Does the board have any questions or comments on that particular policy? All right. All right. I will entertain a motion to approve the dates and times for the regular board meetings held from July 2025 through June 2026 and all special board meetings as presented. So moved by Raquel, second by Aaron and just for you guys as new board members, uh board policy allows a voice vote such that we use to appoint the president promp and the president. However, for majority votes, this board will be doing what we call a roll call vote. For this action, we will do that. Cindy, please lead us in a roll call vote. Yes. Meadows, yes. Kilberg, yes. Gonzalez Thomas, yes. Carol, yes. Sligger, yes. Arandu, yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Administration and board comments. Tom, do you have anything you'd like to share? I am just congratulations everyone. I'm really excited to get working together as a as a new board now.
So looking forward to it. That's all I have. Great. Thank you. Board, any comments you guys would like to make? We want to make the newbies go first or do we want to fill in first? I'll go. Okay. Thanks, Raquel. Uh just good luck to R.J. and Sue and I thank them for their service. Um welcome to Katie and Kristen. Look forward working with you and then just happy Passover, happy Easter, happy Earth. It's also National ArabAmerican Heritage Month. It's also National Autism Awareness. So, let's be honest. I'm sure you're surprised about that, but uh how many pages is it? Just one, but I filled the whole page here. So, uh I want to say again, um how exciting is to have the BESPA contract uh approved. And I again want to congratulate both sides in that negotiation. It was really turned out being a very positive experience.
So, I'm very excited about that. To move forward with everybody, I want to give a shout out to two BPS 101 events that I attended recently. First was the vocational expo in Aurora that was on April 10th. Uh, Miss Butles, who was here recently presenting, and her team did a amazing job partnering with Balls, which is a vocational group in the area, and the local trade unions. We brought uh a bus of students over there. I think we had about 40 students. I might have that number wrong, but uh it was from freshman to seniors and uh it was uh they got to meet uh different representatives from all the different construction trades uh the plumbers, the pipe fitters, the painters and I had a lot of conversation with students that were excited to learn about these opportunities and I know there was then followup.
So, uh, the kids were there was discussions on, um, how to join these apprentice programs, how to write a resume, uh, when they can get started. So, you know, I really think we're doing a great job of giving that as a a viable career path and exposing them to those opportunities. The other was the All City Fine Arts Festival. There's a sticker here on the computer I got that day on April 12th. I think Mr. Kim attended that event. Um it was in my opinion like sort of like every all the arts were there performing in one spot. The Bertollo and the high school I saw uh orchestral and choiral groups perform large and small group. There was galleries of art, graphic design. Uh one of our student ambassadors here was performing. Um Mr. Owen said this was a tradition we've had for years. Co sort of disrupted that.
Um, but now I think he said they anticipate a thousand folks were going to attend that day and we're going to he thinks big. So, I can't wait to see what he does next year. So, uh, if next year when we have this event, I would encourage everyone in the community to go check it out because it really is a chance to kind of sample all the skills and talents of all our students. Uh, this week is prom. It was brought up in the previous meeting. It's an exciting night, but also an anxious night for a lot of parents. So, I would just say to everyone out there, have fun, but be safe. Um, and then also that we're in the the stretch run when we next gather as a body. Uh, we'll be talking about commencement, which will be the next evening at NIOU.
And I know a lot of students are announcing their decisions for their future plan. So, I just want to wish them good luck and I want to wish their parents good luck as we sort of have the beginning of last this and last that. And then I just want to close with saying congratulations to Miss Geralt and her family and uh Miss Swissi on their election to the board of education and congratulate Mr. Meadows on your re-election. I look forward to serving with all of you and the entire board for the next four years. And I also want to say thank you to all those who voted and supported my re-election, especially my wife Kathleen and my children Emma, Jake, and Millie. And Emma, who got to vote for me this year, so that was exciting for her. Um, I promise to serve the community to the best of my ability and always put student needs at top of mind.
And finally, to the outgoing members, Mrs. Lockach and Mr. Matthysse, uh, I just want to say that it's been an honor to work with them. I told them privately how I feel, but I can say that they gave their best and uh, in service to this community was honored to serve with them and I just want to wish both of them good health and prosperity and the best of luck in their future endeavors. Thank you. Um, thank you to Sue and R.J. It was an honor to serve with them. I just leave it at that. It was a real privilege. Um, Katie, uh, Kristen, welcome to the board. I look forward to working with you going forward here. And I think I will leave it at that. Thank you. Oh, yeah. Sure. Hi. Um, also I'd like to extend my gratitude for R.J. and Sue who took off as fast as they could.
Um, I appreciate their service um, given and welcome to Katie and Kristen. I'm excited for the voices and um, knowledge and perspective you guys are bringing to the board. Um, I wanted to I had uh let Craig know beforehand that I did want to bring up that I would kind of want to put feelers out or just kind of put this out there maybe for a board workshop um that's this summer um discussing the board tenure. No, um length of term. Thank you. Thank you. the length of time for our officers. Um we are per our policy we are a two-year um for each of them I think for vice president, secretary and president. Um and I know on my onboarding it was very hard to vote and I know for you too I mean it's it's awkward to vote for people you've never worked with, people you've never met.
Um and two years is half of your term obviously if you don't run again. Um, and along with that, I just feel like there's some other pros that would go into if we were to talk about shifting into a one-year. Um, that would allow on boarding members to get to know their board. Um, potentially they may be able to I mean, it takes a little time to get your feet wet, you know, six months to a year potentially be if there's any interest in them running um or taking on any of those duties. Also, it give the new board um the opportunity to discuss the roles. You know, does the president takes on a lot. I mean you spent a lot of time doing various things.
Is there any discussion or any ability based on what ISB has in line or um however it works that whatever we do have to follow but is there anything that can go on to whether it's a vice president or other board members um that give them the opportunity to be present um in meetings or with various duties that would have relieved you there's obviously president roles that you do have to do in different communications um as board president but I think that would be a great opportunity um just to kind of give a new board that ability to have that back and forth and that open dialogue um and then potentially if there are any changes it may allow for someone to take on um one of the roles. So, I know it's probably a hard thought of like I the first thought I had was, well, that's a lot of shifting, you know, every year.
Um, but I think there could be benefit and allows more of the board. We're seven of us to have the opportunity. Not all of us will run for multiple terms possibly for various reasons. Um, but we are all here. We're all a board of one voice. So, I just feel like that it gives a better opportunity. So, I know tonight that's just my comment to you guys and I would love to maybe add it to our our workshop and then if we are able to apply it um put into policy if it's something that everyone kind of agreed on. Um along with that, I just want to be able to say again, thank you for the the time that you put in into this role and I know we are all working together. We're two years working together at this point. Um, we've had some bumps and and we've discussed some things and I just want to make sure to put it out there that my expectations and I I I'm open to anyone sharing theirs of mine with me as board members.
I know we are open to um, you know, making sure that we hear each other's voices and and give that mutual respect which I think we do very well. Um there are things that I would like to ensure that as board members we are working on a little bit more thoroughly in this next time like under your president role vice president and under our time as board members. Um, I want to ensure that, you know, we are following along to when there is a request for a poll or things to be put on the agenda that we don't run into as many um barriers with that part of it so that all of the board feels like there is a voice that regardless of who we are. Um, I want us to really work on that part of it. Um, I think that we've all kind of discussed uh putting in for committees to maybe be shared and I think that's something that Erin you brought up and um maybe we'll talk in our workshop about that as well.
Um I just really really want to put out I just want to empower you as our president. Our role is to make sure we are a healthy board and you know we do employ Tom and he employs admin and I think our role is to ensure that we are as healthy together as possible and our role is to back each other up and ensure that our voices are all heard represented and we're not putting roadblocks up for each other or else we can't do our jobs to represent our kids and support our kids. If we are barriers for each other, we cannot be effective board members for our kids. Um, and so I think a lot of that I think we've talked about like communication again, board workshop. Um, we all communicate differently. We all have different backgrounds and I think we need to make sure that we are understanding there's a best interest at play and hearing people out, active listening, right?
not dismissive or defensive if someone is saying something that maybe you don't agree with or don't understand. Have curiosity and really work to support each other and our voices together so that we are unified voice for Tom, he's a unified voice for admin and we're unified voice for um the kids. I just feel that we've had again some road bumps but I have that confidence. I would not have voted yes. Um, and I hope that we can continue that conversation. And again, I hope that with that we can potentially talk about that policy, that term change so that we can kind of mix things up possibly and give other people the opportunity, especially when you have people coming in. It's hard to run up against the incumbents. It's hard to come on into a board and say, "Yeah, I'm going to do it." When you've never been here before and you have to wait a whole two years and they're still whatever.
So, That's kind of what I wanted to share and I realize that we'll have to talk a little bit more in the board workshop about it. Okay. I usually go last so I'll let you two go first. Okay. Uh just thank you to the voters of Betavia and to my family and my friends for supporting me in this endeavor and I am so happy to be up here with everybody. Uh, I look forward to discussing some topics at board workshop and kind of getting to know how everyone is going to work together. Uh, and I'm just excited to get to work for the kids, the students in Matavia. Right. Thank you. Um, I was going to just kind of wrap up by um, saying, you know, I not going to disagree with anything anybody said. This is a board that should work together and this is a board that will discuss how we want to work together because there's an upcoming board workshop where we all get together and it is within the bounds of the laws that allows us to kind of have a close session meeting to really talk about those things and hash things out and work through them.
Um I know we will come out at the end of that better for it for whatever goes on in that meeting. Um and then additionally just congratulations to um our parting board members um for what they've got in their future in in their student ambassadors in particular. Um I was just talking to them about kind of sharing with them that because they both mentioned they were on a interested in a pre-law kind of track and since my son is going through law school at Boulder right now I was filling them in on getting ready to write a lot of papers. Um but um they're very excited about their future and I really think that that's kind of a credit to the opportunities that they've created for themselves and taken advantage of of what the district gives them the opportunities to do. I won't say that the district has done it for it because they've done that themselves.
Um so um I will say that um I appreciate um that we have two new board members at this uh table today. I'm very much looking forward to working with you two and everybody else. I think we are on a a good path. a lot of things have gotten kind of cleaned up in the past couple of years with various contracts that we don't have a lot of those hanging over our heads so we can get on to doing a lot of the good work as opposed to the things we have to get done. Um, but those were a very good process. So, I appreciate all our partners that really worked favorably for that. And I am looking on a more personal note, I'm looking forward to hearing about the women in STEM session that's going on tomorrow because two women in my office are going to that they were um I was invited to ask if somebody in my office is an architecture firm.
We had any women that would be to attend the women in STEM and kind of give a little talk to them tomorrow. So we have two, one of them's a partner of uh the firm I am also a partner at, one's a younger kind of new project manager and I'm looking forward to hear all the excitement because we're a firm of uh about I think it's a little over 50% 60% women in our firm which is almost double the average of architecture firms. So to that end I'm looking forward for them to show everybody what a fruitful career is. If not in the arts, it is also in science and arts adjacent at a minimum. So, thank you everybody for your time and effort today um and all the um and sitting around through all those action items, particularly the families that came today to support the new board members.
Um I will entertain a motion to adjourn the special reorganization meeting of the board of education. So moved by Raquel, second by second second by Aaron. All in favor? I opposed. Thank you. It is now 9:16 p.m. We had two and the median board education is returned.
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