{"id":46767,"date":"2021-05-15T22:18:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-16T04:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-selects-new-superintendent\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:34:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:34:19","slug":"montezuma-cortez-selects-new-superintendent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-selects-new-superintendent\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez selects new superintendent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Risha
Risha VanderWey will formally take the reins of the Montezuma-Cortez School District RE-1 on July 1. (Courtesy of Tuba City Unified School District)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Montezuma-Cortez School District RE-1 Board of Education formally selected Risha VanderWey this week to be its next superintendent.<\/p>\n

VanderWey, who has a doctorate in educational leadership from Northern Arizona University, has more than 20 years of experience as an educator, including seven years as a superintendent. She most recently was superintendent of majority-Navajo Tuba City Unified School District in northern Arizona. VanderWey also served as superintendent of Coconino County schools for five years.<\/p>\n

The board formalized its selection at its regular board meeting Tuesday. She was one of three final candidates for the job.<\/p>\n

VanderWey is slated to begin July 1.<\/p>\n

Members of the Montezuma-Cortez school board did not comment for this story.<\/p>\n

VanderWey told The Journal<\/em> she became an educator to help students eventually attain a higher quality of life.<\/p>\n

\u201dIf you provide them with adequate skills, they can grow up and become productive members of society that can help them get mid-wage to high-wage jobs,\u201c VanderWey said. \u201dYou can break the dual-generational cycle of poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming from majority-Navajo Tuba Unified School District, Vanderwey said her experience working with diverse population positions her to better understand Montezuma-Cortez\u2019s mix of cultures.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make sure that the district is getting someone who can come and who has some understanding of the community that I will be serving and representing,\u201d VanderWey said.<\/p>\n

The goal is to produce students that can problem-solve, think critically and speak and write effectively. VanderWey believes these are the essentials skills for navigating the 21st century.<\/p>\n

But she intends to take a \u201clook and listen\u201d approach early on to see what is working for the district and what is not. This involves getting input from colleagues and members of the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a knee-jerk kind of person, so I\u2019m not going to come into town and just say we\u2019re changing everything,\u201d VanderWey said. \u201cIt\u2019s not always an easy job and I think I have to earn the trust from the community in order for them to allow me to listen to privileged information.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VanderWey to start the job July 1 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,60,216,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-46767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","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\/46767","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=46767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87020,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46767\/revisions\/87020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46767"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=46767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}