{"id":44040,"date":"2021-10-29T02:04:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T08:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-expresses-concern-postpones-discussion-about-medical-marijuana-in-schools\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:17:07","slug":"montezuma-cortez-expresses-concern-postpones-discussion-about-medical-marijuana-in-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-expresses-concern-postpones-discussion-about-medical-marijuana-in-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez expresses concern, postpones discussion about medical marijuana in schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Montezuma-Cortez
Montezuma-Cortez Board of Education members discuss Wit and Wisdom curriculum at the elementary school level.<\/span>Montezuma-Cortez School District RE-1 YouTube<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Montezuma-Cortez School District RE-1 Board of Education expressed concern and postponed a vote Oct. 19 about policies for students who would self-administer medical marijuana.<\/p>\n

After a work session, the board voted unanimously during its monthly meeting to further discuss medication policies from the Colorado Association of School Boards.<\/p>\n

Superintendent Risha VanderWey said at the meeting that she and Assistant Superintendent Lis Richard would work to provide more information on medication administration processes before the board officially adopted the CASB policies.<\/p>\n

VanderWey has not responded to The Journal\u2019s<\/em> request for comment.<\/p>\n

Richard researched another school district\u2019s policy during the meeting, and found that it had amended CASB wording to include parameters that outlined designated locations where medical marijuana could be issued, and provided a district definition of medical marijuana. She said the RE-1 board could rework the policies to their liking, as well.<\/p>\n

The discussion follows a new law<\/a> signed by Gov. Jared Polis in May that revoked school principal discretion in deciding whether to allow the storage, possession and administration of medical marijuana on school property. The law change called on school boards to create their own local policies allowing school personnel to voluntarily administer the cannabis-based medicine.<\/p>\n

In addition to school nurses, other designated staff may administer medical marijuana to students, VanderWey said.<\/p>\n

Still, the conversation at the meeting focused on students self-administering medical marijuana.<\/p>\n

The policy presented to the board stated that school nurses don\u2019t store or administer the medication, board member Cody Wells said. This left board President Sherri Wright questioning whether students kept it in their lockers, and if this would pose problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry, but we have teenagers in this school,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n

VanderWey clarified that students must have prescriptions for medical marijuana.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy concern is that if a student \u2013 a rowdy student that likes to misbehave \u2013 understands that another student has marijuana in their locker for medication purposes, what\u2019s to keep them from breaking into the locker and taking it? We are dealing with teenagers,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n

Board Member Stacey Hall agreed.<\/p>\n

Wells asked if the medication was supposed to be administered at a certain time of the school day.<\/p>\n

Wright called on Montezuma-Cortez Middle School Principal Drew Pearson for insight, but he said he had never dealt with marijuana \u201cin any capacity\u201d being allowed in schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt scares me, frankly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs it should,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n

Wright said she understands medical marijuana works to treat some medical conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the student that has it that scares me, it\u2019s the students that know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The policy stated that the medication could only be administered once every eight hours, and Hall asked why it couldn\u2019t be administered at home before students arrived for the school day. Wright wondered if perhaps it had to do with taking the medication with food at lunchtime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

members concerned about self-administration and possession of medical marijuana in schools <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[155,28,167,135,1611,216,29,181],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-44040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-marijuana","tag-medical-marijuana","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1","tag-newsletter","tag-school"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44040","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=44040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85945,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44040\/revisions\/85945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44040"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=44040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}