Photo: The entrance to the 7-8 grade building at Pagosa Springs Middle School, showing new entrance security devices on the far right.
Last year, Archuleta School District consultants RTA Architects told the Master Plan Advisory Committee (NPAX) that the “Urgent Needs” ($19.6 million) and “Important Needs” ($13.1 million) and “Necessary Improvements” ($3.2 million) at the Pagosa Springs Elementary School add up to $35.9 million.
According to RTA, the “Urgent Needs” and “Important Needs” and “Necessary improvements” at Pagosa Springs Middle School add up to $30.2 million.
Disclosure: I currently serve as a volunteer on the Pagosa Peak Open School board of directors. PPOS is a tuition-free public school authorized by ASD, and receives a share of the tax revenues paid by Archuleta County property owners. If ASD decides to place a tax increase on the November 2026 ballot and it’s approved by the voters, PPOS will likely benefit from additional funding.
When we build infrastructure — buildings, roads, bridges, transmission lines, sewer treatment plants — we need to be diligent about maintaining them. And we need to improve them, when circumstances require their improvement.
In 1994, when I bought my house in downtown Pagosa Springs, three blocks north of Highway 160, my town street was a gravel road. The following summer, a road crew showed up and paved the street. The federal government had provided the funds to pave several downtown streets, because downtown Pagosa was violating air quality standards, due to particulate matter in the air.
Dust.
For the next 30 years, the Town government ignored the maintenance of my street, to a point where it has been slowly falling apart and will need to be completely rebuilt. Someday.
The federal government paid for paving, but not for maintenance. So the Town never applied the sealing compounds needed to keep the asphalt street from deteriorating. Now it’s too late.
Archuleta School District, by comparison, has done a reasonably good job of maintaining its older buildings, and playgrounds, and athletic fields. The Elementary (1968), the Middle School 5-6 building (1924), and the Middle School 7-8 building (1954) have all been re-roofed within the past decade, have had technology upgrades, been given safety and security improvements, and had their playgrounds remodeled.
Still, none of these facilities are perfect.
Are they functional? Do they accomplish the job they were built to perform?
How about our Middle School, for example?
Here’s a graphic from a 2024 report by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), indicating the quality of education CDE believes is being delivered at Pagosa Springs Middle School.
From what I can tell, this Performance Rating — 73.3% — is one of the highest ratings given to any rural middle school in Colorado.
Neighboring Bayfield Middle School is rated 51.2%. Ignacio Middle School and Durango Middle School are both rated 63.0%.
But last year, the School District’s consultants, RTA Architects, told the Master Plan Advisory Commission (MPAC) that the Pagosa Springs Middle School building was “inadequate” in terms of its educational functions. They claimed, in fact, that the Middle School was one of the least adequate buildings they had ever assessed in Colorado.
The consultants, at the same meeting, suggested that it would cost the taxpayers $30.2 million to bring the school up to “adequate” condition.
I was at the meeting when this assertion was made, and no one in the room questioned the idea that the existing building ought to be abandoned and replaced at a very high cost, to improve educational outcomes.
Instead of repairing and upgrading the Middle School and Elementary School for a total of $66 million, the MPAC group — guided by RTA — came to the conclusion that a better use of the taxpayers’ limited funds would be to build a new combined PreK-8 facility for $122 million.
The School Board took that recommendation and instructed the staff to write a BEST grant proposal for a facility located on the District’s vacant 37-acre parcel on Vista Boulevard.
The annual BEST grant is highly competitive, and very few of the grants awarded, recently, were for new replacement facilities — only two, this year. Year after year, the overwhelming majority of the grants awarded are for repairs and upgrades. The current “match” for ASD is 58%, meaning that BEST will supply only 42% of the cost, and the District taxpayers must supply the rest.
I went carefully through the RTA estimates for the Middle School and Elementary School and determined that, to address the “Urgent needs” for both existing schools would cost the taxpayers less than $15 million — less than a quarter of the estimate given by RTA for repairs to both buildings.
If the School District applied for, and was awarded, a BEST grant for urgent repairs and upgrades rather than for a complete new facility, the Pagosa taxpayers would need to supply only $8.5 million. Counting the interest payments for the bonds, about $17 million.
If the District instead applies for, and is awarded, a BEST grant for a new PreK-8 facility at Vista, the voters will apparently need to approve a bond for $70.8 million… plus another $70 million to pay the bond holders… for a total of maybe $141 million. That’s eight times the cost for repairs and upgrades, according to my calculations.
Granted, a new building would be much more profitable for the architects, engineers, construction companies, and bond investors.
But would our students suddenly find themselves earning excellent math and reading scores?
Okay, that’s a rhetorical question. Of course not. What most deeply affects learning is excellent teachers and an excellent curriculum.
As I mentioned above, I currently serve on the Pagosa Peak Open School (PPOS) board of directors, and I care about the education our kids receive in Archuleta County. If the voters approve a bond in the future for ASD facilities — new or upgrades — PPOS would likely benefit from that vote.
I would like to see a bond issue placed before the voters, that actually has a chance of passing.
In my humble opinion, Archuleta County voters are much more likely to approve a $17 million bond for repairs and upgrades, than a $141 million bond for a brand new school on Vista Boulevard.
Just my opinion.