{"id":66812,"date":"2019-08-12T18:36:01","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T00:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/former-bayfield-school-becomes-hub-for-community-services\/"},"modified":"2019-08-13T00:36:01","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T00:36:01","slug":"former-bayfield-school-becomes-hub-for-community-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/former-bayfield-school-becomes-hub-for-community-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Bayfield school becomes hub for community services"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The old Bayfield Primary School at 658 South East St. is being used by nonprofits in an effort to see if it works as a community hub for housing community organizations.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The old Bayfield Primary School is becoming a community hub of sorts, housing new organizations in the building\u2019s classrooms and forming a unique partnership with the school district.<\/p>\n

Last Saturday, several nonprofits introduced their new spaces to the public at an open house in the former primary school. The organizations\u2019 partnerships with the Bayfield School District could develop the school into a town community center. However, the partners are \u201cproceeding with caution\u201d while testing out the idea, said Kevin Aten, Bayfield School District superintendent.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of this is really establishing relationships with people who typically do not work together,\u201d Aten said, such as doctor\u2019s offices and community colleges. \u201cWe have not committed long term to all of this, but everybody has invested.\u201d<\/p>\n

The old primary school emptied during the summer of 2018 as the district moved classes into its new or renovated buildings, funded by an almost $40 million bond<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The district decided to repurpose the building after several organizations expressed interest in using the space. The school district provides custodial and maintenance needs while the organizations do their own remodeling. For most of the partners, the district charges little to no rent to give the organizations time to build clientele and become established. It plans to revisit rental agreements in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll worry about the break-even point down the road,\u201d Aten said, adding that his plan is to focus on building the community first.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the seeds of a unique community center, which includes health care, child care, education and community services, are growing in the old school building.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been really exciting to see these partners come together and be really committed to doing something special,\u201d Aten said.<\/p>\n

Pediatric Partners of the Southwest, a regional health care for-profit organization, and the town Parks and Recreation Office are using space in the building.<\/p>\n

Two educational programs will start offering classes in the school this fall: The Wolverine Academy, a Bayfield School District alternative education program, and Pueblo Community College, which will offer courses for community members and high school students.<\/p>\n

Two nonprofits also hold programs in the school: Community Treehouse, a nonprofit coworking and child care organization, and Pine River Shares.<\/p>\n

For Pine River Shares, the opportunity to expand into four classrooms is helping the organization further its mission. The nonprofit is sharing its space with San Juan Basin Public Health\u2019s Women Infants and Children program \u2013 bringing resources into the Pine River Valley that are typically found in Durango.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing an anchor tenant of a community center has been a vision of ours for a very long time,\u201d said Pine River Shares coordinator Pam Willhoite, who first expressed interest in using empty school spaces 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing exactly what Pine River Shares envisioned \u2013 we\u2019re building a community center in the community in partnership with the school district.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Partners \u2018proceeding with caution\u2019 while testing new idea<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[202,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-66812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-briefs","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66812","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=66812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66812"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=66812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}