A notable section of the month’s first Roaring Fork School District (RFSD) board of education meeting on Feb. 12 was Superintendent Dr. Anna Cole’s report. Her presentation focused on the district budget, with analysis of internal factors, external challenges, the revised current-year budget and the draft budget for the next school year.
Internal identified factors leading to last autumn’s budget shortfall included delayed and sporadic financial reconciliations, inadequate training for budget managers across the district and a rushed approval process that overlooked numerous recurring expenditures. To address these issues, the district has established new contract execution processes and is working to hire a budget analyst, add training and new calendar practices for the finance team and provide accountability team training for staff across the district over the next three years.
Identified external challenges discussed were declining enrollment, rising costs of healthcare and concerns about complexity and accessibility of state and federal-level education funding. The district is budgeting conservatively and closely watching enrollment projections. On healthcare, board members are working with district staff, insurance providers and regional partners to identify best-fit options. The processes for addressing funding concerns overlap with the solutions in progress for the internal factors.
Dr. Cole was happy to announce that for the 2024/25 school year, no staffing cuts were needed and the district was able to avoid use of its “rainy day” reserves in the short-notice revisions. For the 2025/26 school year, RFSD’s priorities are maintaining salary schedules, providing cost-of-living increases to employees and maintaining school-specific budgets and resource use to protect academic quality.
During the public comment period, the board heard a parent query plans for protecting LGBTQ+ students in the district and a regional advocacy group director asked for language adjustments in a guidance policy for disciplining students with disabilities.
Near the end of the meeting, the board introduced a resolution formally recognizing and honoring February as Black and African American History Month.
Feb. 20 meeting
Dr. Cole’s superintendent report focused on strategic plan updates, with color-coded rankings of district status on plan subpoints. The deans of district schools evaluated the district as “on track” with the plan’s top priority, Students First, in both student leadership and school social culture. For the second priority, Rigorous Instruction for All, the district chief academic officer evaluated schools to be mostly “on track,” with a note that one point focused on expanding lesson design centered on emerging bilingual students is in development.
The third priority, Operational Excellence, has room for improvement. District administrative officers evaluated just one subpoint of this strategic priority as “on track,” with the rest postponed. However, priorities four and five, Student-centered Partnerships and Thriving Team, were both evaluated to be “on track.”
District leadership is working on communication materials like posters for schools, targeted communication for Spanish-speaking members of the district and a bilingual online data dashboard for parents and community members to peruse and understand the strategic plan. The paper materials are ready for distribution and the data dashboard is live. Dr. Cole then presented the results of the Winter Panorama Student Survey. The survey evaluated student sentiment from grades three to 12. For more details, slides are available via the RFSD meetings page. Additionally, Dr. Cole announced that an initiative to develop a ten-year housing plan for district staff is underway.
During the public comment period, two district employees provided feedback. A teacher noted surprise and unhappiness that bereavement leave is not separate from paid time off and sick leave, which she noted was a policy change she had not been aware of. Another employee expressed frustration about the negotiation process between the district and the Roaring Fork Community Education Association.
At the end of the meeting, the board heard a resolution supporting the application for a grant from the Garfield County Federal Mineral Lease District and the completion of a school-based health center at Roaring Fork High School.
The next RFSD board meeting is scheduled for March 12 in the Colorado Room at the Carbondale District Office at 6:15pm. These meetings are typically every second and fourth Wednesday of the month. The board uploads agendas before each meeting, and the meetings can also be viewed via livestream.