Alliance Defending Freedom Demands Roaring Fork Schools Drop 3Rs Curriculum

Glenwood Springs —The letter arrived on a Tuesday, simple in appearance but carrying the weight of a legal summons. It came from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a national non-profit organization, addressed directly to the Roaring Fork Schools board and Superintendent Anna Cole. The demand was not a suggestion. It was an instruction to "discontinue immediately" the use of the 3Rs curriculum, the district’s comprehensive human sexual education program that has quietly become the center of a cultural storm.

For months, this debate has simmered beneath the surface of town meetings and school board elections. The 3Rs curriculum — standing for Rights, Respect, and Responsibility — has enjoyed broad support within the community. Yet a vocal group of parents remains deeply unsettled by what they describe as "sexually explicit" lessons. They argue that the district has employed a "discreet implementation," making it difficult for families to opt their children out of classes they find objectionable.

The tension between the district’s approach and parental concerns did not emerge from nowhere. It played out clearly in recent school board elections, serving as a referendum on who should dictate educational content: external experts or local voices. In 2023, former board member Betsy After and current board member Lindsay DeFrates ran on platforms opposing outside influence over the 3Rs curriculum. Both won with more than 70% of the vote, signaling strong local backing for maintaining the status quo.

That dynamic shifted slightly in 2025, though perhaps less loudly than some might have expected. Current board members Kathryn Kuhlenberg and Tammy Nimmo did not explicitly campaign for the repeal of the curriculum. They, too, secured more than 70% of the votes. Their re-election suggests that while parents are watchful, they have not yet demanded a full rollback of the program.

ADF’s letter, now available on their website, challenges that quiet confidence. Kate Anderson, senior advisor at ADF and director of the Center for Parental Rights, argues that Roaring Fork Schools is doing more than just teaching anatomy. She claims the district is actively obscuring information from parents and denying them a meaningful choice to exclude their children.

“Roaring Fork Schools is not only introducing kindergarteners to explicit content, but it is also hiding information from parents and denying them a meaningful opt-out, deliberately,” Anderson said in the statement accompanying the letter. “Parents are understandably concerned. Roaring Fork Schools should abandon this controversial sexual education curriculum immediately, or at least provide parents with sufficient notice to choose what is best for their family.”

The specifics of the complaint are granular, focusing on the progression of lessons from kindergarten through second grade. According to ADF, kindergarteners are taught explicit anatomical terms and asked how they like to be touched. First-graders complete worksheets on reproduction. By second grade, slides that were once optional - and described as containing "vulgar" content; become mandatory. ADF asserts that the curriculum instills gender ideology across all grade levels, moving beyond basic biology into social messaging.

The district itself has remained silent since receiving the Tuesday letter, offering no immediate comment on whether they will adjust their practices or stand firm. Meanwhile, the 3Rs curriculum remains accessible on the district’s health education website, where lessons on respecting bodily boundaries continue to be taught.

Stand there long enough and you can see the friction points clearly. It’s not just about whether a child knows the name of an organ; it’s about who gets to decide what that knowledge means. The board members re-elected in 2025 did not run on a promise to scrap the program, but neither did they dismiss the parents’ anxieties. They simply kept teaching.

Now, a national organization has drawn a line in the sand. The question for Roaring Fork Schools is no longer whether to keep 3Rs, but how quickly they must move to remove it.