The Roaring Fork School Board of Education dug into preliminary school and district performance frameworks during Wednesday’s board meeting, held at the Carbondale District Office. 

RFSD received a preliminary rating of “Accredited” in 2025, an increase from the 2024 “Accredited with Improvement” plan rating. The 58.2 preliminary rating is the highest number of points the Roaring Fork School District has received since 2022. 

Districts are given one of five ratings, ranging from “Accredited with Distinction” to “Accredited with Turnaround” plans — while schools are given one of four ratings, ranging from “Performance” plans to “Turnaround” plans. The public data can be found on the Roaring Fork School District Data Dashboard. 

Nine schools retained their performance rating from the 2023-24 to 2024-25 school year. Basalt Middle School, Glenwood Springs Middle School and Riverview School raised their rating from “Improvement” to “Performance”. Basalt Elementary saw a 12 point increase to their “Performance” rating in 2025. Glenwood Springs Elementary School dropped from “Improvement to Priority Improvement” after two years being rated Improvement. 

“The school is well aware,” RFSD Assistant Superintendent Stacey Park said during the presentation. “We’ve been in ongoing conversations about how they are responding and addressing the rating. We are working with their teams, their families, community, and staff to create a response plan which the board will hear more about in the next month.”

The school board was able to delve into the preliminary data after the Colorado Department of Education released the frameworks at the end of August 2025. The aim of the performance data is to “evaluate district and school performance on academic achievement, academic growth, and postsecondary and workforce readiness indicators,” according to a RFSD memo. 

The test results — specifically the Colorado Measure of Academic Success (CMAS), used to measure grade-level proficiency — showed overall good outlooks. But once the data is dug into — it uncovers an alarming cavity between subgroups. 

According to a Voces Unidas news release, although the district is seeing increases in the median test result, the 40-point achievement gap hasn’t budged in decades. 

The release delves into the numbers released by the Colorado Department of Education, and proves the achievement gap is seen from third graders CMAS results all the way through 11th grade SAT results. 

During the 2024-25 school year, the gap between white and Latino students in third through eighth grades who met or exceeded expectations in reading and writing was 41.8 percentage points. The math gap was 37.4 percentage points, and science results for fifth through eighth grades showed a 41.2 percentage-point gap. Participation rates were high across groups.

“The data suggests that Latino students are still not getting consistent grade-level instruction, much less catching up to the two or three grades they are currently behind before getting to high school,” Voces Unidas President and CEO Alex Sánchez said in the release. 

The 2025 SAT/PSAT scores showed similar disparities. According to the release, Latino scores were between 180-230 points lower than White students, depending on grade. 

“Thse outcomes show that the system is failing students at every step — from third grade CMAS through high school SATs” Sánchez said in the release. “The gaps are not closing, they are compounding. By the time Latino students are taking college entrance exams, they are already years behind their White peers.”

Before Wednesday’s board meeting, the board held a work session that allowed them to dig into the numbers and discuss concerns with Park. The preliminary data that was released in late August is still being sifted through, and the board will receive a more conducive presentation once the numbers are finalized in December. 

“I would like to start by saying that as a whole, our data has been very positive and we’ve shown a lot of growth,” Director Kenny Teitler said during Wednesday’s board meeting. “It shows me that we’re doing a lot of things right within our district, for the academic growth of our students. With that taken into account, we’re still seeing the achievement gap between many different subgroups, but especially between language learners and white students. Although there is higher academic achievement, the achievement for our white students has outpaced the achievement for our language learners. 

“Although everybody is getting higher, that gap is just continuing to widen,” he added. “Obviously we’re doing the right things academically, but we need to really focus on what we need to do and change to help close that gap. I really look forward to the conversation that we’ll be having around this. It’s a time for celebration, but also a pause to say there’s still things that we need to specifically address.”

Director Lindsay DeFrates reiterated Teitler’s concern for the disparity while still keeping a birds-eye view of the situation. 

“These presentations to the board have grown tremendously. I think if we saw these a few years ago they wouldn’t look the same and that is definitely a credit to leadership that is taking a different approach to what this means for our students.

“I want to celebrate the change that we’re seeing, using it to drive instruction from the 30,000-foot view which is where we should often stay as a board,” DeFrates added. “We need to remember in moments like these that two things can be true at once. We can wholeheartedly celebrate the growth and achievements that we are seeing in this data, the story that it’s telling about incremental improvements in many different categories and populations. But we can also continue to hold ourselves accountable. It’s really important as leadership to recognize that a false dichotomy where it can only be one or the other will not serve our students or our communities in the long run.”

The next regularly scheduled board meeting will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 24, at the Carbondale District Office, 400 Sopris Ave. 

For more information about the district, visit rfschools.com.