Voces Unidas: RFSD earns a D- on new community report card

Among the many lessons public education offers are those that come not from textbooks, but from sharing the classroom with peers from every walk of life. One lesson, often learned slowly, is that we all live our own reality. Despite appearances, not everyone’s circumstances are the same.

Sharing the same hallways, classrooms and cafeterias with the same students day after day, year after year, it’s easy to assume everyone’s experience is similar. We’re all “Rams,” or “Demons” or “Longhorns” after all, united by school spirit and a shared identity. But a closer look behind those integrated identities reveals starkly contrasting realities.

That’s a lesson Latino families with students in the Roaring Fork School District (RE-1) learned long ago. The persistent academic shortcomings of a district often considered high-performing tell a more complete story. Those who rate the district highly aren’t entirely wrong, they’re just living a different reality. And both realities can be true.

The fact is, white students in RFSD often experience an excellent education. They excel academically, see themselves reflected in school and district leadership and are deeply involved in sports and extracurricular activities. Families face few, if any, language or cultural barriers. And white parents continue to shape most of the decisions that guide our schools today.

For Latino students, who make up more than half of the district’s population, the story is dramatically different.

Latino students remain nearly 40 points behind their white peers in English language arts, math and science test scores. In the 2025 Colorado Measures of Academic Success,

Latino students scored 18.5% proficient in ELA compared with 60.3% for white students, a 41.8-point gap. In math, Latino proficiency was 11.7% compared with 49.1% for white students, a 37.4-point gap. In science, Latino students reached 11.8% proficiency compared with 53% for white students, a 41.2-point gap.

Voces Unidas has raised this issue for years, unfortunately to little effect. We’ve heard promises and policies that sound ambitious but carry no teeth, and “plans” that lack boldness or accountability. The result? Another generation of Latino students left behind.

In response, we are introducing a new tool to hold districts accountable.

We recently released our first School District Accountability Report Card for RFSD, giving the district an overall grade of D-. The grade reflects not only the wide achievement gaps between Latino and white students, but also a lack of vision to eliminate them within any reasonable timeframe, the absence of Latino representation in leadership and the lack of accountability when goals go unmet year after year.

These report cards are a new community accountability tool created by Voces Unidas to evaluate how Western Slope school districts serve Latino students and families, starting with Roaring Fork and expanding to other districts across the region.

We evaluate across four areas: quality of education, human capital, parent power and governance and leadership. Our team reviewed district presentations and data, requested an unprecedented number of public records, analyzed 10 years’ worth of state data, questioned district leaders directly and sought the opinions of Latino parents before assigning grades.

In the end, RFSD earned two Fs and one D in the quality of education category, for low student performance, lack of progress over time and for unacceptable vision to eliminate the gaps. In human capital, the district scored two Ds and an F for mixed leadership expertise, failure to reflect the student population in its leadership ranks and an unclear vision to strengthen leadership pipelines.

When it comes to parent power, the district received two Ds and one F for parent involvement in decision-making, parent leadership development and for its vision to transform parent engagement into real influence. Latino parents continue to be consulted — but excluded — from real decision-making, with no investment to prepare them for future leadership roles.

Ultimately, it boils down to leadership. The school board received a D for aspirational governance without real accountability, and the superintendent received a D for limited experience leading district reforms and an unwillingness to accelerate progress. The district also received a D for strategic direction, as gaps of 37 to 42 points persist after more than 15 years of plans not designed to eliminate them.

As voters consider this November’s school-board election, the community has an opportunity to demand change. Leadership that tolerates 40-point achievement gaps is not leadership. We need school-board members who are willing to hold the school system accountable for results.

That’s why Voces Unidas has endorsed Tamara Nimmo and Kathryn Kuhlenberg in the RFSD school-board election, two candidates who have committed to prioritizing the elimination of these gaps — and holding the district accountable.

Latino students, like white students, deserve excellence. Nothing more, nothing less. This is about fairness, for the sake of our valley and our future.

Alex Sánchez is the CEO of Voces Unidas Action Fund, a Latino advocacy nonprofit organization working to make the Western Slope and the central-mountain region more equitable.