Calhan school board candidates confront declining enrollment
Editor’s note: This is another in a series of profiles of the 10 contested school board races in the Pikes Peak region. The stories will run intermittently in the days leading up to the distribution of mail-in ballots in mid-October.
Calhan School District RJ-1 is small and getting smaller.
Linda Miller, the Calhan superintendent, said enrollment is 641, down from 720 five years ago. Declining enrollment means tighter budgets as state revenue-sharing and economies of scale shrink.
“It was more popular to come out here and commute into the Springs when gas was $1.25 a gallon,” said Dan Crook, 52, a financial systems consultant and one of six candidates vying for three open seats on the five-member school board.
The others are Rachel Britton, 34, a stay-at-home mom; Nile Fischer, 39, a Frontier Airlines pilot; Maria Herndon, 45, a software manager at Lockheed Martin; Scott Mikita, 38, who owns a dairy farm; and Tim Swanson, 50, a social worker for a kidney dialysis provider.
Although Crook said enrollment was beyond the school board’s control, Herndon said the board should market the district with the message that it is “a desirable district to move to.”
“It’s going to take some outside-of-the-box thinking,” Fischer said, but added that he had no specific suggestions.
Britton said she hopes to get residents more involved in the students’ education, as volunteers or for nominal payment, providing additional services or areas of instruction not now available. As examples she mentioned foreign languages, music, gymnastics and karate.
Stretching dollars could take other forms, Swanson said. A parent of special-needs kids, he said Calhan could do better at providing equal opportunity for all its students.
“Kids that need special consideration sometimes don’t tend to get what they’re entitled to by federal law,” Swanson said. “It’s not how far you throw a football, you know. It’s being able to read the playbook.”
Several attempts to interview Mikita were unsuccessful.
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Contact the writer at 476-1654
