6 Parker Chronicle
April 7, 2022
KANE FROM PAGE 1
promised to unveil her 100-day plan this month, capping a tense superintendent search process for the district. Her predecessor Corey Wise was controversially fired without cause in a split 4-3 board vote on Feb. 4. The decision was complicated by allegations from the board minority that majority directors violated open meetings by privately planning Wise’s removal, and asking him to step down in a closed-door meeting before holding a public vote. Speculation started almost immediately that the majority had predetermined Kane, a well-known school leader in the district, as Wise’s replacement. It was fueled further when board President Mike Peterson confirmed he asked Kane if she had interest in the superintendency before Wise was terminated. As the board narrowed its search from two finalists to naming Kane as its sole finalist, again in a split decision, calls ramped up for Kane and the majority to disclose more detail about a retreat the newly elected directors held after winning office in November. Kane attended. Her opponents wanted to know why. Asked if she took part in any conversations regarding Wise’s employment with the district, Kane’s voice raised. “Absolutely not. Absolutely not,” she said. She attended the retreat to present about school financials and push for
Erin Kane in her American Academy office on her last day of work leading the Douglas PHOTO BY JESSICA GIBBS County charter school before filling the DCSD superintendency.
funding, she said. Kane said people alleging she colluded for the job “are creating a narrative that isn’t true.” “I don’t know what else to say,” she said. Community reaction to Kane was strong, met with both fierce and passionate support for her to become DCSD’s leader, and staunch opposition from those leery of her path to secure the job. School Board Director David Ray said the other finalist, Danny Winsor, was a unifying choice. He considered Kane to be the opposite. She is a successful leader, he said, but a divisive name that would continue to polarize the community. Ray, who passionately opposed the manner of Wise’s firing and the superintendent search process, boycotted Kane’s hiring by refusing to
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attend the special meeting in which directors approved her contract. But the embattled superintendent argues her track record tells a different story. “I don’t think people calling me divisive makes me divisive,” Kane said. Skeptics remain Twice now, a board president has asked Kane to consider helming the district amid a season of chaos. The most recent instance was earlier this school year when Peterson approached her. The second was back in 2016, when the then superintendent left for another job and the district needed an interim leader. Kane felt apprehensive, she said. She spent two months thinking of every reason why applying to be interim superintendent was “a terrible idea,” she said. No education degree. A charter school leader? And after a board of reform-minded directors had made contentious changes in the district, such as pursuing a voucher program and changing the way teachers were paid, tensions ran high in DCSD. “The district was just a mess at the time,” Kane said. Kane said she expected her time as interim superintendent to be brief. Six months, at most. Instead two years went by, although not without pushback. Two directors at the time, Ray and former board Director Anne-Marie Lemieux, gave Kane negative evalu-
ations of her interim performance and voted against extending her contract in 2017. Lemieux has remained a vocal critic of Kane’s fitness for the job throughout the 2022 search. She said Kane lacked transparency with the board as interim superintendent, citing an example in which Kane informed school principals she was making budget cuts before talking with directors about her plan. Lemieux said Kane is taking credit for a boost to employee morale between 2016 and 2018 when she shouldn’t be. A superintendent left. New board members were elected. Those were significant factors, Lemieux said. Lemieux worried Kane will open the door for more charter schools in the district. Of DCSD’s 89 schools, 18 are charter. Increasing the number of charter schools “takes funding out of the Douglas County School District pot,” she said. “Her track record is an outspoken proponent of the charter school model, and she is now leading a district that needs its neighborhood schools to be taken care of. And that’s not in her wheelhouse,” Lemieux said. Lemieux questioned if Kane would instruct employees against best practices “because she doesn’t understand pedagogy.” “It’s alarming because she’s not qualified for the position,” Lemieux said. “This is the third largest district in the state and a deep understanding of the diverse educational needs of the students has to be a No. 1 consideration. And someone with no educational background doesn’t have the qualifications. I’m not being mean, I’m being honest.” Where it all started Kane went to college at the University of Colorado in Boulder, earning a degree in applied math and computer science. Her sophomore year, Kane said, she was hired as the university’s only undergraduate teaching assistant. “I’m a math girl, and so I started teaching math classes at the university for arts and science students who didn’t like math,” she said. She was 19 and getting her first go SEE KANE, P7
