The board, with help from executive search consultants, is seeking to replace Superintendent Rob Stein, who announced in January that he will resign at the end of the current school year. Finalists for the position were announced April 6.
How much input a school board member should give when it comes to the district budget was a matter of debate during Wednesday’s Roaring Fork School District School Board meeting. Board Member Jasmin Ramirez requested…
How can Roaring Fork schools make best use of $4 million?
That question drove discussion among school board members Wednesday after the Roaring Fork School District received its third round of Esser federal funds (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds). The district is currently planning how to spend the surplus in a way that is best for the district, Chief Financial Officer Nathan Markham explained at the board meeting Wednesday night the parameters set in place for how the funds can be spent.
“We have to spend the money in a, quote, ‘reasonable and necessary manner’ and they have some definitions around those, and it has to be in response to and in prevention of COVID-19. … We can spend them in a wide variety of ways,” Markham said.
An Aspen School District bus parked in front of Aspen Middle School on Wednesday, August 26, 2020. (Kelsey Brunner/The Aspen Times)
Colorado received more than $1.1 billion in federal funding for round three of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) when the American Rescue Plan became law back in March.
But not all school districts got an even slice of the pie, according to an allocation table from the Colorado Department of Education. The difference is as stark here in the Roaring Fork Valley as anywhere else, data shows.
The Roaring Fork School District, which has about 5,300 students enrolled between Basalt and Glenwood Springs, received $4,252,946. Aspen School District, with around 1,600 students, got just $252,056.