Dr. Walt Cooper, Superintendent of Cheyenne Mountain School District 12, has announced he plans to leave the district in June.
In an email to all District 12 staff today, Cooper wrote, "When the Board of Education renewed my contract in May 2017, I told them then that this four-year contract would be my last, and that I was going to retire at the end of the 2020-21 school year. At the time that seemed like forever into the future…now, it almost seems surreal that it is just a number of months away."
He further indicated that the Board of Education took the first step in the process of selecting his successor at their meeting on September 14 by beginning to evaluate superintendent search firms that will ultimately help the Board through what will be a comprehensive search process spanning the next several months.
Cooper, 59, is one of the longest-serving superintendents in Colorado. Prior to his tenure at Cheyenne Mountain, he served as superintendent of the Ellicott School District in El Paso County from 1998-2002. He was selected as Colorado's Superintendent of the Year in 2018.