The job opening for of the new Douglas County School District superintendent will be officially posted Thursday, after hours of largely critical public comment Wednesday night and subsequent debate by a divided school board on how – and when – to replace the top administrator for Colorado’s third-largest school district.

Wednesday’s meeting was the first formal gathering of the board since it narrowly voted to fire former Superintendent Corey Wise on Feb. 4. It included an abrupt executive session, more than two hours of public comment that largely criticized the board’s leadership, and debate about Wise’s replacement that further revealed the depth of division and diverging viewpoints among the board’s seven members and the community they serve.

During the discussion that the board’s two leaders – president Mike Peterson and vice president Christy Williams – both expressed support for Erin Kane, the executive director of a three-campus charter school in the county, to become the district’s next superintendent. Rumors had spread on social media leading up to Wednesday night that Kane was a front-runner, a sentiment repeated by several members of the public who spoke during the meeting’s public comment period.

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It was the first opportunity for the public to weigh in at a school board meeting since Jan. 25, more than a week before Wise’s firing. Over two hours Wednesday night, many students, teachers and parents took turns – in 90-second bouts – accusing the board’s four new members – Peterson, Williams, Becky Myers and Kaylee Winegar – of not being transparent, of partisanship, and of unethical behavior. One accused them of being arsonists, and another said that the board’s new members’ goal was to “create chaos.”

Still, the new board members, who were all elected in November by comfortable margins, had vocal supporters. Rallied by former board member Steven Peck, who in an email earlier this week urged supporters to speak up Wednesday night, some commenters reminded the board that the four new members were elected in November. That election, one commenter said, was a mandate from the voters to change the direction of the district. Another said she was disgusted with the board’s three, longer-serving members – David Ray, Susan Meek and Elizabeth Hanson. 

While Wednesday night represented the public’s first chance to voice support and displeasures with the board, it was the latest opportunity for its seven members to publicly disagree with each other. After public comment ended, the board began discussing its process for hiring Wise’s replacement. That process would begin with the members agreeing to a timeline for that process.

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That discussion, the first on the board’s agenda, took more than two hours to resolve. The document described a quick process: The job, the description of which was also considered Wednesday, would be posted Thursday; applications and initial candidates would be discussed Feb. 22; and finalists selected two days later. Peterson indicated he drafted the timeline, and Williams, the board’s vice president, said she had not seen it until Tuesday night. 

Many public commenters questioned the process’s pace, as did Ray, Hanson and Meek, who called it inappropriate. Denver Public Schools, for instance, went months between its superintendent announcing her departure in November 2020 and finalists being unveiled in May 2021.

But Williams, Myers and Winegar all said they wanted to bring stability to the district, particularly with a looming ballot measure to fund teacher raises. They contended that a protracted job hunt would only further divide an already fractured district and further destabilize it.

When they voted to fire Wise, the board’s four new members all said they wanted the district to move in a new direction. On Wednesday, Ray and Meek asked why that new direction hadn’t been articulated further within the context of Wise’s replacement: The district was looking for a superintendent to lead it into a new direction, but exactly what direction was it?

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Peterson kept the conversation trained on timeline, at least at first. He said repeatedly he wanted candidates to ideally have familiarity with Douglas County and its history, and he expressed interest in having the job initially opened internally. That included, he said, not just Douglas County School District employees but staffers at local charter schools, as well. 

But board members on both sides expressed a desire to include external candidates from outside the county, and Peterson agreed to amend the timeline’s language to that effect.

Meek asked why the process included minimal public inclusion. Under the plan, community forums wouldn’t be held until finalists were unveiled. Peterson responded that those forums would still happen before a new superintendent was chosen, to which Meek responded that the public should be included in drafting the job description, among other things. Peterson pointed to district surveys, taken a year ago, that provided insight into what students, staff and the community wanted in a new leader.

Hanging over the entire discussion were rumors that had spread on social media and were brought up at public comment: that board leadership had already selected its ideal candidate. That woman was allegedly Erin Kane, the executive director of American Academy, a charter school. She was also an interim superintendent in the district in 2018.

Eventually, Meek expressly asked the board if any of them had candidates pre-selected. Myers and Winegar both said they did not. But Williams, who said she has three children at American Academy, said she admired Kane.

“Do I respect her and think she could bring value to the district? Yes, I do,” Williams said. “Have I called her and offered her a position to be superintendent? No, I have not. Do I hope she applies? Yes, I do.”

Peterson then said he’d called Kane a few weeks earlier – apparently when Wise was still superintendent – and asked Kane about her willingness to apply for the superintendent job.

According to the Secretary of State’s financial reports website, a woman named Erin Kane from Parker – where American Academy has two campuses – gave $50 apiece to candidate committees for Peterson, Winegar and Myers. She gave $150 to a committee for Williams. 

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Hanson said board leadership should admit if they have a preferred candidate, rather than put the community through a “charade.” After Peterson said he spoke with Kane weeks ago, Hanson said she appreciated the honesty.

Meek was less welcoming.

“Quite frankly, President Peterson, I think it’s highly unethical that you reached out to Erin Kane and expressed that question to her,” she told him. She noted that Peterson had not raised performance concerns about Wise – then the sitting superintendent – with the rest of the board.

Peterson replied by reminding the entire board not to question other members’ ethics or morality. 

After two hours of discussion around the timeline and, increasingly, about the process as a whole, the board chose a compromise: They would post the job Thursday. But they would table voting on an amended timeline until next week. That timeline would essentially be pushed back a week. That meant letting applications come in through Feb. 25, hold a meeting to discuss those applicants on March 1, and then vote on finalists on March 3. 

Editor’s note: The board members were continuing their discussion and making final adjustments as midnight neared.