{"id":15318,"date":"2025-12-10T06:43:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T13:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-school-board-welcomes-new-members-at-december-meeting\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:46:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:46:39","slug":"mancos-school-board-welcomes-new-members-at-december-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-school-board-welcomes-new-members-at-december-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Mancos school board welcomes new members at December meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Members
Members of the Mancos RE-6 school board after certification of November\u2019s election. From left: Kira Taylor, Craig Benally, Tim Hunter, student board member Greta Thompson, Rachel McWhirter and Craig McClure. Student board member Rhett Brown was absent. (Audrey Hazleton\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

At its December meeting, the Mancos RE-6 school board introduced new members, selected officers and heard a report on student priorities.<\/p>\n

The board welcomed new members Kira Taylor and Craig McClure, who were elected in November and sworn in after the election was certified by the Montezuma County clerk and recorder.<\/p>\n

The board and Superintendent Audrey Hazleton honored former president Emily Hutcheson-Brown and former vice president Victor Figueroa, who were not present, for their service before electing officers.<\/p>\n

The board approved Tim Hunter\u2019s proposed slate: Hunter as president, Craig Benally as vice president, Rachel McWhirter as treasurer and McClure as secretary. Taylor will serve as director.<\/p>\n

Student survey reveals priorities<\/p>\n

After officer selections, the board shifted focus to student voices, hearing results from a survey conducted by student board members Greta Thompson and Rhett Brown.<\/p>\n

Brown did not attend the meeting.<\/div>\n

Thompson said the survey was sent to middle and high school students to learn what changes they want in their schools and the district.<\/p>\n

Middle school students want to choose electives, spend more time outside, stop using IXL, have longer lunches, make spring classes more interactive, access the gym during recess in cold months and have phone time at lunch.<\/p>\n

High school students requested longer lunches, permission to use earbuds during independent work, more tutoring options and phone time after completing assignments.<\/p>\n

Thompson said she and Brown plan to speak with the dean about attendance policies, noting \u201csome gray areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, it\u2019s a little iffy for a lot of people,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n

She reiterated the middle school request for more outdoor time, citing Mancos\u2019 natural setting: \u201cIt\u2019s a shame we don\u2019t get to go outside as much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hazleton asked Thompson to describe the High School Student Alliance, a student group she belongs to.<\/p>\n

Thompson said the alliance aims to make school \u201cmore interactive and a little more fun.\u201d She added the group is planning a \u201chuge\u201d spring project to keep students engaged before summer break.<\/p>\n

Thompson said she hopes surveys and presentations show students \u201cwe want to hear their opinions so that we can make the school better for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that she and Brown plan to schedule time to talk with elementary students.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though they\u2019re little, they still have good ideas and anyone can make a difference,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n

Mill levy oversight committee update<\/div>\n

As the meeting wrapped up, the board turned to financial matters, discussing plans for the mill levy oversight committee.<\/p>\n

The first meeting is set for Monday, Dec. 15, and will serve as an orientation before work begins in January. Members will be notified this week.<\/p>\n

Hazleton said several people expressed interest and representatives are still being chosen.<\/p>\n

Hunter said some community members are concerned about how the committee will be formed and funds allocated.<\/p>\n

In response to McWhirter, Hazleton said an interest form was sent twice and applicants include parents, staff and nonparent community members.<\/p>\n

Meeting notes will be shared and feedback sessions scheduled.<\/p>\n

The next board meeting is Monday, Jan. 26, at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A student board member reports on a recent survey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[155,28,83,392,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-mancos","tag-mancos-school-district-re-6","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15318"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19594,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15318\/revisions\/19594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15318"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}