Mike Peterson’s Greatest Hits - Community Conversation
The following is a DougCo Collective “Community Conversation” and was written by a Douglas County community member (parent, student, teacher/staff or community member). The intent of “Community Conversations” is to give members of the Douglas County community an opportunity to contribute to the larger DCSD conversation with their lived experiences and perspectives.
Est. Reading Time: 7 minutes
From his humble beginnings as a “Douglas County Wokebuster” to his proclamations of “free speech,” by writing policy that allows transgender students to be misgendered, DCSD School Board President Mike Peterson’s reign of chaos is finally over, two years early. In honor of this bit of good news for our community, here is a roundup of Peterson’s greatest hits (more accurately, misses), in his attempt to serve on the BoE.
Attacks on Equity
Peterson often shares a couple of different stories about his decision to run for school board. One is when he jokingly mentions that his wife, tired of his complaints, encouraged him to run. The other is when he felt that his entire lifestyle was threatened by a math problem that mentioned a same-gender couple.
His rise to power included cultivating moral panic around the district’s equity policy and his contempt for words like “diversity” and “equity.” Peterson rallied against the district's “Making Connections” training by the Gemini Group, noting that the Gemini Training “should scare the hell out of you.” In a post-election interview, Peterson stated, “Equity is a squishy word.” Peterson has, on multiple occasions, continued to decry the word “equity” instead of understanding the appropriate context or correcting misinformation around it.
Repealing the district’s equity policy was one of his first orders of business he named at the same meeting when he was sworn in. After receiving push back for his intentions, he ultimately shifted strategy to a “resolution” that the “Kids First” Directors voted to approve on Jan. 25, 2022. It charged the superintendent to recommend changes by Sept. 1, 2022, but just a few days later, they presented the superintendent with an ultimatum to resign or be fired.
Later, after Erin Kane was hired as a replacement, she was able to complete a district assessment of the policy, including a costly survey that indicated that the equity policy was supported by the community. Kane had no additional suggestions for changing the policy. Peterson suddenly became an expert on diversity and made edits to the policy himself, including many nonsensical definitions of diversity that he completely took out of context by an author and researcher.
If the changes to the equity policy were not enough, Peterson was also behind the changes to Policy KB, known as the Parent Engagement Policy. Because policies and statute aren’t Peterson’s strong suit, he and the other “Kids First” Directors ignored state statute regarding the revision process to the policy and the role of the District Accountability Committee. Going back to his Wokebuster roots, which has since then rebranded its Facebook page to the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), Peterson et al forced through a policy nearly identical to one in a FAIR guidebook. Peterson then went on to boldly proclaim that using correct pronouns was “compelled speech” and that LGBTQIA+ students had no sense of privacy, legitimizing the use of forced outing to their families. These decisions have once again put the district in the precarious position of additional potential litigation around discrimination claims and civil rights violations.
Lack of Accountability and Transparency
One of Peterson’s infamous candidacy rallying cries was his commitment to transparency and accountability. At a Student-Led School Board Candidate Forum (noting from transcript as audio cut out), he infamously stated, “The last thing I will say is that we expect you, the voters, the taxpayers, the teachers and parents to hold us accountable.” It appears that Peterson, in fact, did not want to ever be held accountable.
The January 2022 morning coffee house conversation/job ultimatum to Corey Wise led to a lawsuit with allegations of violating Colorado Meetings Laws (COML), a lawsuit of wrongful termination, multiple court dates, an investigation of perjury, denials of fault, and finally a resolution passed in September 2023, with an agreement on the financial burden of the district…all in all…his actions cost the district more than $1 million. At the Sept. 26, 2023, BoE Meeting, the board finally accepted a settlement on the COML lawsuit. Peterson was forced to read various drafts aloud of the Resolution, which included statements of fact, including the judge’s statement declaring the COML violation did indeed take place. It was the closest this community was ever going to come to having him publicly admit accountability.
Of course, this coffee house conversation wasn’t the first time Peterson tried to circumvent transparency to the community. Shortly after the 2021 election, Peterson and the other “Kids First” directors (who are still in control of the DCSD BoE, thanks to Peterson’s final power move last week) used the time before being sworn in to ignore what he saw as the burdensome requirements of open meeting laws to hold a private board retreat. A photo shared on social media showed the recently elected “Kids First” candidates as they met with a group that included Kane and then-DCGOP vice chair Andy Jones among others, sparking concerns citing back to the Reformers of old. Their refusal to turn over the materials in the training binders from the retreat resulted in another lawsuit filing, after which, the binder content was eventually provided.
Peterson was well known for his tactics of denial and blame. On Jan. 31, 2022, Directors Susan Meek, David Ray, and Elizabeth Hanson held a public meeting to openly discuss their concerns around the job ultimatum given to Corey Wise. That same night, Douglas County Federation (DCF), the local teachers’ union, voted to move forward with a Collective Action on Feb. 3, 2022, to protest to the actions of the “Kids First” directors the previous week in passing their Resolution to the Equity Policy and their course of action in regards to Wise.
Peterson was outraged. He saw these actions as linked and accused the minority directors and teachers’ union of a nefarious agenda of collaboration. Peterson also stated, “This isn’t about process and open meetings laws or board policy. This is about a minority of directors and a local and state labor union not accepting the results of an election and the will of over 120,000 voters.” This was a convenient narrative to deflect the real issue of Peterson violating COML. Sadly, this piece of misinformation continues to plague this community, as recently as public comment at the BoE meeting on Nov. 14.
Perhaps in an effort to lick his wounds from being caught in violating COML and illegally firing Wise, Peterson then conducted a speaking circuit, including a political luncheon, in which he publicly accused teachers of distributing pornographic content to students, a familiar trope among these so-called “parents’ rights” extremist groups and book banners.
Peterson’s Last Chance
At his last BoE Meeting as Director on Nov. 30, Peterson delivered an airing of grievances, where he vacillated between the importance of “partnership above partisanship” and calling out his perceived enemies by name, which included the former head of DCF, former BoE Director Elizabeth Hanson, and even the DougCo GOP. He gave kudos to known book banner and conspiracy theorist Joy Overbeck for an internet rant that she also made against the DougCo GOP. He blamed the teachers’ union for the 5A/5B loss in 2022. For all of his prattle regarding unity, he voted exactly the way we thought he would for board officer positions, ensuring that his fellow “Kids First” directors, Christy Williams and Kaylee Winegar, are in the top two positions as President and Vice President for the next two years.
In the end, Peterson was exactly who we’ve known him to be, someone who creates division, stirs up moral panic to suit his agenda, and takes his ball home when he’s called into accountability. Like many of these so-called “parents’ rights” advocates, Peterson was never interested in serving the community; he was there to push his own agenda. And it was never ever about the kids.
