Board Policies

To View Current Board Policies

Jump to the BoardDocs website and click on the Policies link near the top of the page.

How "Coherent Governance" serves your students' academic achievement

Durango School District 9-R adopted coherent governance about 10 years ago to clarify the board's policy-making and oversight role and the superintendent's role as academic and management leader in the district.

The board is responsible for clearly defining on behalf of the community what students should know and be able to do by the time they graduate from high school. Under coherent governance, the board consciously stays out of the district’s day-to-day management decisions and adopts policies that give the superintendent the authority to select the resources, teachers, and educational programs that he or she believes best serve student-learning needs. The board also defines expectations for how the superintendent exercises authority in the Superintendent Expectations Policies. These policies give the superintendent wide latitude to make decisions. In surrendering its management role, the board assumes a strong oversight role by holding the superintendent accountable for ensuring that students make adequate annual progress toward meeting the district’s educational goals.

The board’s policies also require the superintendent to involve stakeholders in decisions that would result in significant change, and they require the superintendent to provide annual monitoring reports that demonstrate compliance with policies and student learning goals.

Public Participation

Under 9-R’s governance system, the board seeks public opinion to understand community values, and then incorporates those values in the academic goals it sets for students. The board charges the superintendent with the responsibility of creating the environment and selecting the academic programs that will ensure students meet those goals. As part of that charge, the board requires staff to take reasonable steps to involve students, parents, and the community to gather sufficient information to make good decisions, and we are held accountable for our decisions by reporting annually on student progress.

Because board policy requires significant public participation, the district has developed a number of ways for our community to be involved in decision-making, including town-hall meetings open to anyone who may have a concern or idea; focus groups on specific topics; surveys; committees and task forces; and public participation during board meetings, to mention just a few.

Other ways that the community can get involved in the district:

School Accountability Committees

Parents, teachers, and community members ensure that curriculum, budget, and resources are aligned with district, state, and federal student achievement goals. They also serve as sounding boards for school and district initiatives.
District Accountability Advisory Committee

This community group reviews each school’s assessment data and action plans, conducts parent surveys, and during 2004-05, assisted with the development and implementation of a plan to accredit each school based on student performance. The accreditation informs parents about their school’s success in meeting student achievement goals.
Finance Advisory Committee.

Each year, teachers, parents, and administrators review one or more of the district’s academic programs, compare district practices with the latest research, modify the curricula as needed to improve student achievement, and recommend changes to the board’s academic goals.