Site search
sponsored by
Home
News
TELLURIDE, Colo. - Affordable housing programs aren't just created by local governments. In an effort to retain quality teachers, the Telluride R-1 School District has also started playing the affordable housing game.
Since 2000, the school district has either built or purchased a handful of affordable housing units, including four rentals and one home ownership unit. The district has an agreement with the town that allows it the exclusive option to buy one unit before a new affordable housing project hits the market.
This preemptive maneuver keeps teachers from trying their luck in the San Miguel Housing Authority's lottery system that is used for awarding affordable housing units. The most recent lottery was in March for a condo complex that had about a dozen units. More than 100 applicants applied for those units.
In addition, the school district plans to buy a half dozen vacant lots in the next few years. The district will sell the lots to employees, allowing them to build a single-family home instead of being limited to a condo.
"We have a hard time retaining people because of the cost of living, but we get excellent teachers and we try very hard to keep them here," said superintendent Mary Rubadeau.
"We'd like to continue to increase our housing pool."
Although real estate prices in San Miguel County are among the highest in the country, the nearby town of Mountain Village has built numerous affordable housing units in the last decade. Workers who were commuting as far as 100 miles for service industry jobs can now afford to live in the Telluride area. And many of these workers brought children with them.
Since the district and county have attempted to provide affordable housing, the district's enrollment has increased each year since 2000. In the last 10 years, the district has experienced an average of 4 percent growth, and it had 10 percent growth for the 2005-06 school year.
No such scenario has developed in South Shore, and the financial opportunity for school districts to build affordable housing units for employees doesn't exist.
California's Lake Tahoe Unified School District has lost an average of 200 students each year since 2000.
During this same time period, the district has had to negotiate $1 million budget deficits and has laid off several dozen teachers.
Lake enrollment in Nevada's Douglas County School District has, percentage-wise, experienced similar drops. Between the 1996-97 and 2005-06 school years, total lake enrollment in Douglas County dropped from 942 students to 626. Enrollment is projected to drop to 464 by the 2013-14 school year.
The Telluride School District has two schools (K-6 and 7-12) for an enrollment of 650 students. Between 16 to 17 percent of its students are Hispanic, a similar number to Douglas County's lake enrollment, but one that is significantly lower than LTUSD's 37 percent Latino population during the 2005-06 school year.
In past years, more than 90 percent of Telluride High School's graduating class will enroll in college. Each year since 2000 the district has sent at least one student to an Ivy League university, according to Rubadeau.
In the 2004-05 school year, the district's ACT and SAT scores were above the national and state average. Telluride High School's composite ACT score was 22.88 out of 36. The national average was 20.9.
"Some school districts are obsessed with state test scores and focus all their efforts around this singular goal," said Seth Berg, the district's curriculum coordinator. "Other districts avoid stress by downplaying the importance of these tests. Telluride represents a happy medium between these two extremes."
Since 2000, the school district has either built or purchased a handful of affordable housing units, including four rentals and one home ownership unit. The district has an agreement with the town that allows it the exclusive option to buy one unit before a new affordable housing project hits the market.
This preemptive maneuver keeps teachers from trying their luck in the San Miguel Housing Authority's lottery system that is used for awarding affordable housing units. The most recent lottery was in March for a condo complex that had about a dozen units. More than 100 applicants applied for those units.
In addition, the school district plans to buy a half dozen vacant lots in the next few years. The district will sell the lots to employees, allowing them to build a single-family home instead of being limited to a condo.
"We have a hard time retaining people because of the cost of living, but we get excellent teachers and we try very hard to keep them here," said superintendent Mary Rubadeau.
"We'd like to continue to increase our housing pool."
Although real estate prices in San Miguel County are among the highest in the country, the nearby town of Mountain Village has built numerous affordable housing units in the last decade. Workers who were commuting as far as 100 miles for service industry jobs can now afford to live in the Telluride area. And many of these workers brought children with them.
Since the district and county have attempted to provide affordable housing, the district's enrollment has increased each year since 2000. In the last 10 years, the district has experienced an average of 4 percent growth, and it had 10 percent growth for the 2005-06 school year.
No such scenario has developed in South Shore, and the financial opportunity for school districts to build affordable housing units for employees doesn't exist.
California's Lake Tahoe Unified School District has lost an average of 200 students each year since 2000.
During this same time period, the district has had to negotiate $1 million budget deficits and has laid off several dozen teachers.
Lake enrollment in Nevada's Douglas County School District has, percentage-wise, experienced similar drops. Between the 1996-97 and 2005-06 school years, total lake enrollment in Douglas County dropped from 942 students to 626. Enrollment is projected to drop to 464 by the 2013-14 school year.
The Telluride School District has two schools (K-6 and 7-12) for an enrollment of 650 students. Between 16 to 17 percent of its students are Hispanic, a similar number to Douglas County's lake enrollment, but one that is significantly lower than LTUSD's 37 percent Latino population during the 2005-06 school year.
In past years, more than 90 percent of Telluride High School's graduating class will enroll in college. Each year since 2000 the district has sent at least one student to an Ivy League university, according to Rubadeau.
In the 2004-05 school year, the district's ACT and SAT scores were above the national and state average. Telluride High School's composite ACT score was 22.88 out of 36. The national average was 20.9.
"Some school districts are obsessed with state test scores and focus all their efforts around this singular goal," said Seth Berg, the district's curriculum coordinator. "Other districts avoid stress by downplaying the importance of these tests. Telluride represents a happy medium between these two extremes."
