Photo: Seventh grade math class in one of the newly remodeled ‘Middle School’ rooms at Pagosa Peak Open School, August 2026.
Next week, the Archuleta School District (ASD) board of education will make a decision about what kind of property tax increase they will ask voters to approve in November.
I currently serve on the Pagosa Peak Open School (PPOS) board of directors, and I attended our regular board meeting last Wednesday, August 19, held in one of three new school classrooms created over the summer.
PPOS has been offering its unique educational model to Archuleta County families since 2017. The school is housed in a former office building in Aspen Village, near the Walmart store, and we’ve been slowly upgrading the rooms from business office spaces into useful classroom spaces, as funding has allowed and as enrollment has increased. Since 2017, well over $2 million has been invested into building repairs and improvements.
Some of the health and safety improvements were funded by ASD’s Mill Levy Override (MLO property tax increase) approved by Archuleta County voters in 2018, and renewed in 2023.
This summer, a large downstairs room that once served at a telemarketing call center for Parelli Natural Horsemanship has been remodeled — at a cost of about $100,000 — into three separate classrooms that will serve our Middle School students. That is, grades 6, 7 and 8.
If we had built a completely new Colorado Department of Education-approved building addition to accommodate these three classrooms, I have no doubt the cost would have been $1 million or more. I’m guessing we saved the taxpayers $900,000 by using space in a recycled office building.
The Middle School kids at PPOS are delighted with their new classrooms.
Not every tax-funded public agency is inclined to upgrade an existing building instead of constructing a totally new building. But some are.
I do believe the Pagosa Springs Medical Center is making good use of three older buildings on their campus that were originally built for slightly different purposes.
Archuleta County operated for 90 years in a courthouse that was originally built as a bank.
I complained on Friday, in Part Seven of this editorial series, that the Archuleta School District (ASD) was told by a Colorado Springs architecture firm that its existing Elementary School and Middle School were essentially beyond repair. That firm, RTA Archuitects, told ASD in January 2025 that these two schools would need a total of $59 million worth of repairs within the next 5 years, and suggested that the only reasonable decision was to abandon those school buildings and construct a completely new facility — at a cost of about $126 million.
The cost is now estimated, 18 months later, at closer to $130 million.
Earlier this month, ASD Chief Operations Officer Jason Taylor gave the ASD School Board a more reasonable estimate of the needed repairs based on his intimate knowledge of the school conditions.
He told the Board that about $17.4 million would be needed over the next 10 years.
Not $59 million.
Mr. Taylor’s report to the School Board was accurately summarized in the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN.
One could easily conclude that RTA had grossly misled the ASD staff and School Board and a citizen advisory committee with wildly inflated cost estimates for maintaining its existing schools. But of course, the RTA consultants are professional architects. Why would anyone question their estimates?
And indeed, no one did question those 2025 estimates, except for the occasional journalist…
…until we heard Mr. Taylor’s report on August 5.
But let’s get back to that PPOS board meeting on August 19. The meeting began with a presentation by ASD Superintendent Rick Holt, who explained that the ASD School Board will likely place a $127 million (?) bond issue on the November 3 ballot, and that the bond would, he said, include $1.7 million for upgrades at PPOS — since PPOS is a District-authorized K-8 school, and it seems only fair to benefit PPOS families in some way if the bond is approved. The rest of the money would be used to match a potential BEST grant from the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) to build a new PreK-8 facility on Vista Boulevard at the west end of town.
Following Mr. Holt’s presentation, PPOS board member Lawrence Rugar recommended that the PPOS Board and staff get involved in promoting the passage of the bond measure.
A reasonable recommendation, considering the $1.7 million promise to PPOS.
I subsequently shared a printout of the August 13 Pagosa Springs SUN article by Clayton Chaney, and explained to my board that, in my humble opinion, the ASD Board and staff and citizen advisory committee had been grossly misled by the RTA consultants regarding the cost to repair and upgrade the ASD school buildings, and as a result of what I considered unethical behavior during the decision-making process, I could not support the bond measure.
Regardless of any promise to provide money to PPOS.
In Part Seven, I listed three reasons why property owners might choose to vote ‘No’ on the the bonded debt.
But there’s a fourth reason.
Back in 2009, the CDE conducted inspections of all the public school buildings in Colorado. Here in Pagosa, the inspections determined that the school building with the least number of safety and health issues was the Middle School 5-6 Building. Built in 1924. 102 years ago.
The building with the most health and safety issues in 2009? The Pagosa Springs High School, built in 1997. The newest of all our school buildings. Barely 12 years old at the time of that inspection.
ASD now has an even newer school building.
The San Juan Mountain School, built adjacent to the High School parking lot.
A sorry example of 21st century public school architecture and landscaping?
I already mentioned that the estimated cost of a new PreK-8 facility on Vista Boulevard is $130 million. That’s roughly 10 times the cost of the Pagosa Springs High School, built in 1997 for $12.5 million.
This is the sad truth about government facilities in America in the 21st century: they cost 10 times more, yet the quality is questionable. The Pagosa Springs High School currently needs well over $10 million in repairs, and it’s not even 30 years old.
It’s not too late for the ASD School Board to do the right thing.
Ask the voters for $17.4 million — that is, $1.74 million per year, for 10 years — and bring our existing school buildings up to snuff.
Read Part Nine… tomorrow…