Dr. Elizabeth Celania-Fagen Superintendent
June 15, 2016 Dear Directors: As you may know, the Humble ISD Board of Trustees voted unanimously to approve my contract to be the Superintendent of Humble ISD effective July 5, 2016. Therefore, I wish to resign my position as Superintendent of DCSD effective July 4, 2016. As we discussed and pursuant to the resolution passed at the most recent Board meeting, I am officially requesting you accept my resignation and that you waive the required notice period in the best interest of both Douglas County School District (DCSD) and myself. I want to thank you for the opportunity to serve as the Superintendent of DCSD. During the past six years our talented staff members have accomplished extraordinary things in the best interest of our students, despite the worst recession of my lifetime and many other very complicated circumstances. We know that our work has not been perfect -- we have continuously learned and grown, as we have modeled design thinking’s fail-forward model. However, our resiliency and hard work has produced tremendous results for students, staff, and our community in alignment with DCSD’s values, direction, and policies. For example, we have been an AP Honor Roll district twice in the past five years – we have more students taking AP courses and exams and doing well than ever before. Many more DCSD students are earning college credits in concurrent enrollment courses too – saving our parents more than $4.8M in college tuition in 2014-2015. Our graduation rate has reached 90%, and our composite ACT broke 22 last year. We outperformed the state in almost every aspect of PARCC, despite our large number of parents who opted their children out of the tests. We also earned back our Accredited with Distinction rating from CDE – becoming the only district in Colorado over 35,000 students with the state’s highest rating. We have also significantly improved physical, psychological, and online safety across DCSD for all of our staff and students through a variety of means including school marshals, officers at lunch and in parking lots, building enhancements, improved threat assessments, etc.; and we have maximized taxpayer resources through our excellent partnerships with law enforcement to accomplish this very important goal (student and staff safety) as efficiently as possible in a very low resource environment. In addition, today we fund our TABOR reserve, our 1% board contingency, and 3% board reserve with cash instead of credit, and property values throughout our county-wide district, values well-known to be tied to education systems, soared last year with an average increase in assessed valuation of 17%. Finally, I leave DCSD honored and proud to have served. I believe that the capacity has been built in this District for excellence in modern education to persevere. I know that after six years of hard work, of “failing-forward” via the design thinking process, DCSD does indeed provide, “Education Elevated” for all children; and I know that our teachers and leaders are committed to this work moving forward because they have seen the future of education; because they care deeply for our students; and because they can never not see the success modern education inspires in our students ever again. Again, thank you for the opportunity you have given me to serve and lead the Douglas County School District. I wish you and the District all the best. Sincerely, Elizabeth Fagen
Office of the Superintendent | 620 Wilcox | Castle Rock, CO 80104 | P 303-387-0123 | F 303.387-0107 | www.dcsdk12.org