{"id":44026,"date":"2021-10-29T04:19:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T10:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-partially-lifts-ban-on-extracurricular-activities\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:17:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:17:06","slug":"montezuma-cortez-partially-lifts-ban-on-extracurricular-activities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-partially-lifts-ban-on-extracurricular-activities\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez partially lifts ban on extracurricular activities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=84f64173-3820-5125-a5fa-49c520116f76&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"720\" height=\"378\" alt=\"The Montezuma-Cortez High School marching band held a concert at Parque de Vida Wednesday as a final concert and form of protest against the school district\u2019s decision to cancel the band's trip to the state competition in Pueblo. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">The Montezuma-Cortez High School marching band held a concert at Parque de Vida Wednesday as a final concert and form of protest against the school district\u2019s decision to cancel the band's trip to the state competition in Pueblo. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>Montezuma-Cortez Superintendent Risha VanderWey announced Thursday evening that off-campus extracurricular activities could resume, easing an order that canceled activities after all but district charter schools were closed because of a surge in COVID-19 cases.<\/p>\n<p>High school and middle school students will be allowed to participate in competitions, but no activities may take place in any district indoor facility, VanderWey\u2019s news release said.<\/p>\n<p>The 10-day school closures were implemented Wednesday after the district experienced a surge in COVID-19 cases. More than 700 students were quarantined and five were hospitalized, the district announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Among school staff, 21 had tested positive, two had been hospitalized, 12 remained ill, and 13 had been quarantined.<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday afternoon, the high school band performed in Parque de Vida, protesting the cancellation of its trip to Pueblo for the state competition. They  followed up with a video conference asking school officials \u2013 including VanderWey \u2013 for a chance to perform if additional safety measures were executed.<\/p>\n<p>In compliance with federal mandate, masks must be worn on buses, and are recommended to be worn otherwise, Thursday\u2019s news release said.<\/p>\n<p>The new allowance, effective Friday, will permit groups such the state band and football, basketball and volleyball teams to compete in events.<\/p>\n<p>The decision came \u201cafter much deliberation and contemplation over the safety of our students who would be involve in extracurricular activities,\u201d VanderWey said in the news release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Band, sports activities previously canceled after COVID-19 surge, school closures <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,167,445],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-44026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-newsletter-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44026","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=44026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85938,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44026\/revisions\/85938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44026"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=44026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}