At its Tuesday night meeting, the Montezuma‑Cortez RE‑1 School Board held its first meeting without former superintendent Tom Burris, with new superintendent Eddie Ramirez seated at the board table. The board discussed reading levels, the strategic plan, community use of school facilities and other topics.
At the start of the meeting, the board celebrated several items, including the recent success of district sports teams and school board recognition month.
During citizen comments, Cassidy Proctor addressed the board about the need for reading interventionists at the high school. She said many of her students are struggling with reading.
In the second quarter of the school year, 35% of Proctor’s students failed the class. Of those students, 25% are not reaching reading expectations, 22% are partially meeting them and 18% are approaching expectations.
“That means 65% of my students who failed quarter two are not reading at grade level. The grade level expectation for reading is one of, if not the main, reason that they failed the class,” Proctor said.
Proctor said the district needs to hire a reading interventionist for the high school to help students reach grade‑level reading.
“The theory is that in third grade and below, you’re learning to read, and then in third grade and above, you’re reading to learn. If we have kids who are performing at an elementary school or below third grade reading level, then they aren’t at the place where they can read to learn,” Proctor said.
Next, a parent identified only as Jennifer addressed the board about her homeschooled daughter. Jennifer said her daughter used to attend Montezuma‑Cortez High School but no longer does. She requested that her daughter be allowed to participate in the band, along with other homeschool students who want to join extracurricular activities the school offers.
“I do believe that if that schools and the district allows and welcomes these students, these children, to participate, that this will encourage them to come back to the schools, to have their families have a good relationship with the school district that so many of us in this community are part of … We want to be part of it, but we also want to have an appropriate education for our children,” Jennifer said.
Following citizen comments, the board discussed the issues raised.
Board member Mike Lynch spoke about reading concerns and called the situation “tragic.”
“It’s a huge problem, and we need to solve it,” he said. “We can’t continue graduating seniors who can’t read properly. It’ll affect the rest of their lives … We definitely have to do something about it.”
Lynch also addressed the question of extracurricular participation for non‑enrolled students, saying he had an idea that does not “guarantee it can help anything,” but that he planned to share it with Ramirez.
He then brought up the strategic plan goals adopted by the previous board, which address communication, self‑evaluations, training and goals for charter schools. Lynch called the goals the district’s “North Star.”
“They are an aggregation of ideas, suggestions, solutions and comments on how to improve our district,” he said.
Some deadlines for the goals are approaching, he added, but said the new board members would not be held accountable because they recently started their service.
Before moving to action items, board member Laura DeWitt noted the lack of typical administrative reports, such as from the superintendent or finance director, calling it an “anomaly.” She said those reports, along with student representative reports, will return at the next meeting.
The board then moved to action items, including a first reading of a policy outlining community use of school facilities, including fees and usage priorities.
Although there was initial confusion about fees listed in the policy, Lynch clarified that the fees are a lump sum per event, not hourly, and that there is no fee for school‑related or student‑focused activities such as booster club or PTA events.
The policy will be reviewed further before returning for a vote.
The board approved the fiscal year 2025–26 salary schedule amendment and the revised budget, with Lynch voting against the revised budget.
After discussing the district’s Unified Improvement Plan, DeWitt made a motion to table the UIP until the next meeting and asked administration to provide documents showing “substantive” stakeholder input from educators, the District Accountability Committee and the School Accountability Committee.
The motion passed, with Lynch voting against it.
The next Montezuma‑Cortez School Board meeting will be held Tuesday, Feb. 17 at 6 p.m.
