{"id":16729,"date":"2025-08-29T13:02:54","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T19:02:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-school-board-discusses-goals-colorado-immigration-law-at-meeting\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:00:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:00:58","slug":"mancos-school-board-discusses-goals-colorado-immigration-law-at-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-school-board-discusses-goals-colorado-immigration-law-at-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Mancos school board discusses goals, Colorado immigration law at meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Mancos RE-6 Board of Education held their first meeting of the 2025-26 school year on Monday. (Screen capture via Zoom)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

At the first meeting of the 2025\u201326 school year on Monday, the Mancos RE-6 school board received updates on Cortez\u2019s status with BOCES, district goals for the new year, and immigration policies.<\/p>\n

Student board members and election<\/div>\n

Board President Emily Hutcheson-Brown discussed recruiting two new student board members and encouraged students to apply.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want students to realize what an impact they could have,\u201d board member Craig Benally said.<\/p>\n

The board also noted that two seats will be up for reelection in November.<\/p>\n

BOCES update<\/div>\n

Rachel McWhirter provided an update on BOCES and the Montezuma-Cortez School District\u2019s efforts to leave the organization. She said the BOCES board voted not to oppose Cortez\u2019s departure this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is up to CDE for the final decision,\u201d McWhirter said.<\/p>\n

Board member Tim Hunter expressed disappointment in the decision, and the board discussed how Cortez\u2019s exit could affect Mancos and other rural districts if approved by the Colorado Department of Education.<\/p>\n

McWhirter added that there is no \u201creported ill will\u201d between Cortez and BOCES and that collaboration may still occur when needed.<\/p>\n

Superintendent report<\/div>\n

In her first report as superintendent, Audrey Hazleton shared that she has been in the role for seven to eight weeks, with five weeks spent in person in Mancos.<\/p>\n

Hazleton said she was \u201creally impressed\u201d with family engagement efforts at the Early Learning Center and highlighted the new math curriculum at the elementary school and the high school advisory program.<\/p>\n

She said she is focused on building a district-wide leadership team and recruiting to fill open positions.<\/p>\n

SRO and budget update<\/div>\n

Hutcheson-Brown informed attendees that the school resource officer position is no longer filled, as the designated officer resigned. She emphasized that local law enforcement still provides coverage and that the existing memorandum of understanding remains in effect.<\/p>\n

In the business manager\u2019s report, the board received a budget update and was told the district would continue operating under the current budget, despite some challenges.<\/p>\n

Goals and strategic plan alignment<\/div>\n

Toward the end of the meeting, Hazleton presented the district\u2019s mission goals for the year, focusing on strategic plan alignment. The goals were drafted by the district\u2019s administration team.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur current strategic plan is robust and complex,\u201d the presentation rationale stated. \u201cAn alignment and articulation process ensures every staff member sees the immediate connection of their role to our goals, mission and vision for the district and every student in the 2025\u201326 school year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goals center on building a healthy community, fostering engaging learning, and strengthening cohesive systems and structures. These align with the district\u2019s Portrait of a Graduate competencies and other existing initiatives.<\/p>\n

A staff survey showed strong support for the goals, and next steps for implementation and community presentation were shared.<\/p>\n

Immigration policies<\/div>\n

The board also discussed updates to the district\u2019s immigration policies to comply with Senate Bill 25-276, signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis in May.<\/p>\n

The law designates schools, hospitals, and similar areas as \u201cprotected locations,\u201d barring immigration officials from entering without a warrant to conduct status checks.<\/p>\n

Districts must now adopt compliant policies, train staff, and update guidelines. Staff are prohibited from discussing student or parent immigration status with law enforcement or others unless ordered by a court.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 25, the board adopted an emergency resolution titled \u201cKLG-R Relations with Federal Immigration Officers.\u201d<\/p>\n

One section of the policy states:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe district will not collect the place of birth, immigration or citizenship status or information from passports, permanent resident cards, alien registration cards or employment authorization documents for students or their parents\/guardians, except as necessary to verify information as required by state and\/or federal law or to comply with a subpoena, order or warrant issued by a federal judge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another section states that no person or agency may access a student\u2019s academic record without consent from the student, parent or guardian, or as required by law.<\/p>\n

The district designated Hazleton \u2013 or the acting superintendent at the time \u2013 as the point person for immigration matters. Elementary Principal Mary Marable and High School Principal James Hughes were named as alternates.<\/p>\n

The policy also outlines procedures for responding to official requests for student immigration information.<\/p>\n

The next Mancos school board meeting is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 15, at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

seeks potential student members of the school board <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16730,"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-16729","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\/16729","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=16729"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20359,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16729\/revisions\/20359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16729"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}