The Durango Education Foundation (DEF) cultivates life-changing learning opportunities and helps provide resources that positively impact the 9R School District. For the 2021/2022 school year, the DEF Board of Trustees has decided to focus its efforts and funds on bridging the academic gaps of students. The impact of the pandemic on K-12 student learning is significant and widened pre-existing opportunity and achievement gaps in literacy and mathematics. 

As a response, DEF has created the $250K Challenge, Bridge the Gap, to help fund:

• After-school programs (such as robotics, coding, computer science)

• Classroom text sets

• Early Literacy and Math Programs

• Interventionists

• Socio-emotional Resources

Our ability to fund these resources and programs depends on the funds raised during the $250K Challenge. The challenge will include several months of fundraising efforts.

The Durango Education Foundation recognizes how vital this campaign is for our local schools and community and as such wants to encourage community support. As such, the Board of Trustees has agreed to reach into their reserves and match dollar for dollar any donations to the campaign up to $200,000!