{"id":30140,"date":"2023-12-15T16:23:27","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T23:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/state-government-officials-set-to-visit-mancos-to-learn-more-about-the-district\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:12:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:12:24","slug":"state-government-officials-set-to-visit-mancos-to-learn-more-about-the-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/state-government-officials-set-to-visit-mancos-to-learn-more-about-the-district\/","title":{"rendered":"State government officials set to visit Mancos to learn more about the district"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Mancos School District informed parents and staff about the death of a student last week. (The Jounal file)<\/span>The Jounal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

On Monday, Dec. 18, Rep. Barbara McLachlan (D-Colorado) and Sen. Cleave Simpson (R-Colorado) will visit the Mancos School District from 3-5 p.m. to visit and learn more about the district.<\/p>\n

According to Mancos Superintendent Todd Cordrey, the officials will be meeting with just the Mancos District while in Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll give them a tour of the school district, to show them all the great stuff we\u2019re doing and to celebrate the successes,\u201d Cordrey shared. \u201cThey\u2019ll also meet with the Board to talk about the Board of Education priorities for the upcoming legislative session.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rep. McLachlan is one of 65 Colorado representatives, and Sen. Simpson is one of 35 senators. The bi-partisan visit shows that both sides are equally concerned about education in Colorado, according to Cordrey.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a Republican and she\u2019s a Democrat,\u201d Cordrey said. \u201cWe\u2019re very happy to have both of them. They\u2019re both strong education advocates, and we\u2019re just excited that they\u2019re willing to give their time to be with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLachlan is a retired educator from the Durango School District, and education has been something she has advocated for in the Colorado House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

She will not be re-running for representative, so she has been providing districts with information about what she anticipates will take place during the upcoming legislative session, Cordrey said.<\/p>\n

At the Colorado Association of School Boards retreat last weekend, Mancos Board member Victor Figueroa met with McLachlan, and she was invited to visit the district.<\/p>\n

Cordrey also shared that a month or so ago, he reached out to Sen. Simpson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI reached out to start a relationship with him and to learn from him about what his priorities are as a senator in our area, and then also to share with him Mancos School District\u2019s priorities from the state legislature,\u201d he said. \u201cSen. Simpson and I spoke for about an hour on Zoom and had a really good conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

After McLachlan accepted the invitation to visit the district, Cordrey invited Simpson, who also accepted.<\/p>\n

The district has three initiatives they will share with Sen. Simpson and Rep. McLachlan. The first is staff pay.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe request a carve-out within the Colorado School Finance Act that will specifically and consistently address the small, rural, remote factor. We need a specific provision written into the Colorado School Finance Act that addresses funding to pay for staff salaries. Currently, when comparing the starting salary from the highest and lowest paying rural districts, Mancos falls in the middle at $34,000. In addition, two neighboring, and larger districts, are able to pay $50,000-54,000 for starting salaries. At about $20,000 less, the Mancos RE-6 salary base is not acceptable to recruit and retain teachers. Because of this, salary increases are our number one priority,\u201d the letter to the two said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first priority is to provide specific funding for small, remote school districts, so to provide specific funding for small remote rural school districts in Colorado so that we could compete with larger districts and with New Mexico for teacher and staff compensation, because currently, our compensation of what we pay our teaching staff is about 20,000 less than New Mexico or Durango,\u201d Cordrey said. \u201cIt\u2019s also not healthy for our school district, not to have adequate funds to appropriately pay teachers and other staff members.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second priority outlined by the district addresses mental health concerns for students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are struggling with a small percentage of students who have intense mental health issues and\/or disabilities that manifest in severe behavioral and emotional outbursts. These behaviors put students and staff safety at risk. Since we are a small rural district, we have less resources and\/or programs to meet the needs of our students, staff and families,\u201d the district said.<\/p>\n

Cordrey shared some students are struggling and the district doesn\u2019t have what it needs to adequately help these students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have students that are experiencing severe behavioral and emotional state situations and we would like to see the state government really focus in on the psychological and mental well-being of students,\u201d Cordrey shared. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing, and other school districts in the state and in the region, are experiencing a significant uptick in students that are that are struggling with their mental and psychological well-being. So, we\u2019re hoping that the state legislature and can support, craft and support a bill that will support the well-being of our students.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last ask on the list of priorities addressed state debt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governor is committed to paying off the long-standing debt owed to Colorado students in the form of the Budget Stabilization Factor (BSF). The General Assembly, in the 2023-2024 School Finance Act, included language to fully buy-down the BSF in the upcoming fiscal year. We ask for your support of a full buy-down of the BSF in the upcoming year,\u201d the Board stated.<\/p>\n

Cordrey explained how the debt was accumulated and how it could be rectified.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 14 years ago, they started something called the Budget Stabilization Factor and it gave them the right to not fully fund school education in the state of Colorado. As a result, the state of Colorado has shorted public education $10 billion in the last 14 years,\u201d Cordrey said. \u201cSo, for the first time since then, the governor has put forward the budget for the upcoming school year, where the School Finance Act would be fully funded for the first time in about 14 years. We\u2019re asking Rep. McLaughlin and Sen. Simpson to support the full funding of the School Finance Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cordrey said he, the Board and the District are grateful to have Sen. Simpson and Rep. McLachlan visit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really fortunate to have both. I think it\u2019s very clear that education funding is a state\u2019s imperative, and I think that\u2019s proven with a visit from a Democrat and a Republican, both of them fully supporting appropriate education funding. We\u2019re honored to be able to share with them the successes we\u2019re having as a school district, and also to elevate the success of our students. It\u2019s just an honor for us to be able to share the successes of our students with our state leaders,\u201d Cordrey finished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

will have the opportunity to present the officials with priorities for the upcoming legislative session<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,155,896,28,83,392,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-education","tag-government","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\/30140","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=30140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80976,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30140\/revisions\/80976"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30140"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}