Durango School District 9-R has experienced an increase in extracurricular activity participation, which delighted superintendent Karen Cheser.
Cheser presented data to the school board during Tuesday’s board meeting that students across the district seemed to be more interested in pursuing after-school activities.
In high school sports, the district experienced roughly a 20% increase in participation, going from 780 students to 977 students.
At the elementary school level, the district has seen an increase of 100 students in extracurricular activities. The district only offers soccer as a sport at the elementary school level, but does offer 17 other activities like Green Team, Lego League and orchestra.
Cheser said she was interested to learn more about the demographics of students who were interested in extracurricular activities.
In total, 1802 high students participated in extracurricular activities.
The district also experienced a massive jump at the middle school level, going from 245 to 610 participating students this year.
Cheser said that National National FFA Organization Organization has become extremely popular.
“FFA has just exploded at DHS and their goal is to become the best FFA in the state,” Cheser said.
This seems to follow the national trend, as the organization reached a record number of members in 2022.
The school district does allow schools like Animas High School and Big Picture High School to participate in sports and extracurricular activities as well. However, it appears that message had not been relayed to students at BPHS.
Michaela Richardson, a senior student board member from BPHS, said that students often don’t hear about these opportunities at their high school.
“I'm really interested in how we sort of like present or advertise (these activities) and are these offered at specific high schools?” Richardson said during the discussion. “Because at our school, we don't have a track, we don't have a gym. We don't have like any of these things that would allow us to play sports and we don't have after school clubs, because we have like eight staff members.”
It quickly came to Cheser’s attention that the district needed to find a better way to communicate these opportunities to students at Big Picture High School. Cheser said Durango High School has a day where students can advertise all their clubs and activities.
She suggested the district could potentially have Big Picture students bused over to DHS for that day, or have DHS athletics and activities director Ryan Knorr visit Big Picture to present information about extracurricular activities.
“We need to do a better job actually making that a plan to bring you over there,” Cheser said to Richards.
Developing more extracurricular activities is something the district has been interested in. Cheser said the district has allocated $3,000 of district funds to elementary school extracurricular activities and $5,000 at the middle school level.
These funds are going toward stipends for teachers to start more clubs on 9-R campuses.
tbrown@durangoherald.com
