{"id":68426,"date":"2017-05-02T14:41:52","date_gmt":"2017-05-02T20:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-schools-present-upgrade-plan-to-state-this-month\/"},"modified":"2017-05-02T20:41:52","modified_gmt":"2017-05-02T20:41:52","slug":"mancos-schools-present-upgrade-plan-to-state-this-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-schools-present-upgrade-plan-to-state-this-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Mancos schools present upgrade plan to state this month"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Designer
Designer Rebecca Colbert explains plans for a new playground at Mancos Elementary School in November. The playground is part of a larger campus upgrade plan.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Superintendent Brian Hanson and school board members are set to present their plan for a $25 million upgrade to the Colorado Department of Education\u2019s Building Excellent Schools Today board on May 18.<\/p>\n

They will have two minutes to present, Hanson said at a public meeting April 27. There are about 30 projects, and the Mancos project is the largest, he said. The school will be notified in June whether they have been awarded the grant.<\/p>\n

Hanson said the board heard people suggest they bulldoze buildings and start again from the ground up. He said they decided not to because of costs and, in part, nostalgia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe history of this community makes this a beautiful campus,\u201d Hanson said.<\/p>\n

The proposed renovations include improvements to all the buildings on campus, including connecting some buildings to allow for safer student travel. The Performance Center will be optimized for music performances, and the historic gym will be upgraded to a varsity-level facility. The proposal also calls for a new elementary school playground and an athletic field.<\/p>\n

If the district is awarded the BEST grant, the next step is a bond issue campaign for November\u2019s election. If all goes to plan, construction will start next spring and last two years, Hanson said.<\/p>\n

Board member Pam Coppinger said at the April 27 meeting that the community had been burned before on school upgrades, including the 1992 performance center addition. She said that wouldn\u2019t happen again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be honest,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

One of the board\u2019s top priorities for the process will be transparency, board members said. Board President Blake Mitchell echoed Coppinger\u2019s comments, saying there would be no dishonesty.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou won\u2019t be misled,\u201d he told the small audience at the meeting.<\/p>\n

Mitchell said the infrastructure in the buildings also will be upgraded, including electrical wiring and internet.<\/p>\n

Hanson said if the district is awarded the BEST grant, there will be many more meetings. The district also would need volunteers to serve on an outreach and planning committee for the bond campaign. Neither he nor board members would be able to serve on a committee, Hanson said.<\/p>\n

Audience members at the meeting said they were impressed with the district\u2019s plan and hoped the construction period would bring a boost to the local economy.<\/p>\n

Hanson said he felt confident about the district\u2019s chances of securing the BEST grant. He said they will stress the connectivity of the project during the presentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing leads to another,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

jacobk@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

If you go<\/h4>\n

The Mancos School District will host a final public outreach meeting regarding the campus upgrade plan, on May 8 at 7 p.m. in Room 503 of the West Wing, the board\u2019s regular meeting room.
\n The school\u2019s senior awards ceremony will take place in the Performance Center at 6 p.m., before the meeting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Designer Rebecca Colbert explains plans for a new playground at Mancos Elementary School in November. The playground is part of a larger campus upgrade plan.The Journal file Superintendent Brian Hanson and school board members are set to present their plan for a $25 million upgrade to the Colorado Department of Education\u2019s Building Excellent Schools Today […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[83,392,60],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-68426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-mancos","tag-mancos-school-district-re-6","tag-montezuma-county"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68426","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=68426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68426"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=68426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}