August 30, 2012
Re: Animas High
School Parking Policy
Dear Parents and
Students,
Animas High School has
been given conditional approval by the City of Durango and the Colorado
Department of Transportation (CDOT) to remain in our current location at 3206
Main Ave for the 2012-2013 school year. Both
the City and CDOT have serious concerns about the limited on-site parking and
about the safety of young drivers directly accessing Highway 550 (Main Avenue)
in close proximity to the busy 32nd Street intersection. Our use of our current location is regulated
by a Parking Variance from the City and an Access Permit from CDOT. Without the
parking variance from the City and the access permit from CDOT either entity
could have either not allowed us to be in our current location for another year
or could have required that we become a “no student driver” school as according
to Code, they would normally require AHS to provide 55 additional on-site
parking spots which we do not have at our current location.
Because both the
City of Durango’s and CDOT’s support of our school and their knowing how
difficult it has been for AHS to find a permanent site with sufficient on-site
parking they have agreed to provide AHS
with a parking variance and conditional permit for another year based on the
condition that only 11th and 12th Grade students to have
the choice to drive their car to school and that any of those students that do
drive, park only in the designated off-site parking spots at the Fairgrounds or
a new parking lot AHS has leased north of the school called the Osprey’s Nest (adjacent
to the Durango Joe’s lot - you may be familiar with it as the former “Flying
Fish” site). Because it is the main
condition of our permit/variance, no AHS student can park in the neighborhoods
around the school. The City’s Code Enforcement Officer will be monitoring the
areas around the school and if AHS students are observed parking on the public
streets or if the City receives any complaints from neighbors we will either be
forced to shut our campus to all student drivers or lose our permit to operate
our school.
Although we are not
happy about having to impose these restrictions, in order to have our campus
open at the current site for another year we have adopted a policy that allows
only 11th and 12th Grade students to drive to school and that
any student drivers must park in a designated off-site parking space either at
the Fairgrounds or in the lot on North Main. Our limited on-site parking spaces
are reserved for visitors, staff, and ADA permit holders.
If your student is
going to drive to and from school they must fill out and sign our parking
policy agreement and reserve a spot at one of the 2 designated parking sites. Because
AHS has incurred considerable expense to lease this additional parking area to
accommodate students that choose to drive, anyone reserving a dedicated spot in
this lot for the year will pay $200 for the year (this works out to $25 per
month) for a dedicated parking spot with their name on it. The La Plata County
Fairgrounds is the other approved site that offers safe, controlled access and
available parking permits. La Plata
County sells parking permits to high school students (both DHS & AHS) for
$75 for the school year and spaces will be designated for AHS students. The Durango Trolley has a timed stop at 27th
St and Main Avenue by the Recreation Center at 8:08 daily with drop-off at
North City Market at 8:10.
Because of how critical complying with the
conditions placed on us by CDOT and the City of Durango to remain open as a
school at our current site and allow students to drive to school, we are asking
that ALL families commit to honoring this policy in support of our school. The
school’s policy related to Student Driving/Parking can be found in the 12-13
Student Handbook and there’s a special form to be signed by each student and
parent(s)/legal guardian(s) related to their daily transportation strategies.
We appreciate that the City and State were able
to collaborate with AHS so that we could utilize our campus on North Main for
one more year. We look forward to next year and beyond when we will have a new
campus that will have sufficient parking as well as more space for everyone!
Please contact Head of School Michael Ackerman,
via email or the Main Office if you have any questions about parking this year.
