Photo: About 25 members of the community attended a School Board “listening session” at the Pagosa Springs Middle School on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, to share their thoughts about a proposed $125 million PreK-8 school building.
Last night, the Archuleta School District (ASD) Board of Education invited the public to a “listening” session at the Pagosa Springs Middle School, to hear what the community thinks about a proposal to abandon the existing Elementary School and Middle School buildings and construct a brand new PreK-8 school at an as-yet-undecided location.
Relative to that community meeting is a letter to the editor from Carmen Ferguson that appeared in the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN newspaper on Thursday, November 27. The letter begins:
Dear Editor:
So, the new master planning ‘advisory’ committee has now become the ‘deciding’ committee too? For some newly hatched proposed new high school building that they and newly installed [Superintendent] Rick Holt plan to burden this community with.
First of all what has been found so terminally wrong with the current high school that it has been suddenly decided to terminate it, is it mark making for themselves? The high school is the newest one here! Its many already well-established well-thought-out school and field amenities have proven themselves over and over, including the community theatre and stage that gets lots of public use and if capacity from any current growth be the issue, all that can be easily added onto right where it sits.
Quickly hatched poorly thought out putting us in astronomical debt building a new not-needed high school in this financially swelled unaffordable economy riding a current high, with nothing left to do but plummet and for building it out in Timbuktu is neither sensible nor affordable.
This letter from Ms. Ferguson is interesting on a number of accounts. For one thing, ASD has never proposed a “new high school building”. The current proposal is to build a new PreK-8 building. There are no current plans (that I know of) to replace the High School, although an expansion to increase the Career and Technical Education (CTE) opportunities is in the planning stages.
Secondly, the Master Plan Advisory Committee — the MPAC, which has been meeting off and on since January — has never been granted the authority to “decide” anything. It has made recommendations to the ASD Board of Education, but only the Board has the power to “decide” on a plan and a location.
Ms. Ferguson concludes her letter:
Good reasonable judicious people downtown that like just-fine the high school downtown where it already is would undoubtedly want any new school build judiciously put to community vote first.
Any issue this big brought to a public vote first, Guys.
The SUN editor added a clarifying note, assuring readers that a “new high school” is not currently being discussed, and that the issue would ultimately be placed before the voters, if the Board decides to move forward. The SUN also reminded readers of yesterday’s December 2 public meeting.
The Board has indeed decided to move forward, in terms of applying for a BEST (“Building Excellent Schools Today”) grant from the state of Colorado this coming March.
The SUN editor also stated that “The school district, including the Master Plan Advisory Committee, have been looking at possibilities, including renovations or new construction, as well as possible locations for a new building or buildings that would house kindergarten through eighth grade.”
That’s not entirely accurate.
Disclosure: I currently serve on the Pagosa Peak Open School board of directors. As a District-authorized school, PPOS would likely be included in a property-tax-funded bond measure, if ASD moves forward with a ballot measure. I’ve also served on the MPAC committee since it began meeting last January.
The inaccurate part of the SUN editor’s statement is: “looking at possibilities, including renovations or new construction…”
The MPAC was indeed provided estimates for the cost of renovating the existing Middle School and the Elementary School, as calculated by the ASD consultants, RTA Architects. However, those “renovation” estimates were never discussed, in any meaningful sense, by the MPAC group. Only “new construction” has been thoroughly discussed by the group, during ten hours of meetings.
I personally lodged objections with the MPAC leadership, complaining that the advisory group has never provided the opportunity to discuss the “renovate and upgrade” option. I also complained that the “estimates” provided to the MPAC by RTA were grossly misleading and inaccurate, based on RTA’s own numbers.
Nothing resulted from my complaints.
I’m not particularly angry about being ignored by the MPAC leadership. Par for the course. Disappointed, yes. But not angry.
Reading Ms. Ferguson’s letter in the SUN gave me the impression that she might be angry, at the way this school planning process is being handled. Some of her (perceived) anger is based on inaccurate information. No, there’s no plan to replace the High School. No, the MPAC is not making final decisions. Yes, the plan was always to place the issue, ultimately, in front of the voters.
It’s possible to be well-informed and still be angry. But at least then, it’s well-informed anger.
From the Oxford University Press website, this news about the “Word of the Year”. (That would be, “the English Word of the Year.”) It’s actually two words.
‘rage bait’
Rage bait is defined as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media content”.
Many people are angry, these days. Lots of people. And social media has not been helpful, due to its advertising algorithms. Rage bait generates “engagement.” And it generates rage.
It’s human nature to be concerned when things seem to be heading in the wrong direction. We naturally look for ways to avoid bad outcomes, and social media has played on that tendency by reminding us — constantly, daily, by the minute — of the very things that worry each of us most.
When we read and “like” a post about the culture wars seen from a certain perspective, social media delivers us more news about the culture wars, seen from that same perspective. When we read and “like” a post about climate change, social media delivers us more unpleasant news about climate change.
Etc.
The more angry we get, the more likely we are to see posts playing on that anger. That’s exactly how social media is designed.
One can also feel angry in a roomful of actual humans, such as during the ASD “listening session” held last night. But more likely, we will experience a range of ideas and emotions, rather than rage bait.
It’s called, “community”.