A fractured Douglas County school board narrowly voted Friday night to fire Superintendent Corey Wise, a decision that bucked large staff protests in the district and came after a tense board spent three hours criticizing and challenging each other’s integrity and intentions. 

The vote, an unsurprising 4-3 tally along the board’s newcomer-vs.-incumbent lines, comes a week after the newly elected majority met with Wise and allegedly told him he could either resign or be fired.

Friday night’s meeting was an emergency one, scheduled after the three incumbent members of the board held a Monday meeting to discuss the alleged ultimatum delivered to Wise, which those three members say violated board policy and state law. Then came a wave of staff protests: Teachers called in sick Thursday the district canceled classes.

For the four newcomers who have firm control of the board and district, Wise’s dismissal lets the district move in a new direction, which they say is the will of the voters. They questioned Wise’s role in creating masking policies and in the district’s decision in October to sue other county authorities to keep those mask rules in place.

New board president Mike Peterson repeatedly said he’d lost trust in Wise and that the superintendent is too close to David Ray, another board member who served as president before the November election. Fellow newcomer Kaylee Winegar questioned Wise’s judgment in enforcing mask policies that had been implemented in the district through much of the fall semester. 

“Regardless of where we are, the reality for me is, I’ve now lost trust and I don’t know how I will get it back and that saddens me because I wanted to start really by trying to get a better place together with this superintendent,” Peterson said. “But I can’t get there now.”

“I want a superintendent who aligns with us and aligns with our community and voted for us,” Winegar said, adding that she questioned to whom Wise is really loyal to and where he stood on masking.

But the three incumbent members saw the decision as disastrous, warning it would lead to educators leaving the district and to “the Dark Ages,” as board member David Ray put it.

They criticized the speed at which the decision was made, the lack of public input taken and their four peers’ reasoning for Wise’s dismissal. They repeatedly told them Wise’s actions, particularly when it came to mask mandates, were at the direction of the board and not of his own volition.

While the debate was ostensibly about Wise, the events of the week – last Friday’s private meeting with Wise, Monday’s public statements by the three incumbents and Thursday’s protests – often overrode discussion of the superintendent’s future. Wise himself quipped near the end of the meeting he didn’t know if the board wanted to fire him or fire each other.

Peterson accused Ray and the other two incumbents, Elizabeth Hanson and Susan Meeks, of colluding with teachers unions –which Ray denied – and he said their Monday event was “the biggest campaign ad for the next election.” He said he’d lost nearly all trust in his three colleagues.

In turn, Meek said the conversation about Wise felt like retaliation against the previous board for its COVID-19 efforts and against employees who’d spoken out against the new board’s moves. Peterson denied any retaliation. She questioned why, if the questions about Wise’s performance were genuine, the board didn’t meet with him to discuss improvements. She and Hanson acknowledged they were, in many ways, powerless: Peterson, Winegar, Board Vice President Christy Williams, and Secretary Becky Myers had control of the board’s direction. 

Why then, they asked, didn’t they wait? 

Peterson denied he was trying to ram through Wise’s exit and said his conversation with the superintendent last week was supposed to be the beginning of a process. He said the other board member’s decisions – and Wise’s alleged complicity in Thursday’s protests, which Ray also denied – accelerated his plans. The board hadn’t discussed Wise’s future or performance on Jan. 25 during its regular meeting, three days before Peterson met with the superintendent. Hanson asked why it hadn’t come up then, and Myers said she didn’t know at that point that she would support Wise’s ousters. 

Hanson asked her if that meant Myers had made up her mind to get rid of him between Tuesday evening and Thursday afternoon, when the board’s majority had conferred and decided to speak with Wise. 

“Correct,” Myers said.

Despite the charged atmosphere and lengthy debate, the vote itself felt largely like a formality, given four members had already discussed Wise’s tenure and had, via Peterson and Williams, allegedly delivered an ultimatum to the superintendent. 

But it took three hours to get there, and it still came with drama. Becky Myers, a new board member and former teacher, had expressed increased distress about the emails she was receiving from current teachers who stood by Wise. She asked a district employee to get up and attest to Myers’ love for teachers.

Hanson jumped in.

“Our staff adore this leader and they would go to the ends of” – she stopped as teachers in the room applauded Wise. After Peterson quieted them, Hanson started again: “Because of his ability to bring people together, they would go to the ends of the earth for him,” Hanson told Myers. “The only way to save and unify the district is Corey.”

Myers again asked that the district employee get up and defend her.

“It’s your actions you’re going to be judged by,” Hanson replied. “You’re an elected official.” 

When it finally came time to vote, Myers initially voted to keep Wise. Peterson, seated directly next to her, turned and confirmed her vote was for Wise to stay. As Hanson protested, Myers quickly changed her vote.

Then, in frustration, she cried, “Oh, can I go home?”

“Yes, you can,” Hanson replied.

Her vote successfully changed from a no to a yes, Myers sealed Wise’s fate.

VIDEO: Douglas County School District Special Board Meeting : Feb. 4