The Durango School District 9-R board is headed for an unusually definitive election in November.
Because of board members’ dying, resigning, term limitations and moving out of district, six of the board’s seven seats are up for election, meaning the composition of the board is sure to utterly, if not totally, transform.
This election will determine not just the character of the school board, which votes on everything related to education in the district, from school fees to curriculum changes. It will determine the size of the board itself, as voters will choose whether or not to approve a measure that would shrink the board from seven seats to five.
In June, the school board opted to shrink from seven seats to five because it has proved so difficult to keep seven positions filled. To pass, the measure will still need voter approval.
At the time of the board’s vote, school board President Jeff Schell, who is term-limited this year, said the board hoped that by contracting, it would attract a more stable membership.
“I don’t know that there’s been a 12-month period in my eight years on the board when we’ve had all seven members continuously,” he said in an interview with the Herald.
In Colorado, seven-member school boards are a relative novelty; the great majority of districts across the state – about 75 percent – has five members.
District spokeswoman Julie Popp said Durangoans who are interested in running for the board can pick up applications at Durango 9-R School District Administration building at 201 E. 12th St. starting Wednesday.
To be eligible, applicants must live within the district the seat represents, they must have already registered to vote, and they must have resided within the school district for at least 12 months.
Petitions also will be available at the district Administration Building. Candidates must obtain 50 or more signatures from people who are registered voters within Durango School District 9 and petitions must be turned in by Aug. 30.
In an opinion piece that ran in Sunday’s The Durango Herald, board president Schell said, “Yes, it is a big-time commitment to be on the school board.”
But he said aside from school-board meetings, which typically take place every other Tuesday, most of the work is flexible.
Across the country, it’s increasingly common for school-board elections to prove extremely competitive and controversial. In this election cycle, record amounts of money have already been spent on school-board primaries in Los Angeles. And in the 2012 election, it took one man more than $42,000 to lose his re-election bid in Wake County, North Carolina.
Schell said Durango school-board elections were by comparison genteel affairs, and residents should not be deterred by the formality of campaigning.
“We live in a community where school-board elections are low-key events, and do not require much (if any) money.”
Though the Durango school board wields tremendous power over local public education, members are not paid for their service.
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
