{"id":95326,"date":"2019-03-04T16:49:24","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T23:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/animas-high-school-co-founder-honored-in-denver\/"},"modified":"2019-03-04T16:49:24","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T23:49:24","slug":"animas-high-school-co-founder-honored-in-denver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/animas-high-school-co-founder-honored-in-denver\/","title":{"rendered":"Animas High School co-founder honored in Denver"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dr. Jesse Hutt, a co-founder and decadelong supporter of Animas High School, was named Charter School Advocate of the Year by the Colorado League of Charter Schools at the league\u2019s annual conference Friday in Denver.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis award is not for me personally, but for everyone who has worked to establish and sustain Animas High School<\/a>,\u201d Hutt said in a telephone interview. \u201cIt\u2019s for all the supporters, the staff, the students, the families and the community for showing support.\u201d<\/p>\n

AHS Head of School Sean Woytek said Hutt was part of the original group that organized and worked to open the charter school, which has a curriculum based on project-based learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe saw the need for other educational options in Durango, and she gathered with parents and decided to move forward,\u201d Woytek said.<\/p>\n

Much of the fundraising and curriculum development at AHS was spearheaded by Hutt, Woytek said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s told us the school is about the students, the parents and the community. It\u2019s bigger than one person,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hutt, a pediatric oncologist, said when she was first working on Animas High, she was practicing as a general pediatrician and was spurred to action by children who were uninterested and uninspired by school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey couldn\u2019t wait to be done,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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

Initially, the challenge to opening the doors at Animas was convincing the community that options were needed, she said.<\/p>\n

Now, as a member of the AHS board of directors, she said the next stage of development for AHS will be building the resources to open a new and permanent school building.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we have a facility that doesn\u2019t enhance the educational experience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Each year, the Colorado League of Charter Schools<\/a> honors exceptional leaders for their support of charter schools in Colorado.<\/p>\n

Other awards given out Friday went to:<\/p>\n

Mary Faith Hall, executive director and head of Upper School at Thomas MacLaren School<\/a> in Colorado Springs, Charter School Leader of the Year.<\/em>Lauren Martinez, special education teacher at Mountain Song Community School<\/a> in Colorado Springs, Charter School Educator of the Year.<\/em>Violeta Apodaca, high school administrative assistant at Pinnacle Charter School<\/a> in Federal Heights, Most Valuable Charter Contributor.<\/em>Terry Croy Lewis, executive director of the Charter School Institute<\/a> in Denver, Authorizer Award.<\/em>E.D. Hirsch Jr., founder and chairman of Core Knowledge Foundation<\/a> in Charlottesville, Virginia, Lifetime Achievement.<\/em>Hugh Fowler, founder of two charter schools in Colorado, Lifetime Achievement in Advocacy.<\/em><\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Mary Faith Hall, executive director and head of Upper School at Thomas MacLaren School<\/a> in Colorado Springs, Charter School Leader of the Year.<\/em>Lauren Martinez, special education teacher at Mountain Song Community School<\/a> in Colorado Springs, Charter School Educator of the Year.<\/em>Violeta Apodaca, high school administrative assistant at Pinnacle Charter School<\/a> in Federal Heights, Most Valuable Charter Contributor.<\/em>Terry Croy Lewis, executive director of the Charter School Institute<\/a> in Denver, Authorizer Award.<\/em>E.D. Hirsch Jr., founder and chairman of Core Knowledge Foundation<\/a> in Charlottesville, Virginia, Lifetime Achievement.<\/em>Hugh Fowler, founder of two charter schools in Colorado, Lifetime Achievement in Advocacy.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

named Charter School Advocate of the Year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":95327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5794,5735],"tags":[1644,1183],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-95326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-news","tag-animas-high-school","tag-charter-schools"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95326","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=95326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95326"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=95326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}