{"id":16791,"date":"2025-08-25T16:47:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T16:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dac-survey-shows-overwhelming-opposition-to-elementary-reorganization\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:01:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:01:21","slug":"dac-survey-shows-overwhelming-opposition-to-elementary-reorganization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dac-survey-shows-overwhelming-opposition-to-elementary-reorganization\/","title":{"rendered":"DAC survey shows overwhelming opposition to elementary reorganization"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kemper
Kemper Elementary students earned over $10,000 with their \u00e2\u20ac\u2122S Cool fund raiser last year, enough to purchase a digital sign to announce events at the school. Principal Angela Galyon thought raising the money would take two or three years, but the students and parents organized and earned the money in one event. Nate and Eshi Hicks of MedVed Global donated the entire installation, the City of Cortez helped with the permit and fees, Alpine Mobile Crete donated the cement and Louis Cordova Jr. of Current Source Electric did the electrical work at a significantly reduced cost<\/span>Sam Green\/Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A recent survey conducted by the Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 District Accountability Committee showed overwhelming opposition among parents, staff and community members to the proposed reorganization of Mesa and Kemper Elementary schools.<\/p>\n

If passed, one of the elementary schools would house all district kindergarten through second grade students, and the other school would house all third through fifth graders.<\/p>\n

Though the reorganization hasn\u2019t come up in recent school board meetings as an item on the agenda, it is still reportedly being discussed.<\/p>\n

Among the 46 survey respondents, many expressed concerns over potential disruptions to students relationships, family logistics in getting children to and from school and the overall quality of education students will receive.<\/p>\n

According to survey results, 76.1% of respondents said they strongly opposed the reorganization, with only 2.2% expressing strong support. A little over 15% were only somewhat opposed.<\/p>\n

Out of those who responded, 56.8% were parents, nearly 20% were school staff and 8.7% were community members. Others included grandparents.<\/p>\n

Prior to the survey, concerns that had been brought before the district included the potential separation of siblings and parents having the burden of trying to coordinate dropping off and picking up children at separate locations. In the survey, one parent shared they would have to go to all four schools for their children, including the middle school and high school, if the proposed reorganization passes.<\/p>\n

Parents shared worries about added stress from managing different school locations, including longer commutes and challenges with parent-teacher conferences. Some noted that current bus routes already exceed two hours daily for certain students, and the change could exacerbate this.<\/p>\n

Other potential impacts discussed were emotional trauma from breaking established bonds with students and teachers, and others warned of larger class sizes, behavioral issues in upper grades and a potential decline in volunteer engagement, as well as protecting students with social emotional well-being, especially those with history of trauma.<\/p>\n

Instead of children changing schools when they go to middle school and high school, they would also be required to change schools in the middle of their elementary school years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the district is overlooking the fact that no one wants this,\u201d one respondent said. \u201cOr they just don\u2019t care about how this change will negatively affect the teachers, students and parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others spoke of the already declining rate of enrollment in the district, saying that a change like this could cause more families to enroll their students in other nearby districts. Another mentioned teacher retention and how tax dollars will be used, as well of the affect of separating older students from younger.<\/p>\n

\u201cYounger students look up to older students have the opportunity to serve as role models,\u201d another respondent said. \u201cThe proposal removes that opportunity for both ends of the age spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of reorganization, some respondents suggested investment in smaller staff-to-student ratios, reading interventionists, after school programs and more, rather than structural changes of this kind.<\/p>\n

Some addressed the school board and school leadership, asking for greater transparency and consideration of all input. They also asked that surveys and other means of collecting input be provided by the district.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe board should take a hard look at the real problem facing our schools,\u201d one responded noted. \u201cThis proposition is creating a nonsolution to a nonproblem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Superintendent Tom Burris told The<\/em> Journal<\/em> on Monday that the proposed reorganization is set to go to a board vote in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy personal opinion aside, this began as a board discussion and it\u2019s in their hands,\u201d Burris said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

reorganization would affect Kemper and Mesa Elementary Schools<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,155,28,60,216,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16791","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=16791"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77204,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16791\/revisions\/77204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16791"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}