Colorado’s woeful underfunding of our public schools, attributable mainly to the restrictions of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights amendment, has had harmful effects across the state’s educational system, weakening the ability to provide our students with the quality education and opportunities they need to succeed.
Colorado ranks last in the nation in providing teachers a competitive wage, and 45th in the percentage of taxable resources spent on education. This underfunding has resulted in a critical teacher shortage. Ultimately, we need to fix Colorado’s broken funding system, but Durango High School still has an impressive graduation rate of 92.3%. Our incumbent school board members, Erika Brown and Andrea Parmenter, helped lead the effort to pass Durango’s 2020 school bond, helping to fill the funding gap, and worked to hire our new superintendent.
Both believe that investing in a public school education is not only the right thing to do but is smart economically because every dollar invested in our students provides the promise of better opportunities for their entire lives and our community with an educated workforce. These candidates will advocate for better state funding as well as pursue local funding where possible and work to increase teacher pay.
Rick Petersen is a new candidate for the school board but has been involved for years with Durango’s youth as a Scout leader. These candidates all have children in the 9-R school system and are the candidates endorsed by Durango teachers and support staff. Please give them your vote.
Lora Powell-Fults
Durango
