We’re having the kind of winter that inspires visitors to explore the possibility of moving to Steamboat full time. They, like so many of us, see the benefits that Steamboat has to offer. In fact, in our community forums in the latter part of 2018 as well as in meetings with groups around town so far in 2019, when I ask how many people in the room were born and raised in Steamboat, only a few hands go up.
We hear time and again from families who move here that the quality of our schools factors into their decision just as much as the quality of life. Ratings-and-review company
Niche ranked our district 13th in Colorado in its recently released annual school rankings. Our teachers got a well-deserved “A” rating! With a new year upon us, we certainly aspire to continue our track record of success.
As more and more families have moved to Steamboat full time, the number of students in our schools has grown.
You’ve likely heard me talk about capacity and the fact that our schools are essentially full. Like all other school districts, we project future enrollment in order to prepare to serve the students in our community. However, Steamboat is different in that we can’t rely solely on birthrates to project, with any precision, the number of students our schools will eventually serve. Students often move to our community during later elementary or middle school years instead of starting with us in kindergarten, which is the norm in other communities.
As part of our larger planning efforts to build for the future, we have hired outside demographers to help us better gauge future enrollment. To be clear, while our goal is realistic projections, no one knows for sure what the future holds. However, we are confident that the professionals conducting the demographic study will provide data and information to help our community move forward in the best interests of our students, families, and staff.
The effort to move us forward has come quite a way since January 2018, when our Advisory Committee met for the first time.
Over the past year, the committee has completed a tremendous amount of work to inform the district’s Master Plan, carefully looking at our facilities, spaces needed for co-curricular and extracurricular activities, and implications for academic programming as well as advising us on communication strategies. Late last fall, the larger community got a view into the Advisory Committee’s work, reviewing possible facility-use scenarios through focus groups, public forums, and voter and community surveys. A scientific voter poll yielded 305 responses, and an additional 571 people participated in an open-source online survey.
The Advisory Committee’s members and stakeholders in our community have invested a tremendous amount of time and demonstrated an incredible level of commitment in guiding our district in building for the future. Thank you!
The Advisory Committee will present its recommendations to the Board of Education in early February.
Once the recommendations are made, the board will assume the responsibility of evaluating and determining a potential bond package and soliciting community input. Please stay tuned to our website (
buildingforthefuture.ssk12.org) for updates and a timeline of information and events. Official reports that will be rolled out throughout the spring—the survey results, the district Master Plan, the demographic study, etc.— will also be posted at
buildingforthefuture.ssk12.org.
