee took up two bills, SB16-187 and 188 affecting charter schools. SB-187 offers charters additional waivers unavailable to school districts. SB-188 provides “equity” for charters based on mill levies that add to per-student funding in districts.

Mostly executives from Denver charters appeared at the Senate hearing, even though Denver charters have equal mill footing with Denver Public Schools. Scott Laband, charter board vice president at Rocky Mountain Prep in Denver, testified in support of the bills.

Laband’s testimony celebrated RMP’s academic success. Certainly some of that achievement occurs because of the charter’s financial support from at least 19 non-public funding partners. RMP’s 2014-15 annual report shows it received $1.444 million in grants and donations, roughly making up for lost annual funds from the state’s negative factor. DPS put in $3.532 million.

The 2015-2016 School Finance Act budget for DPS is $7,612 per student. RMP, between its public dollars and grants and foundation contributions, may have more than $8,500 per student.

RMP states that its success depends on small class sizes with a teacher and teaching fellow in each room, a staffing level generally unavailable in public schools given current negative factor funding. RMP also runs its schools year-round.

To extrapolate, schools with large numbers of economically disadvantaged kids need about $900 more per student to have a chance to reach RMP’s academic achievement results: 48.1 percent of its 585 students proficient or above on the PARCC/CMAS math tests and 42.6 percent of 585 students proficient or above on the ELA tests.

If all elementary schools with demographics similar to RMP had RMP’s funding, maybe they would be able to equal up in RMP’s achievement.