A Colorado school district was forced to cancel classes after teachers called out sick to protest the new conservative school board

• A Colorado school district was forced to cancel classes on Thursday after teachers called out sick.
• The teachers are protesting the new conservative school board, a union spokesperson told Insider.

A Colorado school district was forced to cancel classes on Thursday after teachers called out sick to protest decisions made by the district's conservative-majority school board.

The Douglas County School District said on its website that a "large number" of staff submitted absences for Thursday and all classes across the district's schools were canceled.

"We have reached the point where the number of absences has impacted our ability to provide a safe and supervised learning environment for students," the alert said.

A spokesperson for Douglas County Federation — a local affiliate union of the American Federation of Teachers — confirmed to Insider that Thursday's protests are a culmination of concerns about the school board from district employees, community members, and parents.

In November, four seats on Douglas County's school board were up for grabs in an election, and a quartet of conservative candidates raised hundreds of thousands of dollars more than their competition.

The four individuals — Mike Peterson, Becky Meyers, Christy Williams, and Kaylee Winegar — all now sit on the seven-person board.

The Douglas County Federation spokesperson told Insider that one particular grievance the union had with the new school board members was the decision made by the conservative-majority in late January to weaken the district's educational equity policy.

The spokesperson also said that two new conservative school board members tried to fire the district's superintendent Corey Wise, and they along with the two other new conservative members decided they would give Wise an ultimatum to either resign or be fired.

The school board also struck down a COVID-19 mask mandate late last year, the spokesperson said.

Along with the protest from teachers, there is also a planned rally against the conservative-majority school boar on Thursday afternoon at the district's headquarters in Castle Rock, just south of Denver.

Douglas County's school board did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Fundraising for Douglas County's 2021 elections shattered contributions made during the district's 2017 elections.

In last year's elections, the quartet was supported by the conservative 1776 Project PAC, a national group that launched in May that says it's actively trying to stop critical race theory from being taught in classrooms.

All the Colorado school board candidates backed by the PAC swept their races in local elections in November.

The election in Douglas County came at the heels of a heated school board meeting that saw parents lash out against the board over COVID-19 safety policies and the supposed teaching of critical race theory.

It's a microcosm of a general trend, where school boards and districts have become battlegrounds for culture war topics.