{"id":64501,"date":"2019-11-06T05:41:41","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T05:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/newcomer-topples-incumbent-to-join-durango-school-board\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T14:59:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T14:59:32","slug":"newcomer-topples-incumbent-to-join-durango-school-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/newcomer-topples-incumbent-to-join-durango-school-board\/","title":{"rendered":"Newcomer topples incumbent to join Durango school board"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Residents
Residents chose between a longtime incumbent and a Durango School District 9-R parent in Tuesday\u2019s election.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

La Plata County voters opted for change to the Durango School District 9-R Board of Education.<\/p>\n

\"Smith\"
Smith<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Kristin Smith beat Stephanie Moran 56% to 44% on Tuesday night. Smith garnered 5,484 votes to Moran\u2019s 4,380.<\/p>\n

Smith, a home health care professional, said she ran to ensure the voice of 9-R parents is represented. Marianna Valdez, who is leaving the board, was the only 9-R parent on the board.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis whole process has been inspired by my love of the Durango schools,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Smith also said she felt prepared to take on her new responsibilities after spending several months attending school board meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do feel like I have a good handle on where the district is at, some of the challenges and some of the great things, too,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In her new role, Smith will represent District B, the western portion of the school district, for the next four years. Smith will join a board of five and help make big decisions, such as determining whether to ask voters to extend a property tax to fund 9-R building improvements.<\/p>\n

Smith became passionate about helping children by working with her son, Asher, a Durango High School student, who has a rare genetic syndrome that caused physical and intellectual disabilities.<\/p>\n

Just as Asher has succeeded, Smith said she wanted to help ensure all other students in the district can succeed.<\/p>\n

She knocked on doors, answered numerous questions via social media and live-streamed videos to help educate voters as part of her campaign, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot for one second did I feel overly confident,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Moran\"
Moran<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Moran ran largely on her experience because she has served on the board since 2012 and worked in education for nearly 40 years. Moran said Tuesday night that she wished Smith well on the board.<\/p>\n

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

Kristin Smith wins by wide margin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5803,5802,5736,5735],"tags":[1086,308],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-64501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-durango-school-district-9-r","category-local-elections","category-local-news","category-news","tag-durango-school-district-9-r","tag-local-elections"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64501","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=64501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91831,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64501\/revisions\/91831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64501"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=64501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}