Voices in Action: Red, Wine, & Blue

There are several organizations in Douglas County and Colorado dedicated to protecting public education. At Douglas County Parents, we aim to share their valuable voices, providing information and resources.

Red Wine and Blue: Costs of Conflict

The Douglas County community has been battling culture wars in our schools for a long time—at a significant cost. We wanted to share this important report from Red Wine & Blue, which outlines how the far-right extremist agenda has impacted our community in real dollars.

Red Wine and Blue is a national community of over half a million diverse suburban women working together to defeat extremism, one friend at a time. They train and connect women from across the country of all political backgrounds – including many who have never been political before – to get sh*t done and have fun along the way. They have an online presence in Colorado and provide that focuses on voting out extremist candidates.

Excerpt From Red Wine & Blue Costs of Conflict

"Our public schools and students are on the front lines of a culture war that includes book bans, attacks on LGBTQ+ kids, and restricting lessons on race and racism.

Parents are asking: What do these culture war issues cost us? We don’t just mean what they cost in terms of the effect on the mental health of our kids. Or the toll they take on teachers and school leaders. We want to know: What is the financial cost of these culture wars?

According to a recent report – “The Costs of Conflict, The Fiscal Impact of Culturally Divisive Conflicts on Public Schools in the United States,” – the 2023-2024 school year culture wars cost public schools 3.2 billion dollars.

Where does this money go? When school districts become the center of culture wars, the school board is forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees, increased security, communications efforts, community and government relations, and recruitment of teachers due to high staff turnover rates.

Download the report for more information.

For an average school district of 10,000 students, districts fighting culture wars spend an average of $812,000 in one year.

Here are some more findings from the report:

• Of the 467 schools included in the study, two-thirds are experiencing “culturally-divisive conflict”

• More than 300 bills were introduced at the state level between 2021 and 2024 to restrict teaching about race and racism, to enable book bans, and to shape policies regarding access to educational opportunities for LGBTQ+ youth.

• 29% of superintendents report losing teachers due to culture wars, meaning schools are losing good teachers and having to spend additional funding to recruit new teachers.

Mainstream parents don’t want their schools stuck in culture war fights. These culture wars distract from real issues and impact student learning."

Click here to request the full report.