The Roaring Fork School District overestimated enrollment for the 2025-26 school year.
According to the district’s October 2025 pupil count, schools experienced a 4.2% decline in students — significantly steeper than the statewide average of 1.2%.
Dr. Anna Cole, the superintendent of the Roaring Fork School District, said up until last school year, the district assumed enrollment would remain flat or increase slightly.
“We kept thinking we were coming back from COVID,” Cole said. “And then we got our October count, and we're like, ‘Oh, wow! Yeah, this isn't what we thought.’”
Last year’s enrollment was also down. The state demographer confirmed last year that the 2024-2025 pupil count was not a temporary blip from the pandemic, but a long-term trend, Cole added: “What he saw coming down the line was further declines.”
The district decided to switch gears this year, basing its budget on declining student enrollment, but it missed the mark.
“We thought [it] was a very conservative projection,” Cole said.
The October count proved otherwise. Only two of the district’s 14 schools saw enrollment slightly higher than projected, but even those were lower than the previous year.
There are multiple reasons for the drop in enrollment. As the cost of living continues to rise, young people are leaving the Roaring Fork Valley or having fewer children. The escalation of immigration enforcement under the Trump Administration has also played a role, said Cole, as fewer immigrant families are moving to the region.
“All those things are coming together all [at] the same time, as well as these national trends around birth rates,” Cole said.
Cole said the district’s enrollment decline surprised even the state demographer.
It also has big implications for the district’s budget, since schools will receive less state and federal funding with fewer students in the classroom.
According to a memo sent to the board on Jan. 14, this year’s enrollment drop translates to a $470,687 hit to the district’s budget.
That loss will inevitably mean layoffs, said Cole.
“Eighty to 85% of our budget is people,” she said. “There's no way for us to address reductions in revenue without reductions in staffing.”
Despite the challenges ahead, Cole feels confident that the strong partnerships between schools will help offset the impacts of a smaller budget.
Meanwhile, she said, the enrollment decline is visible. Her daughter will graduate from high school this year.
“You just look at the seniors that we have compared to the kinders we have currently enrolled,” she said. “There's a difference of 140 kids.”
