Douglas County Schools Fears Brain Drain After Superintendent Firing

On February 7, hundreds of students in the Douglas County School District system staged a walkout in protest of the Douglas County School Board's conservative majority — Becky Myers, Mike Peterson, Christy Williams and Kaylee Winegar — firing superintendent Corey Wise three days earlier.

But another departure was just as telling. A few hours after the student demonstration, David Ray, one of the boardmembers who opposed Wise's dismissal, shared the text of an internal DCSD communiqué revealing that Sid Rundle, the district's much-respected special education services officer, would be leaving his position as of February 18. Ray prefaced the development with this: "The heartbreak continues...."

Rundle was the former principal at Cresthill Middle School, one of the institutions whose attendees took part in the demonstration; students at Highlands Ranch, Legend, Rock Canyon and ThunderRidge high schools also took part. Sources tell Westword that Rundle is far from the only educational professional who's either recently left the district or is considering doing so — and as of today, February 8, the DCSD website's job page lists 418 openings.
This scenario can't be entirely ascribed to dissatisfaction with board policies. The challenges presented by the pandemic, in combination with low pay and dozens of other factors, have led to people leaving the education field in droves. The Indeed page for Denver Public Schools currently boasts 616 openings for a bigger district; DPS includes 207 schools and 92,000-plus students, compared to more than eighty schools serving around 64,000 students at DCSD. Yet the chaos in Douglas County certainly doesn't help attract prospects, particularly given all the options.

Of the 418 Douglas County School District openings, 45 are for teachers, with nearly half calling for those with expertise in special education. Another 79 pertain to substitutes, aides or educational assistants, and 67 involve coaching athletic teams or programs.

School board president Peterson tried to do some damage control with a February 7 appearance on the KOA radio talk show hosted by Mandy Connell. During the extended conversation, he conceded that Wise's pink-slipping could have been handled more smoothly. But he also emphasized the difficulty of the situation.

"It was a little bit uncomfortable to pick somebody who was very popular and say, 'Look, we don't think they're up to the job and we think we need to move in a different direction,'" he told Connell. "If I had to go back, would we maybe have put more...because I've gotten a lot of emails. People want to know: 'You said generally, you want to move in a different direction. Maybe give us some more detail....'  But we also want to balance that with, again, someone who's liked, someone who's popular. That decision's behind us. But also give you a little bit of granularity. We're frankly trying to conserve some of the dignity. That was the intent."

Here's a recording of Peterson's appearance:
Listen to "Douglas County School Board President Mike Peterson Explains Terminating Cory Wise 2-7-22" on Spreaker. The unofficial change.org petition supporting the recall of Peterson and the other members of the conservative bloc now has more than 23,000 signatories.

And this evening could bring another confrontation. While the next full meeting of the Douglas County School Board isn't scheduled until February 22, there's a so-called "study session" slated for 5 p.m. today at the DCSD administration building, located at 620 Wilcox Street in Castle Rock.

The agenda doesn't include a comments slot, but the session is open to the public, and one person posting on the Facebook page of Speak for DCSD, which supports Wise and Ray, wrote: "It would sure be awesome if community members, parents, students, teachers, all showed up in the THOUSANDS early on Tuesday before the...meeting at 5 and made it so no one could park or drive by or anything because there were so many people there. Standing room only! Shut down Castle Rock!"