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Juniper School a go

9-R board again discusses tax increase

Durango School District 9-R Board of Education approved its first charter school since closing Excel and Community of Learners, began a program of linkage with the community by hearing from business leaders and began discussion of a possible mill levy or bond issue for additional funding.

The Juniper School, a charter elementary school that will be a Montessori-style school using project-based learning, saw its contract with 9-R approved for the 2015-2016 school year unanimously without discussion.

The contract puts the Juniper School in the running for a $250,000 Colorado Public Charter Schools Startup and Implementation Grant until it begins getting per-student revenues of just less than $6,800 annually and access to funding from the 3A mill levy override for 9-R voters passed in 2010. The school will also have its facilities provided, taking over the second floor of the Arts and Sciences Building, where the Liberty School now holds classes.

As the school district continues to struggle with inadequate funding from the state, board members are starting to discuss the possibility of a bond issue or another mill-levy override to go to the voters in 2016 or 2017.

“We’re running on fumes, but we’re doing such a good job with so little, the community doesn’t realize it,” board member Nancy Stubbs said. “We can’t have another budget in deficit.”

The board agreed to bring in experts to talk about different funding mechanisms, timing and preparing for an election. The board will also look at including Animas High and Mountain Middle charter schools in the effort, something they declined to do in 2010.

“My team is anxious to begin putting together dollar amounts and projects that are on our list,” Superintendent Dan Snowberger said. “We’re spending between $500,000 and $1 million every year on capital projects, so even just getting those covered so the funds could move to operating expenses would help.”

The board also heard some good news on the budget front. Snowberger said the student count for the first day of school Tuesday was 4,563, up 90 students from the first day of school 2014. The official count for state funding per student isn’t taken until Oct. 1.

abutler@durangoherald.com

Dec 8, 2015
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