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OCN

Volunteers reporting on community issues in Monument, Palmer Lake, and the surrounding Tri-Lakes area

OCN > 2503 > Letters to Our Community – Grace Best demolition

Letters to Our Community – Grace Best demolition

March 1, 2025

D38 is using stagecraft to justify destroying a politically inconvenient school building. After years of complaining about Grace’s maintenance and repair costs, they are now using a fire marshal inspection that the building supposedly failed to leave the impression that “the fire department condemned the building.” Their descriptions of the building’s actual status are suspiciously vague and inconsistent.

The problem with this narrative is that D38 got a surprise windfall last year that could have paid to fix the problems. D38 convinced the state to let them spend $8 million of their reserves. Instead of fixing Grace, they’re spending it all to purchase and renovate a 37-year-old building for a new Career and Technical Education (CTE) center—”transforming an open warehouse into a space for learning that mirrors a Google or Facebook workplace.” They’ll have to pay another $3 million to complete the buildout. The administration provided cost estimates for the project and for building new but estimates for transforming Grace into the CTE center weren’t presented. It wasn’t even discussed.

Worse yet, if you have a building the fire marshal wants to shut down until certain repairs are made you don’t jump to spend $1.3 million to demolish it. You try to sell it as-is. To save yourself $1.3 million. But D38’s board didn’t even discuss selling the building, let alone check if anyone might be willing to take it off their hands. By the district’s own calculations, the land the building sits on is only worth $700,000. Why spend $1.3 million to clear land that’s worth $700,000?

All their narrative-building has left them scrambling to find a home for the homeschool and special needs transitions programs housed at Grace Best. It’s clear that making sure taxpayers cannot use this space for a school in the future is more important to them.

Derek Araje

Guidelines for letters

Disclaimer: The information and opinions expressed in Letters to Our Community are the responsibility of the letter writers and should not be interpreted as the views of OCN even if the letter writer is an OCN volunteer. When there is more than one letter, the letters are arranged in alphabetical order based on the last name of the author.

Other Letters to Our Community articles

  • Letters to Our Community – Thank you to the outgoing board members (6/7/2025)
  • Letters to Our Community – Tri-Lakes Women’s Club gets thanks (6/7/2025)
  • Letters to Our Community – D38 chaos (3/1/2025)
  • Letters to Our Community – Thanks to OCN for its support (2/1/2025)
  • Letters to Our Community – Wildfire call to action (2/1/2025)
  • Letters to Our Community – Opposed to proposed Buc-ee’s (12/5/2024)
  • Letters to Our Community – Lodging tax issue rebuttal (12/5/2024)
  • Letters to Our Community – Tax, spend, and tax some more (11/2/2024)
  • Letters to Our Community – Vote no on Prop. 127 (11/2/2024)
  • Letters to Our Community – Back to school (9/7/2024)
<- Woodmoor Improvement Association, Jan. 27 and 29 – Annual meeting and reorganization
-> Letters to Our Community – D38 chaos

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