{"id":32283,"date":"2023-08-10T00:46:06","date_gmt":"2023-08-10T06:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rico-school-realignment-meeting-set-this-week\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:55:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:55:40","slug":"rico-school-realignment-meeting-set-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rico-school-realignment-meeting-set-this-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Rico school realignment meeting set this week"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Dolores County School District has voted to close Rico Elementary School because enrollment has fallen to seven students.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Since Rico\u2019s schoolchildren attend Telluride schools but are part of the Dolores County School District, The Kids of Rico Planning Committee took matters into their own hands to realign Rico kids to be annexed into the Telluride School District.<\/p>\n

Next week, The Kids of Rico Planning Committee will hold two information sessions, one at Dolores County School District on Aug. 15 and the other at Telluride School District on Aug. 16, to explain and gain support from both school districts\u2019 residents to realign Rico\u2019s schoolchildren from the Dolores County School District into the Telluride School District. Another meeting has been set for Aug. 31 in Rico.<\/p>\n

\n

Rico school realignment public meetings<\/h4>\n

Dolores County session<\/strong>Aug. 15, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. High School Commons525 N. Main St. Dove Creek, 81324<\/p>\n

Telluride session<\/strong>Aug. 16, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Telluride Elementary School447 W. Columbia Ave. Telluride, 81435<\/p>\n

Rico session<\/strong>Aug. 31, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Enterprise Bar & Grill3 N. Glasgow Ave. Rico, CO 81332<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

According to a news release, Rico\u2019s only public school shut its doors in 2018. Since then, most of the town\u2019s 25 school-age children have attended Telluride schools, 28 miles away.<\/p>\n

A problem with that is that they are still part of the Dolores County School District, even though the closest Dolores County school is 75 miles away in Dove Creek.<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s Public Schools of Choice Law, which allows students to attend any school that has space, has permitted Dolores County students to attend Telluride schools. However, this year, limited room nearly kept one Dolores County student from attending class in Telluride.<\/p>\n

Next week\u2019s meeting on the realignment plan will focus on how the realignment would benefit Rico\u2019s schoolchildren and how realignment would impact to taxpayers in both districts. Community members\u2019 questions will be answered as well.<\/p>\n

Both school boards support the realignment and approved a proposal to the November 2023 ballot.<\/p>\n

Additionally, state law requires residents in both Dolores County and Telluride school districts to vote for the realignment plan during November\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n

If approved, the realignment will take effect July 1, 2024.<\/p>\n

According to the Kids of Rico, the realignment would not increase Dolores County property taxes, the Rico school building and property would no longer be a concern for DCSD taxpayers, and it would not lead to a county annexation.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Dolores County School District has voted to close Rico Elementary School because enrollment has fallen to seven students.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rico\u2019s schoolchildren would be moved into the Telluride district <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-32283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32283","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=32283"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81737,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32283\/revisions\/81737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32283"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=32283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}