Douglas County’s board of health and school district have settled a lawsuit filed eight months ago after the board passed a resolution hollowing out the district’s masking policy, seemingly without addressing masking itself.

Under the settlement, announced by the county Tuesday morning, the county will pay $90,000 to the school district “for the hiring of a psychological safety coordinator,” who will “provide coordination, leadership, and facilitation of all components of District safety assessments and services, including mandatory child abuse reporting, suicide assessments, threat assessments, and crisis team response.”

The county’s announcement makes no mention of any settlement terms related to masking or COVID-19 mitigation measures, which had formed the basis of the lawsuit.

The settlement ends litigation that had helped split the county apart when it was filed in October. The board of health, newly formed after an acrimonious divorce from Tri-County Health, had swiftly passed a resolution allowing parents to exempt their students from the district’s mask order. The district sued, alleging the resolution violated the rights of at-risk students. A federal judge sided with the district, issuing a temporary order restoring its mask mandate.

A month later, four new school board members were elected, instantly shifting the balance of power on the board to a conservative majority that campaigned against masks, COVID-19 mitigation measures and the lawsuit. Corey Wise, the board’s superintendent, was fired in early February, with some new board members linking his termination to the lawsuit. 

“We are unified in our focus on what’s best for the communities we collectively serve,” Doug Benevento, the health board’s president, said in a statement. “We look forward to our continued relationship with our School District and our mutually beneficial support for mental and behavioral health among our community’s youth.”

While the suit between the two Douglas County boards has now ended, both are still enmeshed in litigation elsewhere. The school board is still fighting a lawsuit filed by a county resident alleging its four new members broke the Colorado public meeting law in the lead up to Wise’s termination. A Douglas County judge issued an early defeat to the board in March, barring its members from communicating in the manner they did prior to Wise’s dismissal. The board’s attorneys have asked the judge to reconsider that order.

The board of health is also fighting a lawsuit brought by two private businesses contesting the same mask exemption rule that the school district challenged. The same judge who ruled against the school board delivered a similar blow in that case, barring the board from enforcing its rule. The health board has appealed that decision. 

The string of litigation, enveloping a newly created board of health and newly elected school board majority, shows the level of division and change transforming governance in Douglas County, a process fueled by blowback to COVID-19 mitigation measures. The shift has drawn praise from parents and community members critical of those measures and criticism from others who’ve accused the county’s leaders of injecting politics into public health and public education.