{"id":27489,"date":"2024-05-23T17:01:19","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T23:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-hires-new-principal-james-hughes\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T00:03:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:03:01","slug":"mancos-hires-new-principal-james-hughes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-hires-new-principal-james-hughes\/","title":{"rendered":"Mancos hires new principal James Hughes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"James
James Hughes will officially start as principal on July 22. (Mancos School District\/Courtesy Photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Mancos School District RE-6 announced May 15 that James Hughes will replace secondary Principal Ed Whitner, who submitted his resignation to the Board of Education in April.<\/p>\n

Hughes, who grew up in Blanding, Utah, has 21 years of experience in education, He is director of technology and student accountability in Lamar.<\/p>\n

Before working in Lamar, Hughes taught middle school math and coached a variety of sports in Delta for a total of seven years. He also served on the leadership team and filled in for administration staff as a substitute.<\/p>\n

Hughes even taught on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, in Coffman Cove with 27 students total in the K-12 school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the principal\/teacher, secretary, registrar, lunch lady sometimes. We kind of did everything,\u201d Hughes said.<\/p>\n

Hughes shared that he has visited Mancos and wanted to live in Mancos someday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always talked about living in Mancos at some point and working there,\u201d Hughes told The<\/em> Journal<\/em>. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it would actually ever come true, so I was super-excited when that position opened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it was the family-centric culture and emphasis on project based learning that led Hughes to the district.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is such an amazing culture,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cThere\u2019s such a sense of family and belonging. They really focus on project-based learning, and they have incredible goals. \u2026 They\u2019re really moving in a super-positive direction, and they\u2019re a very close knit campus. They\u2019re willing to work together.\u201d<\/p>\n

After visiting the campus for two days, Hughes said he became even more excited and is ready to begin working to continue making Mancos an exceptional place for students.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone was so welcoming and supportive, and you can tell that every decision they make is focusing on what is best for our students,\u201d Hughes said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what it\u2019s like in a small town and trying to make things work, and I\u2019ve worked in bigger districts like Delta and Lamar,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cI know what the possibilities are, and I have a huge drive for putting in different interventions to support students, and I believe in offering all kinds of help for students that might need it.\u201d<\/p>\n

After learning that he had been offered the position, Hughes said that it all felt meant to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that God directs us where we need to go, and I felt like this is what I was supposed to do, and that things were going to work out the way they were supposed to. I felt like I was going home,\u201d Hughes said.<\/p>\n

Hughes\u2019s first official day as principal is July 22.<\/p>\n

Hughes added that he is excited to get to know parents and students in the district, and is eager to hear everyone\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really want to get to know all of the people that I work with, all the staff and teachers, and I want to be able to support them the best way I possibly can,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cI believe in building a good relationship and understanding what their wants and needs are and trying to help support them so that they, in turn, can focus on the students. That is the best way I can serve teachers and serve the students. I want to take the vision and the goals and the mission that the district has and really support that and really strive to keep going in a positive direction. I have a lot of ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am honored to be a part of the Mancos Bluejays family,\u201d he said in an email to district families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

bring his talents and experience to Mancos in July<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[155,28,83,37,392,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-27489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-mancos","tag-mancos-high-school","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\/27489","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=27489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80077,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27489\/revisions\/80077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27489"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=27489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}