New chapter for Animas High
Charter school celebrates move to new home at Twin Buttes
Faculty, students, parents and other supporters gather at the new location of Animas High School for its grand opening Thursday evening at Twin Buttes.
By Chase Olivarius-Mcallister Herald staff writer
It’s a new chapter for Animas High School, the little charter school that could, which Thursday night celebrated its new temporary premises at Twin Buttes with a joyous, if windy, ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by about 200 people.
The school’s move to Twin Buttes, where it hopes to build a $12.5 million facility, is an enormous milestone.
Until this year, Animas High School was cheerfully, if not comfortably, housed in a strip mall on North Main Avenue.
Since its founding in 2009, the school’s material deficiency caused educators to joke that it resembled the unfortunate protagonist of The Little Match Girl, begging for money and the continued faith of students and parents as it struggled to find its place in the world.
But the school since has transformed into an academic Cinderella story, graduating its first class of 49 students last summer – with each of those kids gaining admission to college.
Now, its students have the strongest scores in the county on the Transitional Colorado Assessment Program.
The school’s transformational narrative was at the center of Thursday night’s festivities, where students, teachers and parents were joined by local dignitaries, including Dene Kay Thomas, president of Fort Lewis College; Daniel Snowberger, superintendent of Durango School District 9-R; Gretchen Wilson, president of the Durango Education Association; and Durango city councilors Dick White and Christina Rinderle.
Standing in front of one of the school’s two new, 11,000-square-foot buildings, Animas High School’s Executive Director Michael Ackerman quickly warned the crowd he was perhaps too fond of metaphors.
He said the school’s supporters tended to discuss the school’s progress in terms of a journey, but it was time to shift that paradigm and “celebrate the destination, our home here at Twin Buttes.”
Melissa Youssef, president of the school’s board of directors, told the crowd the move was “phenomenal” and would have been impossible without the support of the Twin Buttes community and 1st Southwest Bank.
“This is step one,” she said.
