{"id":42020,"date":"2022-02-24T00:17:23","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T07:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-votes-to-continue-four-day-weeks\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:04:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:04:54","slug":"montezuma-cortez-votes-to-continue-four-day-weeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-votes-to-continue-four-day-weeks\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez votes to continue four-day weeks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Montezuma-Cortez
Montezuma-Cortez High School.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Four-day school weeks will be a mainstay for Montezuma-Cortez School District RE-1 for at least the next three school years, the Board of Education decided Tuesday in a 5-2 vote.<\/p>\n

The board largely advocated for calendar consistency in years to come, with board directors Layne Frazier and Jeanette Hart voting against the measure, saying they preferred longer weeks.<\/p>\n

Frazier worried about the loss of instruction in electives such as art, music and physical education.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to retain teachers, I want to keep them here, but I can\u2019t help but think of those people that it\u2019s going to impact,\u201d he said at the meeting.<\/p>\n

The selected calendar was chosen from three options, and the community was invited to weigh in with an online survey that was open through Monday.<\/p>\n

Staff and the community favored the 147-day calendar, with 85.5% of staff and 61.5% of the community voting for it.<\/p>\n\n

The survey results are posted on the district\u2019s website in Tuesday\u2019s board meeting packet.<\/a><\/p>\n

The calendar is subject to modifications from the school board, with further details on bus routes and school day times to come.<\/p>\n

Work on salary schedules will commence now that the calendar is selected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not going to harm our personnel,\u201d said Board Director Sherri Wright.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the perception is when we went to the four-day week many years ago, we did that because we were financially in trouble in this district,\u201d said Board Director Stacey Hall.<\/p>\n

That isn\u2019t the case this time around, she said. The new calendar is \u201cwhat is better for our district now,\u201d and is not being \u201cforced,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The district didn\u2019t save much money when the four-day weeks were initially implemented, said Jim Parr, executive director of academic student services.<\/p>\n

Board Director Ed Rice made the motion to lock in the four-day weeks for three years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like the community really needs to know that we are committed to doing this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Setting the calendar now will grant the board more time to focus on other issues including hiring more staff in the future, said board President Sheri Noyes.<\/p>\n\n

A previous survey showed substantial community preference for the four-day calendar.<\/p>\n

The calendar, effective January, was considered to provide relief for teachers amid a staff shortage.<\/p>\n

More than 87% of staff favored the midyear shift to four-day school weeks.<\/p>\n

About 77% of 704 parents and guardians previously endorsed four-day school weeks.<\/p>\n

The four-day calendar with 147 student days aligns most closely with the calendar of nearby school districts, said Kyle Archibeque, executive director of finance.<\/p>\n

Teaching staff can expect an additional 30 minutes each school day with the 147-day calendar, he said in a previous districtwide email.<\/p>\n

In Colorado, schools must plan for 990 student contact hours at the elementary level and 1,080 at the secondary level. Schools are required to be in session 160 days, but Montezuma-Cortez may now request an exemption from the state.<\/p>\n

The current school year is 160 days.<\/p>\n

Colorado leads the nation in school districts with four-day weeks, with more than 60% of districts implementing the shorter weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four-day school weeks to stay in the district for next three years <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[155,28,167,216,29,181,180,93,762],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-42020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1","tag-newsletter","tag-school","tag-schools","tag-students","tag-teachers"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42020","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=42020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85188,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42020\/revisions\/85188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42020"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=42020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}