From the Board, August 16, 2024

It seems like we were just celebrating the end of the school year and here we are celebrating the beginning of a new school year! We hope everyone had a fun and safe summer vacation.

With all the summer events including the county fair, the first ever Community Connected Fair, onboarding our new team members, the district opening celebration, and lastly, the 1st day of school, it seems like we blinked in May, and here we are in August. Everyone has hit the ground running and we’re closing out the first week of school.

Even though school wasn’t in session, our teams were still out there providing meals through Meal Monkey, maintaining our building and grounds, providing transportation for summer programs, and Transportation responded to over 500 questions and requests from families before school started - even calling families back on Sundays.

Our first board meeting of the 24/25 school year has come and gone, and we hit the ground running. In listening to our community and the board reports, it is obvious that we are Proud to be Garfield RE-2, and we BELIEVE in Garfield RE-2. A common request from the board members was to keep reaching out, keep asking us questions, and keep being engaged in the education of our students. The more we work and collaborate the more successful we’ll be.

In the board meeting, we were excited to hear presentations from our community partner, Colorado Mountain College (CMC), showcasing our Concurrent Enrollment and Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. We also heard about a School Counselor Corps Grant that the district received and had a Strategic Plan update around our Staff Success.

During the presentation from CMC, we learned how valuable this partnership is. Our graduates can continue their education or training through other local companies such as Grand River for nursing, Land Rover for automotive, and Garfield Steel and Machine, Inc., which currently already employs 7 CMC graduates. The biggest hurdle we need to overcome is ensuring that we have enough space and programming to meed the needs of our students.

Over the summer, we learned that we were awarded the Counselor Corps Grant to help the district gain consistency and increase/improve our counselor-to-student ratio.

During the staff success update, we learned about the district's processes for hiring teachers, staff, and coaches and how transfers are handled. Our Human Resources team successfully processed 192 New Personnel Transactions, including new hire paperwork and background checks, transfers, and new coaches. It is awesome to see our district in action.

The enthusiasm is directed towards improving our students' education and the environment for our district-wide team. Please continue to reach out, ask questions, and be engaged in our district.

Thank you all and have a fun and exciting school year!

Fathom Jensen

School Board Vice President, Director District C