Garfield Re-2 News You Can Use

The best way to help keep our schools open is to keep COVID-19 cases in Garfield County as low as possible.

Help us by making the following commitments:

I commit to:

WEAR a mask.

WASH my hands.

WALK, ride or play 6 feet away.

WORK together safely.

IF ILL – stay home

What an amazing week! Four days of in-person and virtual instruction are in the books.

Thank you to each and every student, parent, staff member, teacher, administrator and school board member that made this week work! We know there are places we can always get better. We will continue to do so!

Due to the current limitations on bus capacity, unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate students riding home with friends this year. There are no exceptions to this practice at the moment. We apologize for any inconvenience. We will re-evaluate as physical distancing requirements relax. Thank you for your patience as we work through this process.

RIFLE - At the August 24, 2020 School Board meeting, Kirk Wilson officially resigned as the representative from Director District B. Wilson recently took a new position as the Chief of Police in Carbondale.

“I’m disappointed that I will be unable to serve out my term on the school board,” said Wilson. “This is one of the finest teams I have worked with and we have gone through and accomplished a lot during our time together. The responsibilities of my new position require me to step down.”

School Board president Anne Guettler said Wilson will be missed.

“Kirk is an excellent school board member and an even better person. We will miss his humor, his insight and deep thinking on this team,” said Guettler. “He has helped us navigate through what may be the most difficult set of circumstances for a school board – for that we will always be grateful.”

Wilson was elected in November 2019 and has served just shy of two-years on the Board. The District is seeking community-minded residents interested in serving in Director District B.

District B is generally the north-eastern portion of the City of Rifle north of Morrow and Firethorn Drives, east of Whiteriver Avenue ane extending easterly, north of Highway 6 & 24 and west of North 1st Street (aka Silt Mesa Road) and generally includes the neighborhoods of Arabian Heights, Deerfield Park, North Pastures, Promontory, Rifle Creek Estates (in Rifle) and most of Silt Mesa including Peterson Lane, Miller Lane, and Ukele Lane.

Applicants must live within the boundaries of Director District B, be a registered voter as shown on the books of the county clerk and recorder for at least 12 consecutive months prior to the appointment, be 18 years or older, and be a citizen of the United States.

Letters of interest in the Director District B position should be submitted to the Garfield Re-2 School District to arrive no later than 5 p.m. September 14, 2020. Attn: Anne Guettler, Director District B vacancy, 839 Whiteriver Ave., Rifle, CO 81650. For more information, you may call the Garfield Re-2 District Office at 665-7600. The District B seat must face election in the November 2021 election.

All Garfield Re-2 students have been, or will be next week, issued their school ID/Zonar bus pass. We’ve been using these passes for several years, however, THIS year they are more important than ever!

This pass is printed on an RFID card and is able to help us account for students on a daily basis and in case of emergency.

Parents can download an app that tells them every time their child scans on and off a bus. Having this information helps the Transportation Department and families have better accountability for our bus-riding children. In the event of a bus accident, we are able to account for every student on the bus that has scanned - even those that may not normally ride the route - so we can contact families quickly, and support first responder crews.

This pass also has a barcode on it with your child’s student ID number. This will be used for lunch, library and in some cases to help student health checks go faster.

• Please help your child keep track of their badge.

• Do NOT poke additional holes in your badge.

• If you need a new badge, let the secretary at your school know. We will make free, reasonable replacements for regular wear and tear as well as those that don’t function because of manufacturing defects.

• If the card is lost, purposely broken or defaced there is a $5.00 charge for the first replacement and a $20.00 charge for each replacement after that.

Congratulations to the Garfield Re-2 Nutrition Services Department for receiving a $104,000 grant to support fresh fruits and vegetables in four of our elementary schools. This program enables us to offer students in schools with 50 percent or more Free and Reduced Lunch rate an opportunity to have fresh fruits and vegetables served as a snack throughout the school week. The purpose of the program is to introduce kids, while they are young, to a variety of healthy fresh fruits and vegetables.

Students have been able to taste and try unique items such as dragon fruit, key limes and a variety of more traditional items too. Last year the program spent $57,000 on fresh fruits and veggies. This year’s schools included in the program are Wamsley Elementary, Highland Elementary, Graham Mesa Elementary and Elk Creek Elementary. Look for more information soon.

You can find the school lunch menus online here.

You can download the entire month of September here.

This week Garfield Re-2 students received local peaches with lunch. These delicious peaches are from nearby orchards in Palisade, Colorado. Although the peach crops were smaller this year, we wanted to be sure to bring some peaches back since the kids told us just how much they loved them!

Look for Olathe Sweet Corn on the menu at all of our schools next week. We know that local is both delicious for our kids and great support for our local farmers.

Usually, an account balance of zero is bad news. Zeros in a lunch balance account is a good thing.

Thanks to generous donations from six individuals and a surprise gift of $20,000 from the Colorado Health Foundation as a result of COVID-19, every student in the Garfield Re-2 School District will begin the school year with an account balance of zero this year.

“We are very pleased to use these gifts to support our community during these challenging economic times,” says Mary McPhee the Director of Nutrition Services. “We are so grateful to the Colorado Health Foundation, and the individual donations for this funding and that the Board of Education chose to support our community in this way.”

Six individuals, Ruth Mohanram, Heidi Welch, Christopher Li, Paul Madera, Mike Aviles and Sandeep Johri - all Stanford Graduate School of Business classmates of Interim Finance Director David Trautenberg - donated a total of $7,000 toward the student lunch debt that had grown to almost $19,000 district-wide.

To supplement, the district will use a significant portion of the Colorado Health Foundation gift to eradicate the outstanding debt. The Board of Education voted to utilize this generous gift to pay off student lunch debt earlier this year.

“This is exciting for our Garfield Re-2 families who will return to school to find a zero lunch balance,” added Superintendent Heather Grumley. “The last several months have been turbulent, and it is nice to be able to support our families and provide some relief, even if it is small.”

Questions about lunch balances should be directed to the Director of Nutrition Services Mary McPhee at 970-665-7697.

Our vision is to Encourage, Nurture and Challenge every student, every day.

Email: thamilton@garfieldre2.net
Website: www.garfieldre2.net
Location: 839 Whiteriver Avenue, Rifle, CO, USA
Phone: 970-665-7600
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Garfieldre2/
Twitter: @GarfieldRe2