Colorado’s $3.1M for 3Rs, the Free Sex Ed Curriculum Behind the Roaring Fork Legal Fight

By Kelly Notarfrancesco | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice

The State of Colorado has awarded more than $3 million in sex-education grants to nearly two dozen school districts and charter schools that adopted or planned to adopt the same human sexuality education curriculum now at the center of a legal conflict between parents and Roaring Fork School District — a curriculum that is free to download.  

Rights, Respect, Responsibility (3Rs) is a freely accessible K-12 comprehensive sexuality education curriculum created by activist organization Advocates for Youth–a curriculum which some Colorado parents have described as excessive, radical, and harmful. National parental rights legal advocacy organization Alliance Defending Freedom described the curriculum as “vulgar” in the legal notice it delivered to RFSD on Aug. 11. In the letter, ADF accused the district of violating parents’ rights, writing that parents have a constitutional right “to know what their children are taught about sex, gender, and their own bodies and to opt out when it conflicts with their beliefs.”  

Since 2019, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Comprehensive Human Sexuality Education Grant Program has facilitated the implementation of Advocates for Youth’s 3Rs in a wide variety of Colorado schools, including those in both urban and rural settings, as well as in charter schools.  

Advocates for Youth is a multimillion-dollar LGBT advocacy nonprofit funded by private foundations such as The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and the Foundation to Promote Open Society, and until recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Advocates for Youth funds the promotion of LGBT-inclusive curriculum, the training of thousands of youth activists, and reported $250,865 in lobbying expenditures over its last four fiscal years.

RFSD applied for a CHSE grant in June of 2022, which the district used, in part, to adopt the 3Rs curriculum.  Parents in RFSD repeatedly raised concerns over RFSD’s 3Rs lessons, which include cartoon graphics of genitalia for Kindergarteners, teaches 4^th and 5^th graders that sex is “assigned at birth,” and encourages middle schoolers to visit non-academic websites that invite them to take advocacy action on LGBTQ+ issues.

The entire 3Rs curriculum is available to download for free from the Advocates for Youth website. Advocates for Youth even features an entire 3Rs curriculum specifically tailored for Colorado’s classrooms–curriculum freely accessible HERE. 

Source: Advocates for Youth 3Rs website

Despite 3Rs being widely available at no cost, CHSE’s annual Legislative Reports filed from 2021 through 2026, reveal the state spent $3,140,227 providing grants to schools utilizing or planning to utilize 3Rs between FY19-20 and FY24-25.  

Grantees exclusively implementing 3Rs received over $2 million, while the remainder of the funds went to districts utilizing 3Rs in conjunction with additional CHSE-approved sex ed curriculum, such as FLASH, Elevatus, or Our Whole Lives.  

Nearly 70% of the $4,513,200 reportedly allocated to CHSE’s grantees over six fiscal years was provided to schools implementing Advocates for Youth’s freely accessible 3Rs lessons.

Nineteen school districts, individual schools and charter schools reported 3Rs to CDPHE in connection with their grants. Some appear in a single year’s records; Denver Public Schools appears in all six.

So What Did the $3 Million Buy?

So just what has the $3 million funded, since the 3Rs curriculum, itself, is free?

CDPHE did not provide the grant documentation and records of payment for all CHSE grant recipients to RMV, but RFSD’s CHSE grant application and associated reports obtained by RMV through an open records request do provide some insight into grant funding allocation.

The CDPHE purchase order related to the RFSD grant stated that the project, “…will provide funding to health educators and a contractor facilitator to complete a Comprehensive Human Sexuality Education and a comprehensive health curriculum adoption process,” while RFSD’s grant report paperwork shows district personnel considered using grant funds for food and for paying stipends to student groups.

CDPHE purchase order for Roaring Fork School District’s CHSE grant, capped at $24,200 for services from Oct. 17, 2022 through June 30, 2023. Obtained by open records request.

Roaring Fork’s CHSE grant report to CDPHE, in which district staff describe reallocating roughly $10,000 in facilitation funding “to food, stipends for student groups and curricular purchases.” Obtained by open records request.

The CDPHE Reimbursement Invoice Form shows RFSD received $1,993 for personal services provided by its then-Chief of Student and Family Services, Anna Cole (current RFSD Superintendent). The same invoice reimbursed RFSD an additional $3,126.06 for “Health Education Teachers.” Cole signed the form on July 28, 2023—about two and a half weeks before she became interim Superintendent on August 14, 2023—authorizing reimbursement to the district for services she had provided. RFSD’s CHSE program annual report confirms Cole’s role in the curriculum process. In it she states, “I (Anna Cole), Chief of Student & Family Services, am running the curriculum adoption process.”

CDPHE reimbursement invoice for $24,200, signed by then-Chief of Student and Family Services Anna Cole on July 28, 2023.
Obtained by open records request.

Expenditure details attached to Roaring Fork’s CDPHE reimbursement invoice, showing $1,993 claimed under Personal Services for the district’s Chief of Student and Family Services. CDPHE redacted the employee’s name but left the position title. Obtained by open records request.

Expenditure details attached to Roaring Fork’s CDPHE reimbursement invoice, showing $3,126.06 for “Health Education Teachers,” $13,432.50 for “CHSE curricula” and $5,648.44 for “personal hygiene products.” Obtained by open records request.

Screenshot from RFSD’s CHSE Program Annual Report showing RFSD Superintendent Anna Cole stating that she is leading the district’s curriculum adoption process.  Report obtained by open records request.

Cole advocated for the district’s implementation of 3Rs on multiple occasions, including in her board presentations on both May 9, 2023 and May 13, 2026 presentation to the RFSD school board, “We see comprehensive sexual health education as a primary prevention strategy to keep our students safe. It is evidence-based that it prevents sexual abuse, addresses critical risk factors, promotes inclusion and positive school culture…”  

The bulk of RFSD’s grant funding was used to purchase “HS Comprehensive Health Skills” curricula ($13,432), while $5,648 was used for ‘personal hygiene products,’ from a vendor the records CDPHE released do not identify. Cole’s May 9, 2023 Comprehensive Health and Human Sexuality Curriculum Adoption Update provided to the RFSD board lists Comprehensive Health Skills by publisher Goodheart-Willcox for recommended adoption by the board. The CHSE program’s 2024 Legislative Report provides conflicting information, stating that RFSD’s $24,200 went toward implementing 3Rs and CHSE’s approved McGraw Hill Sexuality Education curricula.

What About the Opt-Outs?

Funding questions remain, as do questions about opt-out processes and parental notification.

ADF’s letter to RFSD warned the district that it was violating constitutionally guaranteed parental rights by failing to provide sufficient notice to parents about the specific lessons being taught from 3Rs and for failing to provide an effective opt-out process for parents wishing to remove their children from the comprehensive sex ed lessons.

Could the other Colorado schools which implemented 3Rs be at similar risk?

“The courts made really clear that parents’ rights don’t end at the schoolhouse gate, and that parents have the right to see curriculum, and when there are lessons or other policies that undermine the parents’ desires for the religious upbringing of their kids, when they um, conflict with their parental rights,” shared ADF’s Director for the Center for Parental Rights, Katherine Anderson in an interview with RMV. “Parents have the right, both under the free exercise clause and under their constitutionally protected parental rights, to ask to opt out of…curriculum…so that their kids are not being instructed or engaged in activities at school that violate their convictions about how they want to raise their kids.”

In its letter to RFSD, the ADF cited recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions. In Mahmoud v. Taylor, decided in 2025, the Court held that parents have a right to advance notice and to opt their children out of public-school instruction that conflicts with their religious beliefs. In Mirabelli v. Bonta, a March 2026 emergency-docket order, the Court reinforced that parents, not the state, hold primary authority over their children’s upbringing.

The ADF stated on its website that, “…the law puts the burden on school districts, not parents, to make sure families actually know what’s being taught and have a real chance to say no. A two-week notice window buried in a folder or app alert, delivered differently from school to school, is the kind of practice this legal framework was built to prevent.”

RMV performed a search of the CHSE grant recipients’ websites and found that most of the districts and schools do not appear to post easily accessible sex-ed opt-out forms.  

Boulder Valley School District provides a “Parental Excusal Request” form through policy IGAE-E, while Moffat School District has a Parent Notification Letter for Comprehensive Health Education which explicitly lists 3Rs.  

Cañon City School District, which was granted nearly $350,000 over four years to implement the free 3Rs curriculum, does not appear to have a readily available opt out form.  Comprehensive sex education curriculum opt out forms were not obviously accessible on the websites of CHSE grantees Denver Public Schools, South Conejos School District, nor Lake County School District.

A Wake Up Call for Colorado Parents

As RMV previously reported, RFSD is preparing for potential legal action from ADF.  The impact of that action to schools across Colorado remains unclear.

“I think it’s a wake-up call to parents about what kinds of things can be taught to your kids, particularly under the umbrella of health and puberty,” said Anderson. 

ADF suggests that concerned parents engage directly with their schools and teachers by requesting to view the specific lessons taught to students.  

“It gives you a really good insight into the kinds of things the school is presenting on issues of sex and gender,” Anderson shared. “Issues that you may very much want to be the one to speak to your kids and not have their teacher doing that.”

Parents in the above schools and districts can contact their districts directly for more information about how 3Rs has been implemented in the schools and how parental opt-out is provided and honored by the individual school or district.