{"id":44099,"date":"2021-10-25T02:29:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T08:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-says-change-to-policy-wont-disband-lgbtq-lunch-group\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:17:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:17:19","slug":"montezuma-cortez-says-change-to-policy-wont-disband-lgbtq-lunch-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-says-change-to-policy-wont-disband-lgbtq-lunch-group\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez says change to policy won\u2019t disband LGBTQ+ lunch group"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=964aed6c-f431-55ac-a2a7-5d0d02be64da&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1056\" alt=\"Montezuma-Cortez Board of Education members made a change to a policy regarding student organizations at its meeting Tuesday.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Montezuma-Cortez Board of Education members made a change to a policy regarding student organizations at its meeting Tuesday.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Montezuma-Cortez School District RE-1 YouTube<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>The Montezuma-Cortez School District RE-1 amended a policy on student organizations at its Tuesday work session and board meeting, but said the change wouldn\u2019t disband the group known as the \u201cLunch Bunch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The board voted unanimously to remove the line \u201cLunch period is considered non-instructional time\u201d from district policy <a href=\"https:\/\/campussuite-storage.s3.amazonaws.com\/prod\/1558643\/58fee358-3e9d-11e9-a230-125a10eb9994\/1914885\/d525ad84-5fd8-11e9-b80c-127874f13a68\/file\/JJA_2_Student%20Organizations%20Open%20Forum_%7BSIS4EBF95884089%7D.pdf\" id=\"link-75017259d88a472c78c2dfd60d3900d7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">JJA-2<\/a> concerning student organizations.<\/p>\n<p>Board Member Tammy Hooten insisted that the policy change was to adhere to Colorado Association of School Boards\u2019 recommended language, and \u201ckeeps us in line with the federal regulation and legal guidelines regarding the Equal Access Act.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Board President Sherri Wright said the change also will align the policy with the wording used by other school districts.<\/p>\n<p>Community members previously have addressed the board about a student-led LGBTQ+ lunchtime club which meets once a week at the middle school, and has been referred to as the \u201cRainbow Club\u201d and the \u201cLunch Bunch.\u201d Like other topics in the school district, the group has drawn polarized opinions from parents and community members.<\/p>\n<p>Many considered the student organization policy change in question to be a board response to the group, although in Tuesday\u2019s meeting, the board didn\u2019t refer to the group by name.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll we are doing is conforming our policy to meet CASB,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n<p>She and Wright clarified that the policy change wouldn\u2019t dissolve the lunchtime group.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe groups that are already meeting will continue to meet for the rest of the year, and then whoever is on the next board makes the decisions on how they deal with it,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n<p>Wright said that the board doesn\u2019t have the power to dissolve the group.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just think the principals need to have that clear direction to help them have those parent conversations,\u201d Hooten said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2013 and some hoped \u2013 that the change would terminate a lunchtime LGBTQ+ group at the middle school <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[155,28,167,216,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-44099","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"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44099","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=44099"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85969,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44099\/revisions\/85969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44099"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=44099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}