{"id":73539,"date":"2016-08-10T03:27:46","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T09:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-starts-school-august-16\/"},"modified":"2016-08-10T09:27:46","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T09:27:46","slug":"dolores-starts-school-august-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-starts-school-august-16\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores starts school August 16"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=5c85ea9d-a57b-49f4-9e69-f072f6422dbb&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1336\" alt=\"New staff at the Dolores schools are ready for the first day of class on August 16. Bottom row (L-R) Stephanie Lee, Kelly Howerton, Katya Chorover-Grandt, Cristy Gomez, and Brian Rhodes. Back row (L-R) Dane Gallaher, Patrick Priest, Maggie Gillette, Juan Vega, and Clint Schurr.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">New staff at the Dolores schools are ready for the first day of class on August 16. Bottom row (L-R) Stephanie Lee, Kelly Howerton, Katya Chorover-Grandt, Cristy Gomez, and Brian Rhodes. Back row (L-R) Dane Gallaher, Patrick Priest, Maggie Gillette, Juan Vega, and Clint Schurr.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Sam Green\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Dolores seemingly will fill up again with students and teachers as the school year starts on Tuesday, Aug. 16.<\/p>\n<p>An open house on campus will take place for students and teachers on Monday, Aug. 15 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Students will be able to access their lockers and meet their teachers.<\/p>\n<p>Superintendent Scott Cooper said everything is prepped and ready on campus, including a renovated football field.<\/p>\n<p>The high school is going to a new block schedule that will give students more time in class. The elementary will improve the reading program, thanks to a $420,000 grant recently awarded by the Colorado Department of Education\u2019s Read Act.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is the first revamp of the reading program and materials in 10 years,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cWe\u2019re receiving pallets and pallets of new books and materials.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The three-year grant includes new textbooks, teacher training, curriculum materials and literary coaches.<\/p>\n<p>Staff turnover was not a big issue compared with last year, when the school hired 23 new teachers and staff. This year, several new teachers and staff were hired.<\/p>\n<p>Cristy Gomez was hired on as a preschool teacher. She has three children in the Dolores district and formerly taught at the High Desert Early Head Start in Cortez.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have two years\u2019 teaching experience and 18 years\u2019 experience as a parent,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m really excited to be part of a great team at Dolores.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maggie Gillette is the new band teacher and brings experience with multiple instruments. The position was expanded to full-time this year.<\/p>\n<p>Gillette plans to bring back the marching band, and to expand the musical experience for all students.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a time of growth for the music program,\u201d she said. \u201cThere will be a lot of variety of music classes throughout the day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brian Rhodes just moved to the area from Crestone, where he was a teacher in the Moffatt School District. He will be teaching fourth grade and has eight years\u2019 teaching experience.<\/p>\n<p>Besides hitting the books, Rhodes focuses on experiential education \u201cto anchor what they are learning so they retain the information better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There is still open enrollment available at the Dolores School district for families who live outside the district boundaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>programs and new teachers will greet students<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,103,155],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-73539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores","tag-dolores-schools-re-4a","tag-education"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73539","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=73539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73539"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=73539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}