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Lights, camera, action - wait, who runs those? 

We all know what happens when the curtain opens and the magic of the theatre takes center stage. But we don't always think about what's happening behind it: the people running backstage, answering questions on headsets, and scrambling to keep the magic of the theater alive. For the Rifle High School theatre students, they aren’t simply helping with the production: they’re running it.

Rifle Theatre teacher Megan Liggett estimates that about 90% of their productions are student run, giving students ownership over everything from props and sound to backstage operations and crew management. 

When Rifle High School teacher Adam King thinks about helping freshmen feel like they belong, he remembers a mountain.

Just five days after arriving at his high school, King said, staff loaded the new students onto a bus and told them they were going to climb one.

Years later, he still talks with high school friends about the relationships built while students who might not otherwise have become friends struggled up the same trail together.

“You look at it now, and the bonds built through those experiences are what you remember and keep you connected,” King said.

Four years after Garfield Re-2 turned to its community to help chart a path forward, the district continues to see steady academic progress.

Garfield Re-2 earned its highest overall score on record on the preliminary Colorado 2026 District Performance Framework and received an Accredited rating for the second consecutive year.

The district earned 59.7% of the points available on the preliminary 2026 framework, up from 56.9% last year and 8.7 points higher than in 2022.

RIFLE, Colo. — Following months of community conversations and long-range planning, the Garfield Re-2 Board of Education voted unanimously at their regular August 26, 2026 school board meeting to place a bond measure and mill levy override before voters in the November 3, 2026 election.

The two measures address different needs facing the district. The mill levy override would provide additional local funding for staff salaries. The bond would extend the district’s current bond, without imposing a new tax, to address school facilities, learning spaces, staff housing, early childhood education and technology infrastructure.

Board member Cassie Haskell summed up the distinction during Wednesday’s discussion.

“I just wanted it to be very clear: the mill levy override is for salaries. The bond is for buildings and infrastructure,” Haskell said. “We can’t use the bond for salaries.”

The Board’s action places both questions before voters. Voters will decide each measure separately in November.

RIFLE, Colo. - Garfield Re-2 School District has been named one of Colorado's 18 Attendance Challenge Champions after reducing chronic absenteeism by 55.6% over four years.

The district's chronic absenteeism rate fell from 40.1% in the 2021-22 school year to 17.8% in 2025-26. That 22.3 percentage-point decline puts Garfield Re-2 well ahead of the Colorado Department of Education's goal to reduce chronic absenteeism by more than 50% by 2028.

Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing at least 10% of the school year. In 2025-26, Garfield Re-2's chronic absenteeism rate was nearly 10 percentage points below Colorado's statewide rate of 27.5%.