2 minute read
TRAVEL
Other challenges for groups of travelers during previous trips and even at home have been prompted by people rather than places. For instance, while The Wayfaring Band was exploring Seattle last summer, a woman collecting tickets for a ferry ride belittled the troupe as they boarded.
“She was saying things like, ‘Why are you so slow? Are you an idiot? What’s wrong with you?’” Hagar recalls.
That moment sticks with Pressel, who kept walking but grew quietly angry as the woman con-
Appeal
FROM PAGE 22 lawyers had indicated at a court hearing earlier this month that they would continue to oppose the release of the recording of the vehour meeting. e meeting, called an executive session, occurred on March 23, one day after an East High School tinued her outburst.
But the accessibility setbacks the group faced in Berlin didn’t completely cloud their trip. Instead, band members encouraged one another to be open about their needs and be brave enough to ask for help.
Traveling with the band led Sophia Calderón, a freelance photographer who shadowed band members and documented their days in Berlin, to be more aware of how she carries herself and the ways she views spaces.
“I’m also in this space of my life where I’m ready to unlearn a lot of the structures that society has implemented in our minds,” Calderón said, adding that she wants people to understand that individuals with disabilities de- student shot and injured two deans inside the school before eeing and taking his own life. e school board emerged from the executive session and with no discussion voted unanimously to temporarily suspend its policy banning police in schools.
Chalkbeat and six other media organizations sued DPS for the recording of the executive session. e media organizations argued that the topics of the meeting were serve autonomy and can give help as easily as they receive it.
As a group in Berlin, The Wayfaring Band formed its own sense of community during their nearly week and a half of travels — one that surrounded Brennan with the kinds of meaningful friends she’s been searching for, especially after a recent divorce chipped away at her ability to trust others.
“They really helped build that for me, at least like the first building block of trusting people a little bit more,” she said.
And they have helped her embrace the differences she has spent so much of her life questioning.
“The culture of our group is the way that I wish the world operated, where folks are just on a regu- not properly noticed and that the board made its decision in private, despite the public vote. State law says the “formation of public policy is public business and may not be conducted in secret.”
Denver District Court Judge Andrew Luxen listened to the recording and ruled in favor of the media organizations in June. He ordered DPS to release the recording publicly late last month.
But DPS’s appeal now puts the lar basis supporting each other with whatever they need and remembering that we are different and yet we are all on the same team,” Hagar said. “We all want happiness. We all want peace in our lives. We all want a life of adventure and beauty, and … we can lean on each other to get all of those things. And it actually makes it more magical when we get to do it all together.” process on hold. In its notice of appeal, the school district’s lawyers asked the appellate court to consider whether the district court judge was wrong to listen to the recording and determine that the discussion in the executive session did not meet the criteria under state law for when boards can meet privately.
This story is from The Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news outlet based in Denver and covering the state. For more, and to support The Colorado Sun, visit coloradosun.com. The Colorado Sun is a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy, owner of Colorado Community Media.
Chalkbeat is a nonpro t news site covering educational change in public schools.
