Colorado Newsline: More than a thousand teachers, parents and students rallied outside Douglas County School District headquarters on Thursday, days after the district was rocked by allegations that its school board’s new conservative majority had illegally moved to force out Superintendent Corey Wise amid tensions over COVID and equity policies.

“I hope they hear us inside,” said Jennifer Cancino, a seventh-grade teacher at Mountain Ridge Middle School in Highlands Ranch. “I hope they hear the message — that we are behind Corey Wise (and) the direction we’ve been going. … Just let us continue to support and guide and teach kids to help them be great people.”

Classes were canceled district-wide after a reported 1,500 teachers called in sick in protest of the alleged effort to remove Wise by four new members of the district’s board of education. The board members — Becky Myers, Kaylee Winegar, Christy Williams and board president Mike Peterson — were elected in November as part of a conservative slate backed by campaign committee Kids First DCSD, capturing the majority on the seven-member board.

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