From the Board, April 25, 2025- Fathom Jensen

It seems like we were just coming back from winter break, and here we are nearing the end of the school year! With the end of the year comes celebration. We have our students celebrating Prom, spring athletics, and the final tests coming to an end. Please be careful, safe, and smart as we’re out celebrating so many wonderful events, students, and staff. 

We’d also like to give a huge shout-out to our three Daniels Scholars, Jefferson (Jeff) Torres from Rifle High School, and Winter Keeney and Samantha Smythe from Coal Ridge High School.

Our board meeting this past Wednesday, April 23rd, was proof that we have lots to be proud of here in Garfield Re-2. Our Shine the Light was with Mary McPhee and her Nutrition Services team.  I am amazed every time I hear how many meals this team serves to ensure that our kids don’t go hungry. Their belief that “Food is Fuel” is evident with the 390,977 meals they have served so far this year with 7 weeks to go, and they don’t stop there. 

After school is out, they will prepare lunches and sack breakfasts for the Meal Monkey program with a total of 8 stops, 4 in Rifle and 4 in Silt and New Castle, be on the lookout for the Meal Monkey bus near you. Meal Monkey will go from June 2nd through July 31st. Last year they served 16,631 meals. This is truly something that Mary
and her team should be proud of. 

With the help of a Rifle Middle School teacher, they’ve also started a compost for their garden with some of the veggie scraps to make sure that we don’t have as much waste.

We also heard from Michelle Williams, representing our District Accountability Committee (DAC), and the work they’ve completed with our Bullying Prevention Policy. DAC is an amazing group of volunteers that truly work at improving our district, and with many different perspectives they’re able to maintain respect for each other and our District.

We were able to review the results from the last Parent Survey, and I cannot express how grateful I am to the community for the number of responses we received. We received 1006 responses, and please know that any comment that was shared regarding a school or department will go to that building directly so they know how to improve. The 1006 responses received, representing 1685 students, was the largest number of responses we’ve received, and I would like to see this number continually grow. We do value the feedback of our community and parents, without this partnership, we can’t improve the environment for our kids.

Moving from the survey results and straight into Student Wellness, Assistant Superintendent Pierce started it off with Attendance Data. As a District, our attendance rate is well above the state average of 95%, with the highest attendance rate of 99% at Coal Ridge High School, and no school falling below 93%. When our students are in school they are learning, and we are grateful to our staff for supporting our families with student attendance.

Jeff Blanford and Jason Lynch presented “Fun with Finance” regarding our quarterly budget reports, and reported that we’re on track with our budget for this year. They’re working on finalizing the budget for next year. Salaries will be presented at the next meeting, which will aid in forecasting the budget.

Please come and join us at our next board meeting on Wednesday, May 14th at 5:30 pm at the District Office. I’d also like to extend an invitation to get involved in any one of our many volunteer opportunities within the district, please reach out to any one of us, or someone from your child’s school to see where the opportunities are.

Fathom Jensen
School Board Vice President Director District C