From the Board - October 10, 2025 - Fathom Jensen

Fall is upon us, and the students and teachers are in full swing with the first quarter coming to an end. This was evident in our first board meeting of October. We were welcomed by the wonderful team of Kathryn Senor Elementary, where we also had some amazing cookies made for us by the Special Needs students. It is always great to get into the schools and hear from the team and the students about what makes their school great. KSE is doing wonderful things to grow their academic achievement, and it was very evident to see their double-digit increase in math for 4th and 5th, and in ELA for 4th grade. I anticipate that with the plans in place and the implementation of the new CKLA curriculum, these scores will only get better. We also heard from their Student Council on what makes KSE a place where they can live their charter and are Happy, Loved, Safe and Respected.

Not only have we heard from three schools that we visited on their Unified Improvement Plan (UIP), but we were also presented with the district-wide UIP to approve for submission to the state. The expectations of the UIP for the district and our 10 schools are simple, have two to four areas that you want to improve on, know the root cause of those areas of concern, and have an actionable strategy to improve. It has been great to see consistency in the development and implementation of the UIPs.

We also received a financial update from Jason, who was also able to get us the demographic enrollment information, and the Legislative Council Economic & Revenue Forecast sounds riveting, I know! It is always good to hear from the finance team. The general fund revenues are projected to remain flat, but knowing that the per-pupil count is down, due to many factors, we are trying to regain some of our students who are homeschooled or go outside our district. The financial audit has started and is underway; hopefully, we’ll have the results presented within the first quarter of 2026.

I’ve always enjoyed being a part of this community. When it comes to supporting each other there is nothing like it. It is fun to go to our district rival sporting events. It is fun to cheer on the students, on either team, most likely because you know them too, through league sports, 4H, and other community activities and events. However, at the end of the day our Hometown Pride will always shine through. In our September 24th board meeting, fellow board member Chance and I created a fun competition to show our support for our middle school football teams. My son attends Rifle Middle School and played for the 7th-grade team, while Chance coached football for the 8th-grade team.

In the RMS vs Riverside match-up, while great sportsmanship and athleticism were demonstrated, RMS' 7th grade won, and for the 8th grade team, where the competition started, Riverside was victorious. Because RMS lost, I wore Riverside gear to this board meeting. All of this was done in good fun, and it is great to get out and see all the amazing talents we have in our district. Congratulations to Chance, the other coaches, and, most importantly the athletes of the 8th-grade Riverside football team.