I served on the Durango School Board for nearly 8 years and have a solid understanding of the deep responsibility our community has to supporting public schools that are open and free for all, not shackled to any one mindset, philosophy, religion, or political persuasion.
Public education is a tremendous public good, and it needs to remain so. This means that teachers have a curriculum that supports an unwavering commitment to facts and history that isn’t always comfortable but that includes all of our national stories, not cherry-picked, whitewashed ones.
It means teaching evidence-based science that the great majority of learned scientists practice to keep people healthy and to develop our kids’ brains and bodies in the best possible ways.
It means exposure to reading widely across the curriculum to understand the amazing diversity that literature and non-fiction offer so that we understand others who have different lived experiences from us and we can become well-informed and contributing citizens as youngsters and beyond.
It means teaching students how to parse manipulative social media masquerading as news, especially in the political arena.
If these values are important to you and you desire to help your kids and your neighbors’ kids to become decent, caring, and well-educated, then please vote for the three incumbents: Erika Brown, Rick Petersen, and Andrea Parmenter.
Stephanie Moran
Durango
