We, the families of students who attend or recently attended Global Village Academy Northglenn (GVAN), demand a change to the governance selection process at GVAN. Under the current bylaws for GVAN, the Board is appointed by a "Leadership Development Committee" that is non-transparent; the application for openings is not advertised and the members are not required to be identified in a public manner. The selected GVAN Board does not require any secondary approval process. This undemocratic Board selection process makes leadership unaccountable to the families who entrust them with their children. Parents have brought a number of concerns before the current GVAN Board only to have them ignored or remain unaddressed. These include:

--The misrepresentation of the Mission Statement for the school as a vocational education experience (as pointed out at the May 8, 2014, GVAN Board meeting), when in fact the Mission Statement reads, GVA "will provide an academically challenging, content-rich, internationally-grounded liberal arts curriculum that holds high expectations for all students" followed by five bullet points.

--An unsafe school environment. Parents have repeatedly expressed their conerns, at over half a dozen GVAN Board meetings, about the lack of supervision on the playground, bullying of their children throughout the school, and cleaning infrequently completed as to make the environment unhygienic.

--Financial incompetence that allows the above point (2) to persist, and that permits oral agreements to replace contract law to guide money and services transactions like rental agreements.

--Complete disregard for the spirit of the law related to Open Meetings in the state of Colorado. The GVAN Board has repeatedly hidden documents from families at meetings, and even whispered (for example on April 17, 2014) to assure that people in attendance would not have full knowledge of information related to our school and the decisions regarding it.

--Grievance procedures that are not clear as they are different in the bylaws and student/parent handbook; and when people do speak out regarding differences of opinion with members of the GVAN Board or the GVCC directives, they are subject to intimidation through yelling, phone calls, and threatening letters from administration.

--The loss of trust of the parents who are most actively involved in the educational experience of the students of GVAN.

To address the above six points and the continuing problems in our school, we believe a change in governance is necessary. We demand the removal of the current appointed GVAN Board and the replacement of them. We want a 7 member Board of which the majority--at least 4 members--must be elected by the families of GVAN. We prefer a fully elected Board.

This petition makes a difference by demonstrating to the people who now control the power structure of GVAN and GVCC that we, the families, are concerned about the environment of our school and demand a change for improvement. A Board that is accountable to the families of GVAN is the first step towards that improvement. It is in agreement and the need for improvement that this petition is signed.