Government students at Montezuma-Cortez High School have all the answers.
The students in Christopher Kelley’s government class were asked to identify a problem in their community and come up with solutions, which they presented in the school’s auditorium on Feb. 19. Projects ranged from addressing more localized, student safety problems to larger issues at the city and county level.
After identifying an issue, students were asked to look for various alternatives, interview relevant sources and determine the costs and funding sources for their preferred solution.
Student safety came up in multiple presentations, including the South Sligo Street crossings, campus monitors and congested bus routes. Their solutions detailed various logistical quandaries confronted by city planners and school officials such as choosing crosswalks and street signs and hiring additional campus monitors.
And some groups chose to tackle problems of more monumental proportions such as building a detox or rehab center to help tackle drug abuse in Montezuma County. Another crew said Cortez needs its own shopping center, and they plotted out the shops and land parcels available for use.
“I believe the importance of a project like this is two-fold: not only does it allow for the youth of our community to engage in their civic duty by recognizing, researching and attempting to solve an issue within it, but it also allows for leaders in our community to listen to what our students see as issues and how they would fix the issues,” Kelley told The Journal. “The best part of this project for me is watching the students take ownership of their projects, as their ideas, confidence and skills evolve.”
This story was updated on Feb. 25 to include a comment by government teacher Christopher Kelley.
