If anyone knows how to bring a divided school district and community together amid significant challenges, it just could be Superintendent Erin Kane.
In the last few years, politically divisive issues on a national level played out in her district – Douglas County School District in Castle Rock, Colo. The district has dealt with superintendent turnover, “indoctrination” fears about the LGBTQ community, controversial COVID-19 policies, claims about the teaching of Critical Race Theory and a proposal to arm teachers with guns in their classrooms.
“Every time a board flips, chaos. The district was truly in chaos,” Kane said.
Her session Friday morning at the AASA national conference in New Orleans was titled “Leading and Unifying a Divided Community” and focused on creative ways to unite communities.
Kane has been superintendent of the Douglas County School District in Castle Rock, Colo., for almost three years after serving as its interim superintendent from 2016 to 2018. In between, she was executive director of schools at the nearby American Academy, a multi-campus charter school.
In Douglas County, the third largest school district in Colorado, Kane helped unite a divided and tax-adverse community and motivated voters to invest in teacher and staff pay by passing a tax increase during a time of never-before-seen property tax increases in the state.
Despite facing division over what was best for the district and change, the school district has demonstrated recovery and progress. Leading through division wasn’t easy, she said, but she navigated the challenges in a thoughtful way.
Her advice to other superintendents: Listen. Listen to all voices, but always be the voice of reason. Run into conflict, not away from it. Be a role model for unity and build a sense of pride in your district.
The ultimate goal is to foster unity among individuals so that we can focus on the kids. They are our future. “You have to be a role model for unity as a superintendent. You have to be a role model for you,” Kane said.
(Ecoi Lewis, a grad student in the marketing and communications program at Loyola University New Orleans, is a reporter with Conference Daily Online.)
