At the conclusion of the 2025-26 school year, Widefield District 3’s superintendent will call it a career.

Aaron Hoffman has spent three decades as a teacher, coach, principal and top administrator in D-3, where he also was a student, graduating from Widefield High School in 1988.

After helping the district pass a transformative bond last fall, bolstering school security and student achievement, Hoffman said he’s “excited” for D-3’s future and “a little anxious” for his own.

“Working in the school district for 33 years, I feel good with the position that we’re in. I feel good with the leadership we have moving forward and it’s been good,” he said.

Hoffman pointed to his sixth grade teacher Larry Borchik at South Elementary, now Venetucci Elementary, for helping to foster his passion for learning, which led to his desire to become a math teacher. After graduating from Colorado State University, he returned to D-3 as a student teacher and was hired at Watson Junior High shortly after.

While he would have been open to teaching somewhere beyond his old stomping grounds, Hoffman said the need for math teachers and personal ties led to a quick, seamless transition back to D-3.

“I suppose, had I not gotten a job initially in our school district, for livelihood’s sake I would have looked elsewhere. But coming back and teaching in Widefield was always the goal,” he said.

Following nine years of teaching and coaching at Watson and Widefield High, Hoffman and his childhood best friend and superintendent predecessor, Kevin Duren, agreed to enter district administration in 2002 to make a bigger difference in the district. Hoffman served as principal at Talbott Elementary, Janitell Junior High and Widefield High over the next 19 years.

Incoming superintendent and current assistant superintendent Steffanie Howell recalled that, shortly after she joined the district as a student teacher in 1999, Hoffman served as a mentor to her. Over the years, the two found themselves coaching opposing teams and working across school halls and district buildings, becoming both colleagues and friends.

“Probably one of the most sincere, kindest, genuine people that you would ever come across and hope to be your boss and your supervisor,” she said. “Because his goal is to support people and support students.”

Howell believes that the relationships Hoffman cultivated throughout the district will be what people will remember most about him. She said he often took time to visit everyone in every building and gathered staff feedback through regular meetings to guide his decisions in an unbiased manner.  

“I feel like everyone knows him. If it’s a student, if it’s a parent, a former student he’s had, if it’s a teacher or a custodian, everyone recognizes and knows Aaron Hoffman,” she said.

During Hoffman’s time as an administrator, D-3 hired and implemented armed security in every school in 2019, avoided the precipitous drops in enrollment that other districts experienced — the district’s student count fell from roughly 9,600 to about 9,350 since 2019 — and improved its state performance rating to an “Accredited” district in 2025.

Hoffman said one of the things he’s most proud of was when voters approved an $88 million bond and a $5 million mill levy override in 2025.

The bond will address critical infrastructure needs, including renovating North Preschool, installing air conditioning in seven schools and expanding Grand Mountain School for neighborhood growth projections. The override ensures that school programming will continue and staff compensation will increase.

Hoffman said that, by the end of the summer, the district will have invested $40 million of the bond funds in ongoing projects.

Hoffman’s communication skills — explaining to voters why the tax increase was needed and how the district intended to use the new funding — were key to both votes passing, Superintendent Assistant Tammy Medina said.

“The changes that will happen in our buildings and the improvements, those will be things that are long-lasting that people will see and go, ‘Oh yeah, Mr. Hoffman talked about this and how he was going to do this,’” she said.

Hoffman said he accomplished everything he set out to do as superintendent. He sees the Widefield population continuing to grow and D-3 building a new school, which he said the district is already exploring, and developing new career pathways to meet local workforce needs.   

In retirement, he plans to travel with his wife, who is also retiring, and spend time with his daughter and yet-to-be-born grandchild in New Jersey.

Yet he said he “will not go far” from Widefield.

“I still plan to attend football games. I still plan to be present,” Hoffman said. “This school district has given me so much and I feel like I have been able to give back to the school district, but that will not stop when I retire.”