Education Foundation aims to inflate school tech funding By Terray Sylvester The Roaring Fork Public Education Foundation is planning to fill the soccer field behind Carbondale Middle School with an inflatable festival next weekend. The attractions will include giant inflatable rides – such as a three-story slide, a kidfriendly boxing ring, and a midway jammed with games and contests – as well as food vendors and live music. There will also be a dunk tank, “which, of course, will be wonderful because I think there are going to be many principals there,” said Nancy Ball, a board member with the foundation. The family-oriented carnival, dubbed, “Bounce into Education,” is the foundation’s first fundraiser in a year, and an attempt to drum up funding for educational technology in the 12 downvalley schools. It is also the outgrowth of a new focus for the foundation, which for the last six
years has awarded grants for professional enrichment and innovative teaching to individual educators. The foundation decided to shift its focus to technology last fall, because all of the schools in the district stand to benefit from technology improvements, explained Carol Carnish, president of the foundation. The money raised at the carnival will be handed out in school-wide grants to every school in the district, instead of to individual teachers, said Roaring Fork Re-1 School District Superintendent Judy Haptonstall, who is also a trustee for the foundation. The foundation will ask that the money be put directly toward educational purposes – as opposed to technology that might ease a teacher’s workload – and that the grant requests tie into multi-year technology plans at each of the school sites. But apart from those caveats, the terms
of the grants will be wide open. From iPods to basic mathematics software, grant proposals might include requests for just about anything a school committee “wants to dream up,” Haptonstall explained. The foundation began planning for the festival this spring, and has partnered closely with the school district to organize it, much like the Aspen Public Education Foundation has historically done, said Haptonstall. In the past, she explained, the “foundation has been a fairly independent arm,” and has not worked so closely with the district to drum up money. “This is a new thing, we haven’t typically done that,” Haptonstall said. Each school site is responsible for gathering volunteers to help at the carnival. “Everybody is working on this carnival: the secretaries, the teachers, the maintenance people.” said Nancy Ball. “That’s really fun. We’ll get the kids out, the teachers
out, the parents out.” Revenue at the carnival will come from ticket and food sales. “If we make $20,000 or $30,000 we’ll be pretty darn happy, but we’ll see,” Haptonstall said.
Bouncing Into Education
The Roaring Fork Public Education Foundation will host the Bounce into Education fundraising carnival on Saturday, Sept. 12, on the soccer field at Carbondale Middle School from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Attractions will include giant inflatable rides and games, live music and food. All proceeds will go to educational technology grants for the 12 schools of the Roaring Fork Re-1 School District. For more information, call 384-6400.
P&Z discusses teacher housing; latest Village at Crystal River changes By Trina Ortega Due to the changing economy, the Roaring Fork School District and its developer want to add more residential units to the teacher housing project located at the former Carbondale Elementary School (CES) site. RFSD Superintendent Judy Haptonstall and school board member Bill Lamont, along with designer Chuck Perry of Perry Rose LLC, went before the Carbondale Planning & Zoning Commission on Aug. 27 to present an amendment to the CES Partnership Village Planned Unit Development at Third Street and Sopris Avenue. The 15.8-acre project, located between Bridges High School and the Third Street Center, is intended to provide affordable
housing for school district employees. The original proposal called for 89 dwelling units, but school district officials are seeking to increase that number to 120 to make the project financially viable. The new conceptual plan also includes a new library on the site, which could help offset some of the cost for the project. To open up more land for development, RFSD is proposing that a regulation-size soccer field originally slated at the site be located on another piece of school district property. In its place would be a smaller youth (U8) soccer field. The town and school district are looking into potential locations for a larger field, possibly near the new Roaring Fork High School.
A public hearing on the CES proposal continues Sept. 24. Based on feedback from previous public hearings, Village at Crystal River developer Rich Schierburg returned to Thursday night’s P&Z meeting with a revamped proposal for his 24-acre site along Highway 133 and Main Street. Schierburg’s latest proposal for the mixed-used project calls for 268 total residential units instead of 302, and a lower maximum building height (49 feet compared to 65 feet). Another significant change is the amount of open space, which is now at 28 percent. Dedicated park space is now 14.5 percent of the site. “Every place I took out a building, I
added green,” Schierburg said. Generally, the P&Z members commended the progress but several members still do not approve of the “sea of parking” south of the proposed 59,000-square-foot grocery store. Schierburg said he is in negotiations with a potential grocer that is well aware of Carbondale’s desire to retain its character. But the grocer has demands, as well, he said, and he needs that tenant to make the project work. Schierburg wouldn’t reveal the potential grocer but hopes to have it locked in before the end of the year. P&Z continues the public hearing for the Village at Crystal River on Oct. 15. The meeting will be televised on Channel 12.
Options other than building? continued om page 3 day, brainstorming ideas to ensure Carbondale businesses can pull through. Along those lines, residents can make a habit of buying locally, now and in the future, Baker says. Roadmap Group studies showed in 2005 that more than 70 cents of ever retail dollar spent by Carbondale residents was spent outside of Carbondale, or what Baker described as “leakage.” “If we all examine where we spend our money and attempt to make just a minor adjustment and, where possible, spend a little more of those expenditures in town, then we may make it possible for our merchants and their employees to weather this period better,” he said. More consumers worldwide also are coming to terms with the fact that oil is a finite resource. With a shifting emphasis to eat locally, another question stands: Could Carbondale become an agricultural community again? Baker said farming and ranching could be a larger piece of the economy in the future, and Barnett added that there could be additional employment via indirect industries, such as farm equipment sales and maintenance.
SPEC HOME LANE: The mid-decade boom, rooted in the construction and building trades, pushed Carbondale’s economy to an unsustainable level. Photo by Trina Ortega
The invaluable ‘human resource’ According to Baker and Barnett, tourism, the visual arts, and the clean energy industry additionally have merits. However, Baker believes the answer may not lie solely in any one industry. Rather, he says, it’s about Carbondale’s “human resource.” “The Clay Center, CCAH, Mountain Fair, Crystal Theatre, KDNK, The Sopris Sun … the people that are here decided to make those things happen. Whatever the
reason, we have a collection of civic activists here. And that’s what I believe is the foundation of our economy – the human resource.” Echoing that sentiment, Barnett mentioned the upcoming 100th Potato Day celebration. The tradition would have died had a group of hard-working volunteers not put the heat on and kept it baking year after year. Carbondalians step up to the plate in times of need. She summed it up by saying:“I think there
are a lot of people with vision.” Projects like the up-and-coming Third Street Center, they agree, reflect that visionary ethic. But can pitching in and warm-and-fuzzy community fellowship really help through a recession? It doesn’t pay the mortgage, after all. “I’d rather be here than in Chicago,” Baker stated. “There’s something intangible here; it’s hard to quantify. People really do rally around community members here when there’s a need.”
THE SOPRIS SUN • SEPTEMBER 3, 2009 • 5