PHOTO: Pagosa Springs Middle School, winter 2023.
Tonight, the Archuleta School District (ASD) will hold its first meeting of a new Master Plan Advisory Committee (MPAC), a committee reportedly featuring a “broad spectrum of community members” who will meeting with Colorado Springs-based RTA Architects. The goal is to better understand the conditions of Archuleta School District facilities, some of which are over 50 years old.
The RTA consultants worked with a similar advisory committee back in 2017 and 2018, studying and discussing the idea of placing a bond measure before the voters to fund new school buildings. Ultimately, that advisory group recommended that the School Board instead seek a Mill Levy Override (MLO), with additional property taxes to be used for teacher salaries and school safety improvements. The MLO tax increase was approved by the voters in 2018, and renewed in 2023; it generates about $1.7 million annually, over and above the funding allotted by the Colorado General Assembly and the Colorado Department of Education. Most of that allotted funding is obtained via Archuleta County property taxes.
Disclosure: In 2023, I served on the volunteer MLO Exploration Committee, which voted unanimously to recommend that the ASD Board of Education place an MLO renewal measure on the November 2023 ballot. That funding is shared annually with the District-authorized K-8 charter school, Pagosa Peak Open School (PPOS), and I currently serve as a volunteer on the PPOS Board of Directors.
This past fall, ASD Superintendent Rick Holt and Director of Operations Josh Sanchez gave presentations at five community engagement meetings, speaking about the condition of the ASD school buildings. The presentations included data produced by RTA Architects, based on a detailed assessment of each building. This information is meant to help inform the District’s Master Plan for general maintenance and capital improvements.
The recent community presentations described ASD as being “at a fork in the road” — needing to determine whether to continue maintaining older buildings “as is”… or to upgrade and remodel the buildings… or to seek funding for brand new buildings, and demolish, or otherwise dispose of, the older buildings.
The first meeting of MPAC will happen tonight, Monday, January 27, from 5:30 to 7pm in the Middle School Library. Additional meetings are planned for February 24, March 17 and April 2.
According to a press release from the District:
With the goal of creating an optimal learning environment for students, [input from the MPAC] will be presented to the ASD Board of Education for further decisions about the direction… Keeping the community informed and engaged in the process is of utmost importance and will be done with additional community meetings and ongoing communication and information on the website. For additional information, contact Lisa Scott, MPAC chair, at (970) 749-4268 or lisascott5680@icloud.com.
I have been asked to participate on the MPAC, representing Pagosa Peak Open School. If the ASD Board of Education ultimately decides to seek voter approval for increased property taxes, Colorado law requires that any District charter schools be part of the ballot process, either as an aspect of the overall ASD proposal, or as a separate ballot issue. With that in mind, it feels appropriate that the MPAC advisory committee would include a representative from PPOS.
PPOS operates in the newest school building in Pagosa Springs, although unlike the ASD facilities — the Elementary School, the two Middle School buildings, and the High School — the PPOS building was not originally built as a school; it was originally an office building, serving Parelli Natural Horsemanship.
And unlike the bond-financed ASD facilities, the building is owned by — and the mortgage is paid by — a non-profit organization, rather than by the District.
Two years ago, PPOS was awarded a grant through Colorado’s BEST Program (“Building Excellent Schools Today”) and did numerous modifications and upgrades to the building to make it more suitable for K-8 education. Since 2008 the BEST program has awarded over $3 billion in grants to more than 600 Colorado schools serving over 400,000 students, but program funding has been on the decline. In 2019, BEST helped fund $436 million in capital improvements; by 2023, the awarded projects amounted to only $203 million — funding only about one quarter of the grant applications that year.
In spite of operating in a building not originally built as a school, the students at PPOS have been showing steady improvement in their standardized test scores — particularly, in year-over-year growth — and the staff has been growing ever more adept at delivering instruction through the school’s innovative educational model known as Project-Based Learning.
Hopefully, the MPAC advisory group will enter their four-month discussion process with open minds, regarding how ASD buildings can best be maintained, remodeled or — if necessary — replaced… to adequately serve our school children, without putting undue financial stress on Archuleta County taxpayers.
Considering, that is, the shocking property tax impacts already felt, over the past two years.
I’m looking forward to some enthusiastic discussions between now and April 2.