In a recent interview with The Sopris Sun, Dr. Anna Cole, Superintendent of Roaring Fork Schools, recounted her journey from growing up in Ohio to her work in the Roaring Fork Valley.
The Roaring Fork School District (RFSD) serves over 5,600 students across 14 Basalt, Carbondale and Glenwood Springs schools.
Cole has served as the district’s superintendent since August last year — first in an acting capacity and then, officially, as the interim superintendent — during the family medical leave and subsequent resignation of the previous superintendent, Dr. Jesús Rodríguez. The board of education offered her the superintendent position in March, and her three-year contract was finalized in May.
Cole, her husband, a non-surgical interventional spine specialist at Grand River Health, and their three teenagers have called Carbondale home for the last nine years.
Cole’s parents “were very intentional,” she said, in raising their children in the Kennedy Heights neighborhood of Cincinnati, what she called “a planned integrated community, designed in response to the redlining and segregation that had been happening years earlier in some Midwestern cities.”
She attended an inner-city Montessori magnet school and “a wonderful public high school” — both with racially diverse white and Black student populations. Those formative years are the foundation for her commitment to create learning environments that embrace diversity and foster academic excellence for all students.
After high school, she attended the University of New Mexico (UNM), where, with a laugh, she said, “I changed my major nine times, studied everything and
had such a great time.” She eventually settled on a degree in interdisciplinary studies.
After graduating from UNM, she taught outdoor education in Maine and later moved to Ashland to earn a Master of Science in environmental education from Southern Oregon University.
In Oregon, Cole taught high school in an alternative wilderness-based program for at-risk youth. “We took our kids on multi-week backpacking trips, where we did a lot of service projects and studied forestry and permaculture. It was a great group of students,” she shared.
She returned to New Mexico, where she taught in a high school of 150 students in Jemez Valley, a small community nestled northwest of Albuquerque.
She was the only science teacher and worked closely with education directors from two nearby pueblos to design a high school science curriculum focused on water science. “We based it all around what was really important to the pueblos — that the students understood everything they could know about water, including water rights, water quality and water systems,” Cole explained.
“My experience in Jemez raised all sorts of questions for me about education and pedagogy, including the teaching and learning about culture, race and language,” she said, leading her to doctoral research at UNM that examined how these dynamics shape student learning and outcomes.
She and her husband, a UNM medical student, then moved to Alaska for one year of residency work and then to Rochester, Minnesota, where he completed his residency. While in Minnesota, Cole did consulting work and curriculum development and worked with Montessori Schools International Baccalaureate Programs.
The Cole family moved to Cortez, Colorado where she worked as an educator and curriculum developer at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, working with Hopi tribe members.
Relocating to Carbondale nine years ago due to her husband’s medical career, she transitioned from teaching and consulting to spearheading the Family Resource Center (FRC) as its director.
In 2021, Cole’s role expanded within the school district, where she assumed responsibilities as the Chief of Student Family Services, navigating complex COVID-19 health protocols and community dynamics across three counties — Eagle, Pitkin and Garfield.
Cole herself acknowledged, “I took a very non-traditional pathway into the classroom and organizational leadership in education.” But reflecting on her experiences, she stressed the importance of integrating community voices and perspectives into mainstream education.
She emphasized RFSD’s resilience during leadership transitions and the collective efforts to maintain continuity and strategic focus amid challenges. Cole envisions a future where innovation and inclusivity define Roaring Fork Schools.
“As a district, I think we have a clear vision of what our priorities are, what we need to work on and what we need to shore up to get there — focusing on the disparate academic outcomes. We have a lot of work to do there. I think we’ve got the right people in place to start driving on that and our kids and families are ready to lean in and do the work, too,” she shared.
Navigating education and community
