During a February 22 school board meeting, the Peterson alliance, which also includes Becky Myers, Christy Williams and Kaylee Winegar, established an extremely aggressive timeline to choose the successor for Wise, who's hired two law firms that are currently gathering information for a possible wrongful-termination lawsuit. Over the objections of the three other boardmembers — Elizabeth Hanson, Susan Meek and David Ray — the quartet scheduled candidate screenings to begin on March 1, with interviews and public comment both wedged into March 3. However, the tasks were completed a day earlier, even though the board had claimed it had a large pool of hopefuls. At 6:10 p.m. on March 2, the Denver Post tweeted that the finalists were named "after spending two days screening a pool of 15 candidates." Twenty minutes later, at 6:30 p.m., the district announced that there had actually been "a group of 23 applicants."
The two left standing were Kane and current Dougco administrator Danny Winsor. Here are their bios, as shared on the district's superintendent search page:
Erin KaneThe Kane item doesn't mention that in 2017, while she was interim superintendent, she unsuccessfully lobbied for more guns on campus. Nor are there references to her absence from the group of finalists for superintendent in 2018, after a previous group of conservative boardmembers were swept out of office, or to her energetic opposition to mandatory masking against COVID-19 while at American Academy.
Erin Kane is the Executive Director of Schools for American Academy, a charter public school in the Douglas County School District that serves almost 3,000 students across three campuses in preschool through eighth grade. Ms. Kane led the effort to found American Academy back in 2004. In 2016, she led the Douglas County School District as its Interim Superintendent. Ms. Kane returned to the leadership role at American Academy in the fall of 2018.
Prior to joining American Academy, Ms. Kane spent nearly a decade in the high technology industry in project development, project management, education, consulting, and practice management. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration as well as an engineering degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Colorado. Ms. Kane is a Colorado native who has resided in Douglas County with her family for over two decades.
Danny Winsor
A portrait of Danny Winsor shared by the Douglas County School District.
Danny Winsor serves as the Douglas County School District’s Executive Director of Schools (EDOS) for the Parker Region, and oversees the school district’s Choice Programming Department and postsecondary readiness programs. Prior to becoming an EDOS, Mr. Winsor held the roles of DCSD Director of Choice Programming, high school and middle school principal, assistant principal, school counselor, teacher, and coach. He is a 20 year educator and has been part of the DCSD family for 13 years. Mr. Winsor has a background in business, counseling psychology and educational leadership.
Mr. Winsor holds a Colorado principal license, a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Colorado and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Northern Colorado. Mr. Winsor resides in Douglas County with his family and is a Colorado native.
Also left out were details from a fascinating February 22 story published by Colorado Community Media that indicated how early Kane was involved in the process of disappearing Wise. On January 28, Peterson told Hanson that he and cohort Williams had met with Wise to let him know the board majority "agreed that the district needed to go in a new direction with leadership," according to the article. Hanson and Meek then took part in a conference call with Wise — and while they were chatting, the superintendent received a text message from Kane that included an excerpt from his employment contract.
The district's current schedule calls for a community forum on March 10 at which people will be allowed to "submit feedback about each finalist"; input will be accepted through March 20. A public-comment period will also be included during the board of education meeting slated for March 22 — the date by which the district said a superintendent might be named.
Kane has been the frontrunner for the superintendent position since Wise was pink-slipped, and may have known he was going before he did.
