DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. A new school year in Douglas County will begin on Aug. 12. On the Friday before back-to-school, Denver7's Douglas County Reporter Tyler Melito took questions from Denver7 viewers to Douglas County Schools Superintendent Erin Kane. Denver7's DougCo Reporter Tyler Melito takes questions from Denver7 viewers to Douglas County Schools Superintendent Erin Kane Denver7 sits down with Douglas County Schools Superintendent Erin Kane ahead of 2026-27 school year"Everyone's just excited and optimistic for the school year to come," Kane told Melito. "But of course, we're missing a key element, and that is the kids."For more than 20 minutes, the two covered a number of topics, including concerns from some viewers like Tiffani, Meg and Matt, who all asked about yet another Mill Levy Override (MLO) being put on the ballot this November in DougCo."We passed our last mill levy override in 2023, and it was so helpful," Kane explained. "What we were able to pay for with the 2023 MLO already costs so much more than it did in 2023, as our MLOs have all typically been fixed dollar amounts, so they don't adjust for inflation or for growth. So we are looking at a potential 2026 mill levy override on the ballot to help us keep up with inflation and living costs for our staff, as well as a number of other things like restoring instrumental music in our elementary schools, investing in maintaining our amazing security support."Melito and Kane also discussed how the money generated from a MLO could provide more opportunities for students, particularly in trade programs."Not every student wants to go to college, and so we're trying to make sure that we have pathways for every student, regardless of what their goals are, and that we're able to clear out those wait lists so that truly every student can have an opportunity," Kane said.As a result of the most recent MLO, Kane says the district was able to close the gap in teacher pay. Kane admits while DCSD still doesn't pay as much as some other districts, she said there isn't as much of a discrepancy and teachers still want to come to the district."Our teachers know that my administration and their boards of education, present and past, have really fought for their compensation," Kane said. "In the last four years, our teachers have received over 33% in increases. We're starting to shift to a place where we have teachers waiting to come to Douglas County School District from other districts, even though they'll be taking a pay cut, because we've made Douglas County School District such an incredible place to work."Another topic the two covered was school consolidation. A number of schools in Douglas County closed at the end of last school year, but several others are also opening for the 2026-27 school year.Kane says it's a balancing act that can be challenging, but is driven by one main premise: catering to where the people are."In our new communities, we need to make sure they have easy access to a school," Kane explained. "The answer is not busing all of our young children in new communities to older communities. That will not continue to enhance our property values and attract families to Douglas County."Viewer Margarita asked in high schools specifically, could Kane address uneven student population numbers as they're concerned about the funding that goes to each school? Some schools getting less funding because they have fewer kids, and vice versa."That's always a concern across all of our schools, and we do the best we can to kind of maintain that balance so that our smaller populated schools have more funding per student at their school than our schools that benefit from scale," Kane detailed. "We've been doing a lot of work on boundaries to try to ensure that our high schools kind of are evening the load. Some of our high schools that have been our smaller high schools are actually in areas of really high growth, so that's flipping."Over the last few years, the district has dealt with rolling bus route cancellations due to a bus driver shortage.Viewer Melissa asked where things stood on that front and if these cancellations were something families could continue to expect.Kane said while they have added more drivers, there will still be rolling cancellations this coming school year and pitched to anyone considering being a bus driver."The added routes did outnumber the new drivers," Kane said. "So, if anyone has any interest at all at being a bus driver in Douglas County, we pay well and we take really good care of you. So please come to Douglas County and drive a bus. It's actually one of the most amazing things you can do, especially if you love kids." Watch the full conversation with Superintendent Kane below Full interview: Denver7's Tyler Melito sits down with Douglas County Schools Superintendent Erin Kane ...read more read less