During their Monday night meeting, the Dolores RE-4A school board received an update about their upcoming BEST grant construction project and heard about improvements in attendance, among other items.
At the start of their meeting, the board heard from Dolores Elementary School’s first graders, who performed some of the songs they would be singing in an upcoming play.
Following the students’s performance, the board presented awards to staff. Shirley Tourjee and Chelsi Frascht received the Above and Beyond Award, while Kristin Pejsa, Karen Webster, Mark Baxter and Alfonso Goad received the Tenured Staff Award.
After BOCES gave a presentation on their upcoming budget for staffing and salaries, the district’s Multi-Tiered System of Supports provided its biannual report.
The report highlighted improvements that have been seen in attendance since MTSS began supporting the district’s attendance initiative. All of the schools, except for the preschool, have seen improvements in attendance.
The preschool’s data was described as “difficult.”
After the meeting, Dolores superintendent Alesa Reed told The Journal that attendance has seen “great improvements” over the past two years. The rate of chronic absenteeism has notably seen improvement, as the high school’s chronic absentee rate is around 27%, when it was nearly 70% at the start of this initiative.
Toward the end of their meeting, the board received a presentation from Artaic, the district’s owner’s representatives, to hear a status report on the BEST grant project.
Artaic’s Matt Prinster, who appeared virtually, provided information on the team structure for the construction project, as well as touching on design user group meetings that took place with the community in February.
Prinster shared that one of the statements made during the meeting that stood out to him the most regarding the construction project was, “Don’t design us a city school, make it a part of Dolores.”
Prinster also noted that 50% of the campus and 90% of the upcoming project are in a flood plain, requiring “FEMA and Town of Dolores coordination” to figure out how to remedy this.
There are currently two options being looked at for how to remedy the flood plain issue, including retention walls around the new buildings or adding flood gates.
To wrap up his presentation, Prinster said construction is set to start this summer, with foundations expected mid to late summer.
Before heading to executive session, the board discussed the 2025-26 and 2026-27 calendars. The graduation date for 2026 required extra discussion, with the board noting they need to “stay away” from Montezuma-Cortez’s graduation date, state meets and Sunday’s, if possible.
Because the calendar does not have to be approved until April, the board decided to move their calendar discussions to the next meeting, with member Casey McClellan wondering how parents could be involved in helping select a date.
The board then headed to an executive session “to determine positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations, and instruct negotiators as to the terms of the superintendent’s contract.”
Following the executive session, the board approved doing final negotiations on the superintendent’s contract.
In other action items, the board approved the DAG recommendation for Jaynes as general contractor and the DAG committee resolution.
The board also approved the hire of Matthew Betts as a substitute teacher, Brandon Range as an assistant baseball coach and Vance Millard as custodian.
The next Dolores school board meeting will take place Monday, April 14 at 6 p.m.
