It was a poignant mix of old, new and old hat at Tuesday’s meeting of the Durango School District 9-R board, where newly elected members Kim Martin, Mick Souder and Nancy Stubbs joined re-elected incumbents Stephanie Moran and Andy Burns for the first time since the votes were counted.
While board members soon will face the painful task of addressing the district’s $1.6 million deficit, their major item of business was a perennial problem: filling board vacancies.
Early in the meeting Tuesday night, Kristi Rodri resigned the board because she is moving out of district, creating a vacancy in director District A.
Director District D also is vacant.
The school board, long plagued by attrition, hoped the passage of Ballot Issue 3A, which will shrink Durango’s school board from seven to five members, would better insulate its ranks from members’ regrettable if long-demonstrated tendency to die, move or quit the office – thereby creating awkward absences and the numeric potential for tied votes.
Though the measure passed handily three weeks ago, 3A doesn’t take effect until 2015.
The new school board agreed it was therefore legally obliged to appoint people to fill the empty seats within 60 days.
Superintendent Daniel Snowberger bid adieu to outgoing members Carolyn Smith, Rodri, Joe Colgan and Jeff Schell.
“As I look at those of you who are departing, it’s with a heavy heart because you have really done great work for this community and this district, and we will be forever indebted to you,” he said.
Smith, Rodri and Schell each made gracious, brief speeches and offered practical advice to their successors, telling them to get out in the schools and know what’s happening on the ground.
When it came to Colgan’s turn, he at first declined to share any farewell remarks.
Then, suddenly thinking better of it, he entered into a touching soliloquy about the importance of the school board, eventually ending his speech in tears.
He noted that in newspapers and at civic events attended by the great and the good, “conspicuously absent from lists of elected officials – city councilors, mosquito control districts, congressmen – is school board members. Though it’s probably the most important elected role for the future of the community, an enormously important role. And unless we protect that, and the community recognizes the role of local elected officials, our ability to have local control of our school systems is in danger,” he said.
Everyone applauded.
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
