{"id":45008,"date":"2021-08-25T02:06:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T08:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-school-board-calls-off-meeting-after-audience-members-refuse-to-follow-covid-19-policies\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:22:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:22:54","slug":"durango-school-board-calls-off-meeting-after-audience-members-refuse-to-follow-covid-19-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-school-board-calls-off-meeting-after-audience-members-refuse-to-follow-covid-19-policies\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango school board calls off meeting after audience members refuse to follow COVID-19 policies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango
Durango School District 9-R has agreed to a pay the district\u2019s next superintendent, Karen Cheser, $200,000 annually. Cheser currently earns $170,000 annually as superintendent of the Fort Thomas Independent School District in Kentucky.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Durango School District 9-R Board of Education was intent on holding its regular meeting Tuesday \u2013 until audience members refused to comply with public health policies meant to limit the spread of COVID-19.<\/p>\n

The school district required all visitors, students and staff members to wear a face covering, according to meeting policies posted Thursday. There is also a capacity limit for in-person meetings, 50% or 35 people. The policies follow public health guidelines, said Julie Popp, the district\u2019s spokeswoman.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had some individuals who did not want to follow those guidelines, so we canceled the meeting,\u201d Popp said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be rescheduling it soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school board met as usual, prepared to hear a presentation from a doctor at Pediatric Partners of Durango, look at testing data and receive an update about the district\u2019s bonds, among other items on the agenda.<\/p>\n

The audience that showed up was over the capacity limit, and some audience members refused to leave to comply with the limits, Popp said.<\/p>\n

If capacity is reached at a meeting, priority is given to those who are presenting or who submit a public participation form before the meeting, according to the district\u2019s policies. Other community members can watch the meeting from the district\u2019s online streaming channel at durangoschools.org\/stream<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the streaming video was never started because the meeting never formally began, Popp said.<\/p>\n

Some audience members also refused to wear masks, as required by the district for visitors, students and staff members, she said.<\/p>\n

The only allowance is if a visitor presents a medical exemption. If visitors are unable to follow masking rules without medical exemptions or circumstances, they may be asked to leave the building, according to district policies.<\/p>\n

If visitors forget a mask, they may be provided one by district staff and are expected to follow the guidelines, the policies say.<\/p>\n

A new meeting date was not available as of Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n

smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

refused to wear masks or leave for capacity issues<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,1086,28,668],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-45008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-durango-school-district-9-r","tag-headlines","tag-public-health"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45008","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=45008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86310,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45008\/revisions\/86310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45008"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=45008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}