The Durango 9-R Board of Education unanimously passed a Resolution in Support of Paying Off the Budget Stabilization Factor in 2022. The resolution was presented as a request from the Durango Education Association and the Durango Education Support Professionals Association. The Budget Stabilization Factor, also known as the Negative Factor, was created when the state borrowed $1 billion from public education funding to help with economic recovery from the Great Recession. Eleven years later the state has failed to pay back public education to the tune of nearly $10 billion, owing Durango 9-R alone more than $60 million.

Thank you for a wonderful first week back with your children. Our staff remains committed to providing high quality learning experiences for students, which has been evident throughout this week in our schools.
COVID-19 continues to present opportunities for problem solving and resolve among our community. At this time La Plata County is seeing a dramatic increase in daily positive cases, at a rate approximately five times higher than before the holidays. As such, there are more cases within our schools that are being driven by increased community spread.

Durango School District 9-R and La Plata Electric Association (LPEA) will today launch the area’s first electric – and Colorado’s first vehicle-to-grid (V2G) enabled – school bus. In February 2021, District 9-R was awarded a grant of $328,803 through the Regional Air Quality Council’s (RAQC) ALT Fuels Colorado program. Augmented with $120,000 from LPEA to cover electric charging infrastructure, the project is groundbreaking.

November was a whirlwind with the push to the holiday break. We hope our families enjoyed a little reprieve as we head into the two-week home stretch to the winter break. As families may be aware, our goal this year has remained the same, as we want to optimize student access to in-person learning while simultaneously promoting health and safety by minimizing the risk of COVID-19 transmission. Here are some COVID-19 updates from 9-R for the month of November.

Every month the school district strives to compile updates and information for families and the community regarding the impacts of COVID-19 in schools. We are grateful for the continued support of our mitigation efforts, which have allowed schools to remain open. Thank you to all our students, staff and families for their perseverance and diligence.

Thank you, again, for entrusting your amazing children with us. I have been so impressed with their engagement in school, your support, and how everyone is rebounding from the impact of the pandemic. Also, thank you for continuing to support our COVID mitigation strategies. Because of masking we have been able to keep our quarantines and cases low and have been able to keep our schools open, which we know is critically important.  Increasing vaccinations to include the ability for 5-11-year-olds to obtain the vaccination soon should also go a long way in decreasing cases and reducing mitigation strategies. We will provide information on vaccination clinics as soon as we receive more information.

The Durango 9-R Board of Education unequivocally condemns any form of hate speech and will not allow hostile acts to distract from our efforts to foster vibrant, safe, and inclusive environments for all 9-R students, families, and staff. Hate speech has no place in our community, and it is incumbent upon all of us to speak out against antisemitism, racism, and bigotry, wherever and whenever it arises. We are all committed to utilizing our powers, policies, actions, and laws to pursue inclusion, equity, and respect for all.

We continually monitor our student and system results to ensure that we are on track to realize this mission. At 9-R, we believe every student deserves to have a solid academic foundation that opens the window of opportunity for any career in which they are interested. They also deserve to have experiences that help them understand their talents, interests, and possible future career options.

Josephine Valencia has worked in the cleaning industry all of her life. For the past eight years she’s been with the Durango School District 9-R. She’s been the Custodian at Animas Valley Elementary School for five years.