<\/p>\n
Durango\u2019s 9-R School District has applied to leave the San Juan Board of Cooperative Educational Services. That would leave Montezuma-Cortez Re-1 as the largest remaining district in BOCES, which provides special education services and other resources for nine Southwest Colorado school districts.<\/p>\n
Though 9-R\u2019s departure likely would lead to a smaller BOCES budget, staffing changes and restructuring, Re-1 Board of Education President Dr. Jack Schuenemeyer said Thursday he is confident that Cortez schools wouldn\u2019t be adversely affected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main thing is, we\u2019ll be okay,\u201d said Schuenemeyer, who also is president of the San Juan BOCES board.<\/p>\n
District 9-R applied to exit BOCES after an independent audit revealed they have the resources to provide the state-required student services without BOCES, Schuenemeyer said. The application goes to the Colorado Department of Education, which will determine whether or not to authorize it after a 60-day review process that starts in early September, he said.<\/p>\n
District 9-R Superintendent Dan Snowberger told The Durango Herald the district wants to be responsible for its own students\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have 25 percent of the special-needs students in the BOCES, but we\u2019re paying 36 percent of the cost,\u201d Snowberger told The Durango Herald. \u201cWe need that money in the district because the needs are skyrocketing. We have 4,600 kids and ample staff to deal with these issues. We have to ask, \u2018Do we really want to ask some other bureaucracy for permission?\u2019 We need agility to deal with our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
CDE will look at two main points in determining whether or not 9-R can drop out: first, that 9-R has the resources available to provide the services required by law, and second, that there would be no adverse impact to remaining districts, Schuenemeyer said.<\/p>\n
San Juan BOCES currently includes Bayfield, Ignacio, Archuleta County, Dolores, Dolores County, Mancos and Silverton school districts, as well as 9-R and Re-1. BOCES employs social workers, psychologists, speech and occupational therapists for schools. The organization not only services students, but also provides professional development resources for teachers, as well as educational initiative materials.<\/p>\n
At a BOCES board meeting August 17, members passed a resolution asking CDE to delay a decision on 9-R\u2019s departure until BOCES members can determine how the separation might affect the remaining districts, Schuenemeyer said. District 9-R\u2019s independent audit provided little information on that issue, he said.<\/p>\n
BOCES personnel will conduct audits on each of the eight other districts to determine how they might be impacted, Re-1 Superintendent Lori Haukeness said.<\/p>\n
BOCES Executive Director Adrea Bogle said even if 9-R drops out, they\u2019ll want to maintain a relationship with the Durango district.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of our goals is to remain in a positive, collaborative relationship with all the districts in our region,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Recruiting and retaining staff is already a struggle for BOCES, but it would be even more difficult without District 9-R, Bogle said. Jobs such as physical therapists and speech pathologists are hard to fill nationwide. BOCES might have trouble finding staff members to fill those types of positions for its small, rural districts, Bogle said.<\/p>\n
Another concern is preschool-age kids, Bogle said. Currently, BOCES is responsible for evaluating children from birth to age three for all the preschools in the region. If 9-R exits, the district will take over management of preschools in Durango.<\/p>\n
Bogle said BOCES staff still would continue to work with Durango 9-R to make sure everything works smoothly for preschool-age kids, especially as they make the transition to kindergarten.<\/p>\n
The annual BOCES budget is about $8 million annually, which includes about $1 million that is distributed as grants, Bogle said. District 9-R, with about 4,600 students, contributes $1.9 million to the BOCES budget, about 36 percent. Re-1 is contributing $202,085 for the current fiscal year, according to Haukeness.<\/p>\n
Re-1 is prohibited by state law from dropping out of BOCES because it\u2019s too small a district, Schuenemeyer said.<\/p>\n
A departure wouldn\u2019t be practical for Cortez schools, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe couldn\u2019t afford to hire in certain areas of specialization,\u201d he said. \u201cThe advantage of BOCES is they can provide an area of specialization that can serve multiple districts. \u2026 Many of the districts (in BOCES) are relatively small, and in my opinion we\u2019re much stronger together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Larger districts, such as 9-R, can hire their own staff members or contract workers for special education services, Schuenemeyer said. Smaller and more rural districts don\u2019t have those resources available, he said. Re-1 has about 2,700 students.<\/p>\n
Haukeness said Re-1 is a much stronger district because of San Juan BOCES.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorking collaboratively with other districts has really strengthened us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Though the organization could undergo restructuring if 9-R drops out, Haukeness said Re-1 still will receive the same services from BOCES, and the amount of support BOCES gives the district won\u2019t decrease.<\/p>\n
Mancos Re-6 Superintendent Brian Hanson said he didn\u2019t yet know how a 9-R dropout would affect Mancos schools. The superintendents of all nine BOCES districts, including 9-R Superintendent Dan Snowberger, met August 17 and had a great discussion, he said.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s still waiting on more investigation from BOCES and CDE to determine the potential impact, Hanson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDurango needs to do what\u2019s best for them, and I get that,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to see how (the dropout) affects other districts and what we can do to minimize the affect if CDE approves it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanson estimated that Re-6 contributes around $170,000 to the BOCES budget each year, but most of those are state and federal dollars, he said. BOCES is a good organization with good people working with the kids, and there\u2019s never been any issues in Mancos, he said.<\/p>\n
Schuenemeyer also said the services BOCES provides are valuable for the Re-1 District.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe receive quality services from BOCES staff,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re very capable. There\u2019s no way we could go out on our own and get that quality of services.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bogle said BOCES will continue to work with District 9-R to bring those special education resources into the area for families and students.<\/p>\n
\u201cDurango is in the middle of our district and we\u2019re the furthest from Denver, so we have a hard time getting resources from CDE into our region,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ll need to maintain a relationship there so our families and students continue to receive those resources. As a region we need to be coherent in getting those resources, because our families really need them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Durango Herald reporter Ann Butler contributed to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" wouldn\u2019t be dire, Durango\u2019s board president says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,60,216],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-66918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-montezuma-county","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66918","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=66918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66918"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=66918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}