LCSD1 School Board of Trustees Meeting - July 12, 2021

001it's six o'clock on july 12 2021 i called this morning meeting of the laramie county school district board of trustees to order welcome everyone would you all please join me in saying the pledge of allegiance [Music] liberty and justice thank you and i would like to welcome everyone um tim our trustee is not able to be with us today and he will not be joining us virtually um and i would also like to welcome our new superintendent for surveillance doctor and everyone very good um are there any adjustments to the agenda very good the chair i need to adopt the agenda moving on um to items of recognition of students and staff for outstanding achievements i do not do we have any we do not all right very good taking us to item c information

002and reports items from visitors this is an opportunity for our public to comment the board recognizes the value of public comment on issues related to operations of schools to ensure that our meeting is conducted in an orderly manner we ask you that you address the board we also ask that you recognize that students often attend and view our meetings speaker's remarks therefore should be suitable for an audience that includes kindergarten through 12 grade students thank you um i ask that you state your name please keep your comments through the three minutes and this first session with a unique meeting today because we're going to have a budget hearing so we're going to have three opportunities for public health so i would like individuals that are speaking on agenda items not the budget items but the

003agenda items because we'll address the budget items during the budget hearing we will have public comment there but if you have something on the agenda items that is not the budget items and you would like to comment um this is your opportunity at that time please uh keep your comments general in nature and uh so no personal names and that kind of thing um and uh we ask that um you try not to be redundant if you agree with someone and you can add something more to that that would be great um we do have about an hour for this section of public comment and anything over that we will move into that next section of public comment at the end of the meeting um anyone that's addressing non-um agenda items or budget items will

004be in the third public comment section so that's easier for the board members to keep track of those conversations and the input that you give us um section by section in our agenda so thank you very much is there anyone at this time that would like to address the board um concerning any uh agenda items not regarding the budget or non-related items thank you for letting me say all that and then so yeah we didn't have it so thank you very much um again those rules will play all the way through that's chairman yeah what could you say when the bus hearings are will encourage you thank you look thank you um madame uh um if you look on our agenda um at [Music] answering reports from our superintendent and staff uh before we get

005to that point so see and there's nothing on on any individuals no that's very good all right moving on to uh um upcoming meetings july 28th and 29th at 11 o'clock the challenge rodeo um is the cheyenne frontier days rodeo arena it is an amazing event um in partnership with harmony county school district winner one and our uh giant frontier day partners so i would highly recommend everyone going august 2nd 2021 at 5 pm we'll have a work session and a 6 pm reunion board meeting august 16 2021 6 pm we have a regular board meeting august 20 2021 um edit from 11 to one and all staff uh school picnic at story gym at this time we'll move on to uh individual board communications and reports right anyway yes mrs clausen all right thank

006you man chair good evening everyone we just finished our annual hearing on the budget for the cheyenne community recreation district and i'm just reporting out on what we decided in that meeting tonight um we collected or we expected i guess about 900 3 000 i'm sorry we expect to collect approximately one million four hundred thousand dollars in revenue for the uh recreation district but we're not sure because of some changes in how that revenue is collected that were made by the legislature this last session um so we approved projects that were scored by our staff on their their need and level of need tonight and they made a recommendation to us which we adopted to go ahead and commit 903 000 um nine hundred and three hundred thousand eight hundred and twenty four dollars and

007eighty one cents for uh projects that we approved tonight so i just wanted to report that out and uh thank our staff for putting together those projects that were collected from all of our schools in our district and um helping us read through those and score them and make that recommendation if i could just learn how to read numbers all right is my understanding is is that we're anticipating collecting um revenue of one million four hundred and three and one million four hundred and three thousand dollars um over the next year that's our hope but because of the legislation last year that was passed that allows for that revenue collection to be postponed um up to 14 years we're not exactly sure how much this can come in so rather than obligate all those funds

008at this time our board voted to approve the projects that were scaled one through five on the scale of need which added up to thousand dollar 824 000. thank you i'll remember that trustee leader next time [Music] thank you i i attended the um the hope the stanford organization for progress education and scholarship rewards reception on sunday sunday afternoon they um award scholarships to 14 students from the army district one most of them were graduates from 21 2021 but some were already a year into their college experiences mostly at lccc and these are scholarships that range from a few hundred dollars to it to a thousand or more and some of our in the name of various people but i just want to report out there were three files and all the students and three

009of them presented to the group and what an outstanding group of students they were um and uh bright energetic intelligent warm uh individuals and um and it just kudos to this group that's helping them find a way to pay for their college educations going forward and and learning one is very fortunate to have this group and other other groups that get scholarships too there are many of them um and they all get credit for helping our students go on and achieve to their potential so thanks to them and enjoy those very good thank you trustee herman and thank you for attending that reception was on sunday so thank you for for doing that um all right very good i just have a great one and i won't make it the long one i'll follow back

010around to it um i am our director area director for um county school district number one um wyoming's school boards association and we had our directors meeting in sheridan and there's a lot of great information going on everyone getting ready for um the joint education committee um there is a meeting so this is what i love parents and students to be listening for everybody should be tuned in to this meeting on july 19th to the 20th um and that is the joint education committee there's a joint appropriations committee meeting notice on july 19th um i believe some of our district personnel will be presenting at those meetings i would also like to notify um and have people go on to the one department of education's website um we are they are doing a the complete

011health education standards public survey and that needs to be completed by um 11 59 pm on july 28th so individuals that have concerns about where our standards are or what our requirements are for pe um this is a great time for you to um way to register your voice um you also have an opportunity to complete the physical education standards um actually there's two evidently it's on here twice um and that was uh july 28th and there's also a virtual meeting um and you can give input from 11 30 to 1 pm mount standard time on july 16th um you just there's a link um there that you can click to join the meeting so um there's also an opportunity on july 18th so if you want to weigh in on our health and pe

012standards there's some numbers there that you can call um but for parents who are concerned about where what their kids are learning in school it's good to stay um connected to that wyoming department of education website and know what those standards look like and those standards are reviewed on a regular basis so um please please put your input there and stay engaged so i appreciate that i will give you the rest of the updates on our school boards association meeting next next meeting because we've got a full agenda today so i'll move on very good thank you for that and um now we go to reports from uh superintendent and scott go ahead good evening madam chair and trustees we are very excited to be here this evening um we'll follow along on the slides

013we'll start with um [Music] thanks everyone for your patience because i'm managing all through this so first i'd like to see if uh tom simus is here come on mr stevens we are to start with some exciting news um as he comes up really proud of our teams and just want to take the opportunity to congratulate everybody with our hard work thank you superintendent crestford madden chair uh i'm here to talk about the softball season the inaugural season for girls basket softball in the state of wyoming and as you can see by the statistics on the board uh we had some outstanding players and our teams that were excellent this year and that we had i'm gonna let the coaches introduce and talk about the kids but they had a number of all-state players all

014conference players and it was a tremendous success so first of all i'd like to update the lcsd of trustees um uh voting this in and allowing this successful season to happen for girls fast-paced softball cheyenne teams as i said were very successful and each of our schools maintained a large number of participants i think the average was right around 35 to 40. so uh that was more than enough to have varsity and jv i also want to thank the city of cheyenne the cheyenne community recreation district and laramie county school district 1 for successfully working together to enable our softball teams to not only play on the cheyenne junior league fields but to play on brand new synthetic turf which i think i can speak for the girls and the coaches and the parents that

015it was awesome and they might tell you more about it when they speak the new turf fields not only benefit the high school softball teams but also benefit the community's little league baseball teams and the community softball teams as well and at this time i'd like to have the head coaches curtis quigley from south high school brought to the front and then after mr quigley coach adam galacia from east high school and then kerry barker from central high school i'll say a few words about their teams and introduce the players that are here and answer any questions the board of trustees might have thank you hi hi i'm curtis bigley and i was able to fortunately work with south high school this year that first season and it was a amazing experience to be part

016of i've been able to coach at this town for 10 years between football wrestling and track and far none this opportunity to be that inaugural season and to watch the excitement from the girls and the energy from the community uh come out was an extreme extreme blessing it was it was surreal at times and i was extremely fortunate to coach some girls that were uh first year players and do some things that uh i guess it was a first for them as well with school and uh we had our first all-state um player for softball which was a great experience and i didn't know if we're gonna get that or not but uh i got two young ladies with me today one's a going to be a sophomore wanting to be a senior that represented

017our program with great class and uh uh character this year and i'm super excited to have them again next year with me and i'll let them talk a little bit about things that they enjoyed about the season the things that they appreciated most about having softball here in cheyenne um personally i think one of the things that were really important to me was um i just had so many opportunities that i don't think would have came to me if i didn't have softball and i was so thankful to meet so many people in my school that i wouldn't have and i play two other sports i play basketball and volleyball and the amount of girls and just the different people that softball had brought out i was so thankful for because i don't think i

018ever would have gotten the opportunity otherwise to meet them and i got to meet some crazy cool coaches and i mean they coach um traveling teams which just open up more opportunities and i'm just so thankful for everything that's been given to me this year can you share your name with us i'm caitlin van tassel thank you hi my name is ali robert and like he said i'm going to be a senior this year at south and before softball this year um the last time i touched the bat was probably i'm gonna say 12 and wreck ball so um i wasn't very like familiar with it at all it's always been a part of my family but i never really enjoyed doing softball but the first day i decided i'm going to go out and

019i'm going to do it and i'm going to branch out and see what opportunities come and just like haman said so many opportunities came with the sport not only did you get to see so many other athletes that you didn't even recognize in this school from cheerleaders to swimmers and you had track athletes you um had some cross-country tennis and it was really cool to see the school come together the thing that i enjoyed most about softball at south this year is the culture that we created there was no drama on the team it was a it was a positive experience and i looked forward to practice every single day and at the end of the season at our last game we were all crying not because we were mad or frustrated that we lost

020but because we were sad to see each other go we were sad to see the seniors leave we were sad to see everybody leave honestly and that we were sad to not have that team but i still talked to a lot of those girls and created a bunch of positive relationships and experiences so it was an awesome opportunity and now like caitlyn steady create i created a lot of opportunities and now i'm playing summer ball and i cannot be more happy very good my name is adam galicia of shine east and uh by all amazing around coaching veteran involved during the summer i was part of this whole thing trying to get this going in cheyenne since about 2009 and you know we had probably 150 girls way back then but we just could never

021get it rolling and uh so i appreciate all everything we were able to do this year to get it rolling i was definitely a different experience for me i'm not a part of the school district so i don't i didn't understand a lot of the rules and everything that comes along with being that you know all the academic eligibility the uh just everything that goes along with that some of the commitment the culture that we had to create being committed to uh just being part of a team part of something new part of wanting to build a foundation for the future um so that was a different experience for me we you know just seeing girls that literally had never touched the ball in their life you know see where they came from day one

022to where they came to the time the season was over it was amazing because it said a lot about what was in them about what was in their heart their drive and their their desire just to be become better at the sport but it also we would like to teach about just becoming better people that's a lot of what we stress in our program um so i got three good examples here of success for our program we have uh gracie walls of oswald here tristan steve wine and my daughter ariana galicia and i'll let them talk a little bit about what they're doing uh gracie was a freshman this year trista a sophomore and ariana was a senior this year just a little early but uh definitely great experience appreciate all the support of the

023community city everybody that just helped make this you know a positive experience this year and i'll let them talk real quick hi i'm gracie oswald and i've been playing softball since i was six years old and i never thought that i'd have the opportunity to represent my school while i played which was something i'm really thankful for like the other girls said it created a lot of opportunities like being able to um compete against players that i usually play on the same team with i also got to meet a lot of girls who i never ever would think i would meet and um also it just was a fun time and i'm excited to see how far this the sport hi my name is trista siwan and i just wanted to say thank you for

024everybody willing to put up her into softball and becoming a high school sport i've been playing softball for a while and i didn't think that was going to be a chance for me to play high school softball either but i'm very lucky to be able to play three years at east and so just to see the improvement of each and every girl this year was really something special i've never been able to see such an improvement getting to know the freshmen and knowing how good they'll be by senior year and just getting to know them as a person and friends that walk forever and so that was cool too and getting to have awards that we never get to have for club season i thought that was also amazing such as allstate all conference just

025stuff that school sports come with that's something special thank you hi um i'm ariana galicia and as i said this was my first and last year playing softball for yeast so it's a little bit bittersweet but definitely something exciting to see um with my dad i've been a part of competitive softball my entire life and so finally getting an opportunity to participate in school for softball was just crazy cool um you know it's it's easy to like well it's kind of hard to describe to your friends the kind of atmosphere that you're a part of when you're playing travel ball just because we're always gone and there's not a lot of games here in town and so then having an opportunity to play for the school tons of people were coming to all the games

026we had great participation from people you would even know would be interested in seeing softball so that was really cool and um like my dad had said we focus a lot on bettering you as a person as well as a better softball player and so seeing some of the girls that you never would think of would want to be a part of that like type of team that close-knit community seeing them come out and then want to learn and better themselves in something it not only helped them as softball players but it helped improve their grades it helped them get excited about school and they wanted to do better that way they could participate in those things that softball gave them so yeah that's about i mean just to add on to that it was

027great to build those relationships and things like that i'm definitely excited to see where softball will evolve too congratulations i'm uh carrie barker i am the coach for central high school i also am a first grade teacher here at in the district at earth elementary school so um softball for us was pretty great we were really excited to have it become a program for high school growing up i played a lot of softball taking and um so to be have this opportunity to be a coach at the high school level and to be part of something big has been awesome um i think my favorite thing was to have girls come out that have never tried softball and we had a large amount of girls that had never even picked up a bat or a

028glove um we had one girl that is left-handed and came to the first practice without a glove because she couldn't find one here in town so um we like all the other teams we created great relationships at central we have our one tribe as our saying and we definitely created that tribe this year where the girls really got to know each other i got to know the girls um coaching is not just about wins and losses in my mind it's always about building those relationships with kids it's about teaching them more than how to win teaching them the respect the responsibility the sportsmanship the adversity that you go through in sports so having that at this high school level for some of these girls who never even played any other high school sports to come

029out and do that was awesome and so we ended up having all but two girls stay out for the entire season which is pretty great um we had enough to have a varsity of a jv and a we call it a c team but we would split that jv time um [Music] we had a rocky start but we finished well um we always say it's a little bit bittersweet but we were second in the state and so um for the first year we're pretty proud of that i'm proud of these girls i have danny ivy who um is a graduating senior and we're very excited to see her go and cameron wente who will be a sophomore so she was a freshman when we started and then brogan allen who will be a senior this

030year and i'll give it over to them to tell them tell you how much they love softball okay i'm not gonna lie this is really nerve-wracking but um i'm grogan allen and i'm really thankful that i had the opportunity to play for central softball even if it's only for two years um i'll kind of start off at the beginning of the season when we had no idea how this was going to play out we had no idea the kind of people that were going to come out if it was even going to be um enough to make a jv and the varsity team but i'm really glad that everyone came out when they did and like the girls have said before it's the relationships we build that really matter um yes it was a bonus

031being able to go to state and compete and um even before that being able to compete but we had girls that started off on i guess jv and came with us to state because they put so much time and effort into the sport because they just loved it so much and we always preach that whatever happens outside of softball stays there and you come onto the field and if you work harder you forget everything else that's happened and so it was really cool to see the growth that everybody put forward and how the sport has grown and i can only say i'm excited to keep playing and see where it goes i'm cameron okay my name is cameron muyte i'm i was a freshman last year so it's really great to get the opportunity to

032see this program kind of build from the ground up um going into this i wasn't really sure how it was going to turn out just because it's a fresh start like for everybody every other school but i was really pleased with how it turned out i feel like everybody built good relationships and like my coach said we go with the one tribe mentality and i really feel like that is what like brought our team to such success this season um the relationships that i built with not only coaches but girls was amazing because sometimes you don't get to do that in traveling ball because there's girls from all other cities and states that come to a tournament but from here in wyoming we get to see all other wyoming athletes so i thought it was

033a pretty cool experience and i'm excited to see where it goes [Music] um i'm danielle ivey um i yeah like carrie said i was a graduating senior this year and it was really beautiful to see how everyone came together as like a family because just everyone working together to build each other up and not tear each other down and i have never played travel ball i've always played red ball and it was a good experience to see a different level of the game we have um [Music] so i want to take a moment and just say um thank you so much for the warm welcome uh trustees and chair all of the people in the district um who have connected with me i really do appreciate it i'd like to spend just a few minutes

034connecting around 100-day plan so let me just uh this is available on the website i'll just take a few moments to just share some information so over the next 100 days starting this evening we've um we've launched a website and you'll see information on that thank you very much everyone for being here really around listening learning and building and planning our community and our schools so this evening on high level share that it'll be specifically around building relationships we want to make sure that we're connecting with our schools our students our staff our parents and of course our community and i'll be developing connections with aligning the focus by asking questions so you'll see those same three questions will be asked we'll have to attend one of the meetings um the questions are really very

035clear related to where is it that you hope the district will be what are the points of pride that you have for lcs u1 and where would you like to see the district in the next few years i'll be visiting schools community events um every department in the district and asking the same question people have asked what's the purpose of doing this and really it's about creating an internal and external awareness about what's happening within the first hundred days what's happening in the districts i want to make sure that our stakeholders um are feeling engaged that they can connect with me that the departments and the schools and the community can also connect with me being new i want to make sure that we're able to provide the board and stakeholders with updates so every

036third that you'll see at 30 60 and 90 days there'll be a public update at a board meeting um as well as a website that i'll share with you later so you can see where i've been traveling and really the goal is to create a lasting partnership with staff students parents in the community so that as we move forward together we've got similar focus and goals in mind so here's a high level 100 day plan timeline you can see there was a soft launch on the june 24th we have tonight uh july 12th we're out with a public launch there'll be a press release tomorrow just outlining same information that you're hearing this evening there'll be 30-day information in august and then again um we'll have the next update and then we'll have a finding

037report on october 18th and that'll be to the board in the community and that what we hope collectively is that this will launch us into our strategic plan moving forward and that the basis will be really from the engagement of the community our staff our students and our parents and then the last piece that i think is important is how are we going to communicate this information so what i would say is this again will be all on the website and i will share um very quickly if you look up here there's a 100-day plan um you can click on that it's a live link i don't know who connect at the moment because i have it in the background oh here it is um it's always nice when technology works so you can see

038that there's a countdown we're at 26 minutes and 45 seconds uh and you can see where the map on the right hand side indicates where i'll be visiting every time i hit a location as a green site it'll turn it will turn green the goal is again so the people in the community know where i'll be visiting what that looks like how they can connect with me as well um on a regular basis additionally we have as i've showed you the interactive interactive map the 100-day plan there will be tiny urls and qr codes for individuals that attend the meetings that want to give feedback in-person feedback social media all of those other components so that we can hear what's important and where we're going and people have the opportunity to connect and meet with

039you so what i would ask is check on the website you'll start to see um dates for well where i'll be attending um events as an example i'll be attending this week um thursday night there's a community night out and i'll make sure that i'm there saturday night the education foundation has an event so i'll be there anytime um if there's somewhere that you that i need to be please don't hesitate in addition for families we'll have um meeting sites at our middle schools for each triad as well as um community other community event so just trying to keep everybody posted and with that i will go back to our update so that's the 100 day plan our plan just some highlights on our opening as we're starting to launch into our next year into

040the 2021 school year our goal is to open the school year with the same protocols that were in place at the end of last school year our teams incredible teams that we have in the district the facilities and operations are currently cleaning and updating using our summer cleaning protocol staying in line with all of those um that have been provided before we continue to partner with the county and state health department and the wyoming department of education i want to share there's um optional vaccine clinics at the high schools august 2nd 3rd and 4th for the fall activities for those families that are interested in an optional for their students and at frontier days we will continue to keep the community and the board updated as things emerge over time to make sure that everybody

041um has information as you're enrolling your students into school and then lastly i just want to say uh take a moment to say thank you to the board as well as to the staff there have been some incredible people that i just want to call out who jumped on john john board the members of our cabinet dave bartlett cigarelli um mary kloss lots of people that have been incredibly helpful darlene davis i could not get up in the morning if it wasn't for her um and when you're coming in as a superintendent it's really important to have a close-knit team jim fraley vicki thompson so i just want to say thank you there's a launch team that's helping with this certainly it's not isolated similar to the way that we educate our youth it takes

042all of us so i just want to say thank you and give some gratitude and with that and here i am done with my update okay and on that dr presto because we have a little bit of clarity on finishing when we talk about opening skills similar to how we finish school we're talking about mass will not be required and we are not requiring of that scene to be very clear i think we've received a few emails over that so to be very clear those are those are the two things but i want everybody to have a understanding that's it we do continue to follow our health and county and state health officials recommendations but at this time that's that's where they are and it doesn't look like it's going any places so thank you

043very much and um moving on to our our uh if there's no other updates from dr prescott then we will move on to our consent agenda all agenda items listed with the designation of ca are considered to be routine items by the governing body and will be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion on these items any item removed from the consent agenda will be considered in its normal sequence on the agenda does any board member request to remove a motion from the consent agenda seeing none no chair i move to approve all motions listed as consent agenda now that takes us to new business so that is on your second flip the page on your agenda madam chair i move to approve the appointment of haley hutchison in the position of

044school psychologist at anderson elementary school and to place her on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective for the 2021-2022 to school year okay is there any discussion being none all in favor say aye aye now welcome to um uh mrs miss um hutchinson is she here with us no does not look like it all right well welcome anyway we are happy to have her on board go ahead madam chair i move to approve the appointment of chris kloppenstein in the position of assistant director of special services and to place him on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective for the 2021-2022 school year for any discussion seeing that all in favor say aye aye opposed no welcome to um chris buffenstein is chris here yes would you stand and i'll

045let everybody give you a round of history there as applause so we are happy to have him in that position thank you all right madam chair i moved to approve the appointment of todd burns in the position of interim principal of mccormick junior high and to place him on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective for the 2021-2022 school year only is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye it looks like we welcome uh mr todd burns todd are you here yes welcome madam chair i moved here to approve the appointment of tiffany rabine in the position of interim principal of bain elementary and to place her on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective for the 2021-2022 school year only any discussion hearing none all in favor

046say aye hi welcome aboard tiffany's been with us working with us in our rolling out our reading program and so um she will be missed in that position but really uh very valuable in her new position so um tiffany's not here she's on oh is she online yeah awesome let's turn around thank you madam chair tiffany ravine here thank you madam chair um yeah i was just driving back from the airport so i appreciate this opportunity to serve in this new role [Music] very good well we're looking forward to working with you and appreciate all that you do thank you madam chair i move to approve the appointment of matthew clay in the position of interim principal of coal elementary and to place him on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule affect you

047for the 2021-2022 school year only any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye aye [Music] kristin cavaliere in the position of principal of willitson and claussen elementary schools and to place her on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective for the 2021-2022 school year um any discussion hearing then all in favor say hi all right now kristen welcome to your elderly school did she still have young yes all right so she will be handling three of our uh elementary schools so and they are our rural schools and she's done an amazing job back there so i i know she does a great job is she with us anywhere all right well welcome aboard kristen she does a wonderful job so we're happy for you let's give her a round of applause madam

048chair i moved to approve the appointment of mark kirchner in the position of excuse me associate principal of east high and to place him on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective for the 2021-2022 school year hearing none all in favor say hi welcome um mr kirshner is he here tonight very good gentry in the position of assisted principal of south high and to place her on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective for the 2021-2022 school year is there any discussion hearing then all welcome miss gentry you is she here tonight i do not see her is she online dr christopher no all right well let's give her a round of applause very good now i'm sure i moved to approve the appointment of carrie winn in the position of

049assistant principal of curry junior high and to place her on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective for the 2021-2022 school year okay here and then all in favor say aye [Music] to approve the appointment of michael kimmel in the position of custodial supervisor and to place him on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective for the 2021-2022 school year is there any discussion hearing them all in favor say aye aye opposed no question passes welcome mr kimmel would he happen to be here tonight did you not see him let's go ahead and give him a round of applause madam chair i moved to approve the appointment of larry malcolm in the position of integrated trade supervisor and to place him on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective

050for the 2021-2022 school year is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye all right suppose no motion passes welcome mr malcolm is he here tonight nope let's give him a round of applause here i moved to approve the appointment of ryan kusetti in the position of school psychologists of triumph thai and saddle ridge elementary and to place him on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective for the 2021-2022 school year seven is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye aye welcome on to study is he here tonight no all right very good we'll give him a round of applause madam chair i move to approve the appointment of craig williams in the position of principal of afroball elementary and to place him on the appropriate step of

051the administrative salary schedule effective for the 2021-2022 school year only okay second is there [Music] that of chair i moved to grant permission to purchase band and color guard uniforms for south high school for an amount not to exceed 70 000 dollars i actually have a i'd like mr bartlett to give us a little brief how do we work our uniforms in the district and um what does that location i'm chair members of the board i'm just real briefly we actually asked each of the three high schools to um put money aside each year into a reserve account we allow that to build up as you can see when we we do band uniforms it's rather pricey they're custom custom fit uh depending on the size of the band they actually range anywhere from 70

052to about 90 000. so we build the reserve up uh and it's about every fourth year each one of our high schools and we'll take part in that to get the uniform so all three high schools help to contribute for the next one [Music] who designs who picks out the uniforms a great question we actually have students and band directors get together and they they work with which whichever vendor they determine um to do the custom design uh and just anticipating the next question typically on the uniforms that are left over uh we will either surplus those or sometimes we actually donate those to uh other districts uh who have a greater need and they will do kind of a refurbishing on them yes i can i can work with south taiban to do that

053and maybe we can get mr corelli to moderate before [Music] yes thank you mr support operations and he has a long history of knowing how all of this works so thank you very much mr berlin all right at this time we are at our budget our budget resolution um adoption phase of this so we're going to recess our regulation i don't think we've voted oh i'm sorry not vote oh i am like on a roll so i guess you do need to vote on that i apologize so um that was our discussion is there any more discussion all in favor say aye aye opposed no thank you trustee ashby for keeping on talk with me i appreciate that so now we will go to our next item which is d 3.15 the budget and we

054will recess our regular meeting and convene our budget hearing at this time i will turn we will have an opportunity for public comment we are going to listen to a presentation i'm going to turn it over to dr prescott and she will guide that from there and then we will have a question an opportunity for questions and support and then we will go into our public health thank you madam chair trustees i'd like to invite mr jeff sigarelli our business ninja up to provide a presentation on those [Music] yeah thank you madam chair dr crespo members of the board uh this evening uh as dr prescott mentioned i will be going over the fiscal year 22 final budget plan now keep in mind um i've done my best to condense a great deal of information

055into a handful of slides this evening so there is a considerable amount of information available through our budget book which is attached to the meeting materials for tonight's evening but just as a quick reminder the financial framework of the district is really comprised of seven distinct funds um when we come to the board for your consideration of the adoption of the final budget we make sure to include updates on data points that have changed from the preliminary budget as well as the impact of past legislative sessions and the various mechanisms that are built into our state's funding system that impact our operations as a school district now overall i'll probably tend to start at the the high level and bring us down to a little bit more detail but as a whole um our total

056district operations from an expenditure perspective uh is proposed at 340 million dollars for the upcoming year now this represents about a 5.8 million dollar decrease over the prior year and does include things like carryover obligations which you'll hear me talk about a little bit uh when i go into some of the other slides now um you'll see profiled here a number of different areas of our operations the the most uh important to review is the general fund which is our main operating fund for the district uh you've heard me talk about this is the main fund that receives the resources through local and state contributions as well as our like i said our main operating account the other funds you see profiled here on the slide include our capital projects fund which i'll talk about

057here a little bit um our special revenue fund which is mainly our account for our federal grant that we run through the district our special building fund major maintenance nutrition services and our trust funds and again manager i'll have a few more details as we go through these these slides here so um as i mentioned before the final budget reflects a number of changes since the presentation of the criminal preliminary budget in march uh the the first and the largest impact on our district for the upcoming year as i mentioned before is the decrease in enrollments for the upcoming uh fiscal year and i'll show you a little bit of how that works with uh regards to our average daily membership counts on the next slide but i also wanted to point out a few

058important aspects of the the budget proposal the first is that it does capture the efforts to reduce expenditures as a result of those defining enrollments we also have profiled the final ratification of the negotiated agreements uh the other increases that we're experiencing as a district or cost pressures such as the property insurance utilities uh the increase of about eight percent of our health insurance premiums results in about a two point eight specifically 2.6 million dollar increase in cost for the district um but for the fiscal year we just ended um we'll post expenses of about 216.3 million dollars with 5.9 million dollars in carryover encumbrances our estimated fund balance as we enter into the new fiscal year will be about 33.1 million dollars now before i get to a little bit more detail on the

059nuances of where those numbers interact with the the different fiscal years um i do want to take us back to the conversation around the student counts um what you see here is a lot of lines on the chart but um the big takeaway is that that dotted line you see on the far right hand side of the graph here represents what we call model funding or model adm and the way our funding mechanism works is it's based on the prior year student council it takes into account the times that students are enrolled with the district whether they're present or not but it does capture their their active enrollments so with that 411 student decrease in enrollment uh that actually results in about 250 adm or student counts in our funding mechanism after all the adjustments

060for defining enrollment that coupled with some of the legislative changes through the external cost adjustments that you've heard me talk about before uh represent about a 3.5 million dollar decrease for the district in our state and local revenue and mountain chair um you've heard me talk a little bit about this at quite a few meetings over the last few months but i did want to point out that what you see here are the um the main budget reductions that we've incorporated into the final recommendation for your approval uh the first you'll see here's the supplementary transfers to our nutrition services you'll recall that we run our nutrition services and enterprise operation as required by law and that often requires a supplemental transfer from the general fund um to break even if you will um because

061of the summer feeding programs that the district has been able to adhere to over the last year and then um as we've transitioned into the seamless summer feeding program we've been able to suspend those nutritional services transfers i'll talk a little bit about what the the blue font here means in a moment um but the next one down is the reductions to student activities um mr bartlett mr stevens and i have both provided information with regards to this particular reduction it does include the elimination of the student excuse me the elementary student athletics program as well as changes to differential pay and other cost efficiencies within our student activities operations um the next line down we see reduced general fund positions a little less than four and a half million dollars profiled here this particular

062budget adjustment is the result of um the the cares funds allowing us to prioritize some of the classifications of staff into these instructional laws or virtual education programs and that alleviates some of the pressure on our general fund side with the decrease in our overall funding the next line items you'll see here are the reimbursement for ap testing you'll recall that as we move into fiscal year 23 the district proposed that we would no longer reimburse students who successfully passed those exams um the next line item now you'll see is the reduction in our national electricity travel budget uh reductions on our contract service agreements throughout a number of number of different areas in our non-personnel budget and then the last nine item you'll see is the use of budget reserves is about two and

063a half million so the blue the blue font on the chart you see here represents temporary measures for the district to provide a balanced budget for your consideration tonight so as we look out one two three five years from now we know that it's likely that we'll have to return to supplementing nutrition service programs um as the cares money comes and goes we'll have to look at how those positions will will translate back into our general fund operations and of course the use of budget reserves is not an ongoing representation of how the budget would be adjusted each year it's finite and the level of resources we have as far as a reserve level so imagine that the next slide here is a little technical you have to bear with me but um this is

064uh presented in accordance with our statutory requirements for budget um proposals and considerations so the first column you'll see here as we kind of acclimate ourselves to this chart is the actual expenses from 1920. the next column you'll see is what we anticipate being the actual cost for the fiscal year we just ended this year 2021. now just a note on those that they will change slightly as we finish and close out the fiscal operations for the district up until this fall and then lastly you'll see the budgetary basis or proposal and the final column for the upcoming year the budget so um draw your attention just quickly to the middle column here you'll see that the revenue that we recognize is about 217.3 million dollars we were very very close to our budget projections

065that we discussed this time last year i'm actually within about 300 000 now it's important to point out there uh that part of um our revenue that we recognize for the current year uh was um significantly less than the local tax collections than what was anticipated and reported to the department of education this is due to a very significant mineral production tax collection that did not clear through the county treasury to the school district before the close of the fiscal year so what that does is it triggers what we call a tax shortfall so when we come into the upcoming fiscal year the the column that you see on the right from 2122 that 216.4 million dollars also includes that adjustment so it's always going to lag our funding system by a year that 2.7

066million dollars we know that it was just kind of a cross of a fiscal year so that money will come to the district uh in this month and will be an ongoing liability back to the department of education excuse me so that is a temporary adjustment that we have to be cognizant of as we kind of outline the budget for the upcoming year as well as fiscal year 22 23. um now just kind of quickly rolling down through the rest of the the chart that you see there um on the actual expenses including the prior carryover we were um about um 207 million dollars in the prior year we're up about excuse me 212 million we're up about 10 million over the prior year as we finish 2021. now the results of operations for the

067district were about a million to the plus side um at the preliminary budget when we presented this we were closer to about five hundred thousand dollars now um most of the changes that you see as far as the change in our reserve level are a result of the steps we took to prepare for the fiscal downturn over the last couple of years but as you walk through the rest of the column there where you see the um offsets at the bottom of the center column about 5.9 million dollars these actually represent holds against our reserves so these are obligations that decrease our reserves as we budget for the upcoming year so as you um as you kind of track through the 2021 school year we have 33.19 million dollars in reserves uh following into the

068next year 216.4 million again in revenue that i mentioned earlier expenses of about 219 million dollars just keeping in mind that the expenses that are budgeted here assumes that all expenditures will clear by the end of the fiscal year and as we know um we have obligations that the district carries over in those encumbrances um across those fiscal years but the the main point here is really the difference between the revenue at the top and the expenditures that's about 2.5 million dollars and at the very bottom of the chart you'll see that um our projections is um to end the fiscal 21-22 year with about 30.6 million dollars in reserves that's about a decrease of 2.5 million dollars so manchester the next slide you'll see here um again is a little bit technical um but

069it's important that that this the way the expenditures are categorized for the general fund here represents um the way the district obligates and appropriates for our expenditures so uh functions um are what you were seeing described here 1xx 2xx these represent the activity for which the budgeted cost represents so there are six major function categories uh with a majority of our expenses budgeted to instruction uh which would obviously mean activities dealing directly with the delivery of instructional services uh instructional support services the two xxx category you see here are for operating costs like school and central excuse me uh student nice and counseling services social work health services and other type of support services the general support costs are for operating costs that i was mentioning just a second ago by school and central administration

070as well as facility technology transportation services utilities and then in our district this is also the category that we budget for the support of our other post-employment benefit programs what we call opens for our early retirement option and our employee retention program those costs are budgeted as a staff supporter a general support category here in this particular graph now a couple of notes just on the community support the capital outlay the reason you see those zeros community support is typically reserved for nutrition services operations so all of those expenditures and and operations happen within our nutrition services program or sub fund and then capital outlay is um zero because that represents you know the acquire acquisition of land and buildings which again is reflected in our capital construction or special building fund um lastly you'll

071see um other funds or transfers category which are interfering transfers to other functional areas within the district now um back here the previous slide i uh provided the information on the functional areas of the budget but the district's finances are further subdivided into categories that describe the object of the expenditure so you'll see here um a vast majority of the district's general fund budget supports personnel costs for staff typically it's easier for 80 to 85 of the district's budget as in personnel costs now that can vary or fluctuate from your year for example for the upcoming year we've profiled a large curriculum purchase as well as a number of software costs for the upcoming year that can tip that proportion a little bit both ways now the remaining 15 to 20 are costs for materials

072services um charter school flow through whether again those transfers to the other funds mmj this is the second to last slide here but um there's a lot of information packed onto one tiny little slide here so what i'll do is kind of step through some of the high points and the different subfunds of the district this is very similar to the general fund budget that i reviewed at the beginning of the presentation that captures all seven of our main sub funds across the district so rather than walk through each of those individually again i'll hit on a few of the high points so moving across you'll see the second column downstairs a little bit behind the zoom control panel up at the top but the special revenue includes a number of different sub funds for

073the district or supplemental funds these are things like student activities district wellness programs and our scholarship fund as i mentioned before the largest portion of the special revenue fund is for our federal programs and um it's most notable to point out that the increase in tears or part funds are driving the increase in expenditures that you see um proposed for your review and approval tonight now um i do want to point out that about 46.8 million dollars that you see kind of at the bottom of that second column there um that increase in care spun is very tentative on the information that will be released on the third wave of cares or emergency relief funds which is the art fund and that information is still kind of sporadic and we're still trying to navigate what

074the requirements of those programs are but i'll provide a little bit more detail on the timeline of that on the next slide so moving across the next category you'll see here is the major maintenance funds as you recall we get a formula grant from the state construction department that has that provides resources for major repair and maintenance and district operations and that is profiled about 8.9 million and again you might recall from my uh previous presentations that that was significantly altered in the timing of how those payments come to the school district instead of an up-front payment we received four of those payments across the year now on the capital construction fund the next one over we've included the funds remaining for the carey junior high project that still is working to to complete and

075close out as well as the dildon construction costs um and about 3.7 million in design for the new coyote ridge and the 23.6 million dollars in construction-related costs for priority ridge there's also additional costs for security projects modular releases and flow through payments for powder and pass for their stay approved lease payments the next column over is the special building fund these are costs for the ccrd project madam chair that trustee fossum mentioned earlier those are operationalized through our special building fund um there are some additional costs for deal dyne our one-to-one student devices oh as as mr bartlett mentioned earlier we do have reserve funds for music uniform replacement the cte um those are all part of this particular sub fund um the larger portion of the costs um proposed here also including excuse

076me the uh the final funds for the east high school pool replacement project those are represented in the sub fund as well on the nutrition services side i mentioned the the operation of those as an enterprise fund i would tell you that ms banks our food service administrator would probably tell you our operations for the last year and a half have been anything but normal uh nor have the fiscal operations for that particular fund uh again i mentioned earlier that we've been able to avoid or suspend those supplemental transfers um so as we move into the summer speeding program into the summer excuse me the seamless summer feeding program i will continue to review and adjust those budgeted amounts where necessary in the final column you see the trust funds um these are those early

077retirements and retention or oped funds that i mentioned earlier you'll recall that we are taking steps over the long term to meet the approximately nine and a half million dollar explicit liability on one of those trusts and 13 million liability on the other so you'll see in the fund balance down below we're making steps in progress towards meeting those full liabilities but we also realize that we have expenses out of those trust funds um over the course of the year so we budgeted our expenses based on our current trends and there could be more or less based on the increased utilization of those funds last year was a prime example we have a higher number of individuals take the health incentive option program which in turn will increase kind of our outlay on those particular

078expenses for the upcoming year moving on to the the last slide here i wanted to take us back to a little bit of a conversation around the cares and art funds now we talked about before that there's a wide range of allowable uses for these funds but what you can see here is really the long-term impact to the district on the administration of these funds from the time that the pandemic was declared in march of 2020 until those funds are fully obligated and expensed out represent the five-year commitment from the district now it's important to point out again um that there are a number of different regulatory requirements that will come as a part of those sr3 funds one is that we will need to make publicly available on the district's website um a spending

079plan to accompany the safe or smart start plan that was produced in cooperation with department of education at the beginning of pandemic um we will also have to um reserve at least 20 of those funds to address instructional loss i'm utilizing things like evidence-based interventions and there's a number of fiscal compliance areas that we'll have to make sure that we're adhering to on maintenance of equity maintenance of that herb and other areas now um medicare before i complete my presentation and hopefully address and answer some questions of the board members i do want to point out that with the large amount of federal funds that the district will receive the district will have to consider the cash flow operations of how those funds work as you know with federal programs the district has to post

080the expense first and then request reimbursement from the state so um to trustee claussen's comment earlier about the wreck district and the change in the way we collect at the lauren taxes for mineral production we have a number of different pressures working against the district on how those cash flows will work so we're very hyper sensitive about how senate file 60 on the collection those added more on taxes will work there's a lot of unknown for us as a whole on how those revenues will be received into the district at what time at what level deferring property taxes up to 14 years can certainly have an impact on our day-to-day revenue operations and our cash flow so that's something that we'll be monitoring very very closely um it won't necessarily be resolved in the coming

081weeks maybe not even a couple of months but we will feel the effects as those change and have warm tax collections go into effect this coming fall mountain chair and that concludes my prepared remarks i'm happy to address any questions that board members might have sorry let me start at the end of my question i know during the last board meeting we had some conversation around these uh funds and i know there was some concern from the public when we talk about having to turn in a plan within 30 days of receiving that third round of funds uh that the change to the smart start plan would include um changes to the policy that we talked about earlier about having optional masks and um not having vaccines but the piece that you really were referencing

082i just want to clarify is that we have to have a fiscal plan that addresses the very specific fiscal requirements is that correct madam chair trustee ashby um absolutely the the the benefit of wyoming having or our district in particular having already returned to instruction in person instruction is that that work has been done really the requirements are from a fiscal scope of we have to have a spending plan to accompany the use of those resources and so really that's what the requirement is if you look at the department of education's plan that they submitted to the us department of education it really references back to the work that has already been done so that we can move past the the safe return to instruction and more to the fiscal spending plan that's required under

083those statutes thank you um so as far as the fiscal spending plan i know there's been some concerns some chatter in the newspaper about um the state having concerns about the district spending those dollars in such a way that um we're not going to be able to get rid of them or we're going to need them long term and when they get after they go away can you talk um i mean hinted at this but can you talk a little bit more about what we're doing to make sure we're not using those dollars in such a way that we're going to have a problem sure um man sure trust me ashby um that is is definitely a concern as we look at the long-term financial projections for the district as a whole um as these

084funds come into the district uh we are making sure that we're approaching it in a supplementary fashion as opposed to fully replacing or supplanting some of our normal general fund operating costs to a certain degree there are some mitigating factors that we can take with the loss of revenue to utilize these funds but we also have to have not only a spending plan on the front end on how to utilize these uh particular resources but a spending plan on how we're going to return to more normalized revenue streams once these these funds are fully exhausted so that is a very very important aspect of our long-term financial prognosis as far as what that looks like once those funds are gone and so we're very very very in tune with the need to make sure that

085we have a transition plan off those funds as well [Music] how can we understand that gabby is a one-time expenditure that sounds like we're hiring people towards what's best um trustee hermann um you're absolutely correct um as far as a lot of these positions that um we're looking to utilize these resources to support are going to be time limited um as a matter of fact some of the additional um social emotional learning instructional loss um a lot of these positions are going to be based just on the availability of these resources so when we are adding these additional staff um it is on a timely limited working on this basis anytime you spent with us as trustees or explaining the ins and outs um and really so much more beyond what you were able to

086give us and and just to have 15 minutes today for the public to hear as well but um i was hoping that i actually have two questions that are very different so if it's okay i want to ask one and then and then take a little more time but um i was hoping that just for the um the benefit of us on the board but also for our audience and our community members and family members who are here tonight um maybe lizzie and zoomer may be tuning in later um we have we have a pretty substantial reserve balance and it's over over 39. um can you just explain for us why we don't dip into that more when we're looking at such good shortfalls right now when we're cutting things that matter what is are

087there limitations on our reserve balance um and are there are there reasons we don't just send that down i'm not suggesting we do but i'm hoping you could maybe explain that for us madam chair um trustee smith um yes there are a number of nuances and um regulations that accompany the level of resources the district can have in their reserves now it's important to note um right out to start is that we are limited in the amount of resources that we can keep unobligated that's about 15 of um our total guarantee from the state our district currently is about 14 and a half percent and that was uh through very intentional means over the last three or four years to make sure that we have the resources to navigate downturns in our revenues and the

088impacts of kobe 19 and other areas but it isn't just something that sits in a simple bank account waiting to be expensed we utilize those resources to cash flow things like payroll the federal funds that we mentioned um even to the additional staff that trustee hermann mentioned that we are employing with those federal funds we have to make payroll with those cash um those cash reserves until the resources come back to us through expense reimbursements county treasurer tax collection state entitlement payments we have in particular two very lean periods over the course of the year where we don't receive county tax questions from the treasurer or we have to span that gap and so really um that's the intent of having those reserves is to make sure that we have a sustainable operation from a

089fiscal perspective now um to keep in um to bring into the equation a little bit of what the professional recommendations are for reserve levels um that 14 and a half percent percent represents about six and a half seven weeks from the district's operations so um the professional recommendation from the government finance officers association is that we have a minimum of eight and a half eight to eight weeks of reserves for operations and then of course depending on our local um uh influences of what taxes we collect versus what's um provided by the state it could be more it could be less if we were a recapture district which we all know um where we only get two major tax collections over the course a year we would need significantly more in those reserves so um

090the 15 represents the top in and that's really a utilization of resources across the fiscal year to make sure that we are um posting enough of our our cash operation to cover those expenses and that is by state statute correct i'm sure that is correct is it certainly by state sector [Music] um so thinking about those cuts particularly that would be useful um to the program i don't think anybody up here likes the idea of making those cuts um but do you have do you have any information on elementary school sports around the state i mean are we are we cutting a program that other [Music] my files here i do have some information on student activities that might help a little bit with answering that particular question so what you see here is the

091comparison of the resources we receive as a school to search for student activities in the blue line of the chart um the silver gray line no words is our expense our expenditure on student activity so the difference between those two charts represents anywhere from you know 1.8 to 2.4 million dollars for the district as a whole we've talked about that in the past now that's again that's elementary middle and high school altogether um more specific to your your question trustee smith um elementary activity expenditures um they're currently besides our district on three districts with elementary programs um fremont 14 38 21 and you can see them kind of on the far right-hand side of this particular chart now you'll notice that um our district on the right-hand side roughly 481 thousand dollars um for um

092the fiscal year that i was able to gain access to all the expenditure data for all 48 districts is the toronto which is about 285 they do not have an elementary athletics program um they do post some um similar to other districts as well non-athletic expenditures for student activities at the elementary level there may be some other classification of code different costs that are categorized in here that might be classified differently in our particular district but that 285 is pretty close to what we submit as a district in programs like extended aid programs we spend about 269 270 000 a year just on our extended program so um we are one of if not the last large district um in the city that does have an elementary athletics program um and then to to maybe

093bring one last point into the conversation is um we had talked about natrona being the closest comparator to our operations as a school district so what you see here on the left-hand side is natrona's full student activities expenditures from the 18-19 school year so they spend about 3.6 million dollars in student activities very close to what their funding model alex means to them now on the right-hand side is our district about 5.2 million dollars what i wanted to bring to this to the answer to your question is that the difference between student counts between the tona and our district is about eight percent uh the difference between expenses is about 33 so there still is a very wide differential between um what uh the toronto provides as far as student activities and programs and costs

094versus what our school district does so mentor hopefully that helped address the question a little bit provide some more details um kind of what the data is showing for that particular uh i just wanted to mention and i should have done this during my report of the budget hearing we had for the shining community recreation district this evening but um and thinking about the elementary sports and having to cut that program um and still being in the red um and having to use reserves this year not because of any fault of our own but just because of as as mr segrel he just noted for us the decrease in edm as well as inflationary pressures on things like health insurance electricity and all kinds of other things that keep our district running we find ourselves

095in this position and as as trustee smith just said none of us want to do this it's very painful i know i i have an elementary student that likes to play sports and she cried when she found out that this was um but as you all know we all have our own budgets that we have to keep and pay the bills and make sure everything adds up so we as a border are in that position right now or we as a district and having said that i wanted to note that the budget that the cheyenne community district recreation district approved tonight included a scholarship of five thousand dollars for students to participate in city run activities after school who those students who couldn't afford or won't be able to afford to pay for the um

096the membership to participate in sports that is regularly charged by the city we are providing a 5 000 scholarship and and we'll probably uh have the reserves to replenish that if it runs out throughout the school year to make it make sure we get through the school year so um having said that and chair and superintendent prescott i would i would welcome anyone from your staff that would like to give us an update on where we are in working out the details with the city and what can the community do i know i i've gotten some information about how people can contribute to that fund or to another scholarship fund to provide hope for those students that can afford to pay to participate in city sports and also what are we doing as a district

097to open up our gyms and i think folks would benefit from that information things to last so i'd like to just ask mr bartlett mr stevens for a quick second so they can respond to the work that we're doing to make sure that our kids have opportunities in partnership with recreational partners [Music] i just received an email a few hours ago from the cheyenne recreation department um lori davilus who runs the uh the elementary tax force the number two sports is going to send us a form that uh will hopefully she's going to work it out where people who are interested in the community money to that program [Music] hopefully i don't know exactly when we'll get it but i can certainly get a chance but that's one thing that's happening um i also found

098out that which i didn't know the ymca offers a flight football program that's something that you can't get from the recreation department so that would that five thousand dollar fund would help immediately it's just wanted to get into that and um basically uh that's kind of where we're at with as soon as she gets them our job is to advertise and make sure the kids and the parents know that it's out there and madam chair just in terms of facilities we have um talked with city parks and rec about uh then being able to access our facilities keep in mind that that is an unkind um donation from the district toward that that endeavor as well um you will you'll extend your cleaning at every building about two hours per night so that's something that

099we would you know we would incur the cost on that so parks and rec folks our our facilities department to secure times and access to our facility any other questions mr stevens um mr bartlett could you touch on the uh the track element of this the truth just a little bit about that so so the one the one um sporting event that we would we would seek to maintain would be track which is probably our highest participation rate we do feel like that's something in the elementary that the spring is removing from the gym and moving outside that we can work that in the curriculum uh and we would we would seek to do however we're tracking field days um either by grade level or by triad or potentially both on depending on where we

100are with gatherings in the spring and one other thing that we have done um to assist in the transition is jimmy cole who is our uh with our elementary we are going to have him serve as kind of a transitional liaison to work with the city of cheyenne uh you know he has been involved with elementary at last 20 years i've been our district for four years so he understands the scheduling he understands that he's got the the database for officials um and understands which facilities work for the participation so those are some things that we going will work on with them we also encourage the city uh that that uh as much competition as they could do in on the weeknights um serves everybody well because we do have the staff in there already

101it's a weekend event that's something that [Music] all right thank you both and um so trustee ashby asked most of mine and so i appreciate that and mr sicarelli could you go back to that last slide you had up there when you talked about the cares act funding just real quick so i just want to make sure that i'm interpreting this right so so for me the issue with cares act dollars is it's going to time limit out at some point it looks like after the obligation in 2024 that's going to be the end of the charizard funding is that correct um trustee years then um that is correct at the end of september of 2024 is the last opportunity for the district to expense against six months okay so so my my impression is

102that well it's obvious and you've told us that since we have these karazhak dollars they've mitigated a lot of our losses that we would have experienced otherwise would that be accurate manager um trustee responded that is correct so i think it's fair to say we will be in a much different place now if we did not have karzai funding at all correct um manchester um trustee we expanded that that is correct the the cares act funds have kind of um acted as uh kind of a stock gap if you will they filled the hole or the void between state local revenues um and of course the increase in expenses so that does kind of just move um into kind of a potential budget fiscal cliff if those funds aren't addressed before the end of 24.

103so i guess my my anxiety really stems from what's going to happen in the future so we have an issue currently where the state legislature is i don't know how to put this politely uh making every effort to address the school funding issue and i really worry about where we're going to be down the road you know we've been ex we've been extended this lifeline and this lifeline is going to go away i remember when i was a young man and my father let me borrow some money thinking that i wouldn't have to pay it back i was gravely mistaken but i think any time you you use these dollars and i think we've done a great job of allocating those dollars and using them we've done our fiduciary duty we've managed them effectively we've

104we've made sure that we're not making long-term commitments with short-term dollars but if the state doesn't do something within the next five years to address the issue of school funding in the state of wyoming we're going to be in a bad place i know that the legislators understand this and i know that that our financial folks and our superintendent are doing the best they can to manage the dollars that we have we've spent a lot of hours on this budget and i can't compliment our staff enough on the great job that they've done putting this budget together we're in a good place but i really worry about where we're going to be five years down the road i hope that we're not going to be looking at significant cuts to our budget laying off personnel

105i don't want to be here preaching room and doom because i like to be optimistic and i hope we can be optimistic and have faith in our legislators that they're going to do the right thing and make sure that education is funded in the state the way it's supposed to be and the way the constitution mandates that it is so just having said that i i just want to compliment you mr ciccarelli and all of your staff for the great job you've done putting this budget together and i really hope that we're going to be in a better place in five years than i anticipate because these karazhak dollars are going to go away and i don't know that we'll be getting another lifeline anytime soon so thank you for your time um and this

106is sort of a leading question but is it true that um this district looked at every single department and every discretionary spending area for efficiencies and and just outright cuts ma'am jared trustee herman the short answer is absolutely we started um developing budget contingency plans last september on the chance that we might see significant cuts of upwards of 14 and so we've had a number of um different plans to address different levels of the possible revenue reductions for the district as a whole um i i would tell you we left no stone in turn there's always opportunities for efficiencies and to increase you know the excuse me decrease our expenditures and um this exercise has given us a lot of insight on potential areas that we might bring back to the board for consideration if

107we do have to face some of those more significant reductions that trustee weir spawn mentioned the technical that we will not um but uh absolutely trusty german we have um looked at a number of areas of ranging from the least impactful on students all the way up to some significant uh impacts and so uh what you see here is kind of the codified work of um what we feel is the best budget proposal to bring forward into consideration tonight [Music] and it is one of the places where cuts definitely happen taking this central administration's personality at the administrative level as part of this budget plan um that's been something that we've also looked at as far as recommendations from the information that we solicited from stakeholders in the community on possible areas of reduction the

108areas that were proposed the top areas were professional development district administration student activities areas outside of the model that aren't required to understand you and so all of those have been incorporated into the proposal you see here very good um ted on that information that you just reported out when did that survey go out to parents about the budget cuts to parents all of our stakeholders our teachers our principals buildings where where did that surveyor well uh manager uh we released that survey um the middle part of november um and collected the information reported back to the board within the segment okay all right um does anyone else have any questions before i start mine okay great um a couple things i wanted you could you touch base just because you have two individuals if

109you have your weight you have the white paper um where you address the um uh the reduction of the student activities and just all our overall um how much we're over that or you probably have it memorized manager i don't have it at my fingertips so i'm happy to address the questions okay if you need it but um if you could just talk a little bit about yeah so i just didn't know if he needed it um what i wanted you to talk about was uh just where we are compared to kind of explaining what when we talk about funding model what that means somebody who's not doing this every day um uh so just what what does it mean that we're we're spinning above what the funding model shows and where does that funding

110model come from and why is it important to us um madam chair um to be relatively brief on the explanation of our school finance system um all of our resources are received as part of a block grant but it's comprised of a number of different components that make up that block grant um everything from supplies and materials to teachers to support professionals administrative staff to utilities to athletics and student activities they're all formula within their funding model allocation now um there are certain areas that are adjusted on a annual basis or intended to be adjusted through external cost pressures um typically um in the last eight to ten years we have not seen those adjustments at least not um consistently but um student activities represents uh as i mentioned before we spend about 5.2 million

111a year we receive roughly 3.2 to 3.5 million dollars a year in revenue to support those programs there are other areas um that we expense more we expense less by utilities is another one you've heard me talk about before we spend about a million and a half more than what we receive from the state utilities um it's difficult to turn back we have to you know heat the buildings we have to have the lights on those type of things that's really more of a factor kind of inputs on the revenue piece of it um but what that means is in any of the areas that we spend more than the state's allocation we have to find other areas to spend less it's all part of a moving process between all these funds on how we

112deploy those resources based on our local needs and priorities um in consultation with you and the board and the rest of our administrators and stakeholders thank you thank you that was very good yeah i think i think you've got this um i wanted to you didn't bring that up at the beginning of this and i just wanted the public to know um first of all we're we're very blessed to have mr cigarelli um in our district um he was formally with the state of wyoming and um he is he is top-notch some of the things that he's dealing with now are actually the result of the policies that he actually implemented when he was with the state so um we couldn't have an individual that knows the ins and outs of this funding model and

113our how this all works um so could you talk a little bit about the certification process and the budget i mean we as board members understand what um the processes that you know that we go through to get this but you had implemented you know the the actual certification of lcsv1 and what that means and what's important um for confidence into our public that we are handling our public plans correctly and and uh that we have other eyes besides lcsb1's eyes on them so um madam chair um the the process for certification or what i'll call at least adoption to address one part of your um your question is um we go through what's required under the municipal procedures act to say wyoming um so we present a budget for your approval in order for

114us to um to increase our expenditures and move them outside those major function categories as i said earlier um then we have to receive your approval now as part of the public transparency piece of it um for the for the last few years we've been taking steps to increase the transparency in our fiscal operations part of that is the 65 page document that accompanies our presentation tonight that has a lot of detail on our fiscal operations how the revenue flows into the district those are all in an effort to move towards a certification that i believe is what you're referencing with your question to have it peer reviewed um by other school districts across the state um to provide input and insight on how we can improve our messaging on fiscal operations and those type

115of things and so this is one more step in that direction as well as the requirements under statute to um you know publicly um you know present the budget hold open meetings for the opportunity for public comment on those as well as submit those final budgets to a number of different regulatory agencies department education the department of audit certifying to our climate commissioners our county treasurer of the county clerk they all receive a part of submission of these documents as part of our annual process and hopefully venture that was kind of the question you're getting certainly i can get into more detail i appreciate that um all right and then um when we talk about i i appreciate the fact that you are addressing reserves and um the other questions down here um but i

116i think it was a little staggering to me when even though i've done a lot of stuff in the district i don't know that it really uh registered with me when we're floating our payroll we're talking about having a six to eight week um uh payroll um float you know bank load what what kind of number are we looking at what is our rough number a payroll for the district is um anywhere from eight to twelve million dollars depending if it's uh the semi-monthly processing or the monthly um so when you think about 30 million dollars as far as the reserve um if you just look at it from a payroll perspective uh we can cover roughly two three payrolls with those reserve levels now um there are other pressures on those reserves part of

117that thirty million dollars that we were talking about earlier uh four and a half million of that is used to front the federal grants so right there a considerable portion is used to be able to cash flow our federal programs operations i mentioned earlier our community recreation district we will expense those projects and then the recreation district will reimburse the district for those costs um and that's a that's a model in efficiency uh we do that with capital construction projects uh i talked about the major maintenance money that flows in of once every quarter as opposed to once at the end of the year so we have to not only approach this from an annual budget perspective but we also have to look at what does our passionate life look like across the entire fiscal

118year um and so when you think about that kind of in the scope of what does it cost to operate our district it's roughly four and a half to five million dollars a week um and so there are considerable costs just to be able to make sure we have the resources available to operate very good i think that's important and enlightening um are there any other questions no i just want to say thank you to the team has done an incredible job and gotten me up to speed as well and then we're actually like how many budgets can you started during the days and our team got together back in september it was like five iterations or something just trying to figure out where the legislature was going and what was actually going to happen

119so you you created that you did budget on budget as i did this year so thank you so much all of you for your work and dedication to lcsb1 thank you all right very good um thank you and i will uh now open this up to public comment i think everyone probably uh still remembers the rules please state your name keep the language appropriate for k-12 and um address the budget at this time if you have any anything that you would like to share with raise your hand and they'll invite you to the pudding is there anyone that would make a good comment can i ask point clarification is it just on the budget for the budget part of this so if there's anything that addresses the budget reductions um or the budget as a

120whole um this would be so if it's elementary sports or something like that this would be the time to visit about this yeah thank you hi my name is jamie lee and i have five students of age for the district and i just wanted to talk to you about elementary sports i had the opportunity to visit with several ptos and they all said that they would be happy to fund the elementary sports so i don't see why we have to completely cut them out of our budget if you give the ptos the opportunity to be able to support their own school their own schools with their own flag football and basketball teams and the only thing that the school the school board would be approving is the two hours additional cleaning i believe he called

121it an in-kind donation to make sure that those sports were funded i don't see why we have to move it to the city at all that's all i have related on the budget other than i have two questions about um he mentioned a large curriculum purchase i would like to know how much that's going to be overall and were you just given this budget tonight so that you have 10 15 minutes to review it or did you have ample time to review it so we're not congress that's here just passing a budget that was just handed to us that's all i have for you thank you so there anyone else my name is christy turney and i have three students in the district so um not to be redundant but i was also curious about

122the large curriculum purchase that was mentioned in the budget budget presentation and how can the public obtain further information regarding the content of this curriculum and i was also curious there was a budget book mentioned several times and we just were given a peer-reviewed uh people and personnel clerks that were listed as giving a review to this but what i didn't hear was access to the public taxpayers so if that's not available could that become available because i think that transparency would be key and helpful to have community members and i don't know if this is the right thing to ask this question so i will follow up with the email but um if i might ask for clarification during the years that wyoming and other states adopted common core national consortium consortiums were formed

123and i am aware that many states have either been funded or transitioned into new models however are these concerns consortiums still in existence and do they influence the curriculum choices of our local district um and i look forward to following that with hopefully some answers to that question so thank you that was all i had for the budget is there anyone else okay at this time i'd like um something on like okay online and then we'll try and do a little housekeeping right there amanda are you i'm here can you hear me oh great i wanted to say first i want to say thank you for that very thoughtful presentation of the budget i think it was very helpful especially for us members of the public who are you know i'm sorry to interrupt you

124not everyone can see you my name is amanda johnson middle initial um yeah amanda moore johnson and i have two students in the district um thank you i first i wanted to say thank you for that thoughtful presentation the budget it's very much appreciated i um did want to say i had a couple comments about it um one was that i appreciate sort of the comparison um between our school budget and other districts i think that can sometimes be useful i think sometimes it's not as helpful every district as we know in every county as we know in this great state of wyoming is different and so sometimes we compare our student activities expenditures to um other districts and other counties i think that can be an apple and orange situation i think the comparison

125was made to try to make us feel uh that maybe we are spending more than other districts and that might be some justification for cutting after school sports i don't see it that way the other concern i had about the generous offer of the city and i really do appreciate it sounds like the board has been really trying very very hard to think of options to continue after school sports i appreciate that the city is willing to offer some scholarship funds to allow students to participate in sports whose families may not be able to afford it i don't see that however as a step that's going to meet our students and our most vulnerable students and our families who may not have people to drive them to sports to schedule sports i'm talking about those

126students who have multiple family members who are working they don't maybe have parents at home and yes having that funding will help but in terms of getting those students to the sports i don't know that that's a real blow for equity for our district and that's disappointing i think one of the nice things about after school sports is that every student really truly if they have their parents commission permission can participate without having to arrange rides and parents taking time off work so i guess i'd just like to express my concerns about those solutions i also wondered if there were any um thoughts about sort of parent involvement community involvement and potentially corporate sponsorship sorry that's my dog he's also had some comments that was this little joke um but anyway i i i do

127want to say i so appreciate our district i so appreciate our board members um and and truly it was very clearly thoughtful budget and i know these are tough tough issues um i just wanted to express my concerns about after school sports for elementary students um the only reason that i would ask you and if a few um would just be that the microphone picks it up for the zoom [Music] my name is kathleen bain i have a grandson that goes to this school district and he's in elementary school i have several concerns about the budget number one cutting elementary school age sports is a mistake in my opinion um that is the introduction to sports to that age for most of our community it gives them an opportunity to see what they like what

128they don't like so when they move into junior high and high school they have a little bit of experience the amount of families in our communities that can afford extracurricular sports outside of the school district is very slim i know that my grandson participated in soccer this year and between shoes fees and everything else it costed my son he was also a single father over three hundred dollars people don't know how this company went i think it's very disappointing very sad that we're having to dismiss that and get rid of that i'd like to ask if it's permanent it didn't look like um based on what he was telling me when he was going through the budget it did not sound like it was a one-year situation um curriculum the curriculum that's been purchased what

129is it how do i get the details on it does it include critical race theory how do i get these answers how do i find this information i need someone to tell me the last thing that i have in my on my mind for our kids in the school district in reference to the budget cut is haven't they been through enough loss of being in class with their friends loss of education due to everything that's happened loss of self-esteem loss of learning to read someone's facial expressions how much more loss do our kids have to experience in this community isn't there something else that can be cut so maybe even with the sports maybe we don't do five or six different sports for boys and girls maybe you do one maybe you do two but

130cutting it all together i played elementary school sports in this community when fifth grade come and i could join basketball i felt like a rock star i was so excited i it was my first opportunity to get out there and play a sport in it for my school in front of the other school with other schools in front of my fellow students and it gave me an opportunity to decide did i like basketball or not thank you that's the end of your three minutes thank you so much if you can just wrap it up i want three more i have a lot to say i was here a few months ago trying to get into this meeting and it was closed i have a lot to say so i want three more i'm sorry we'll

131do free and then if there's one more opportunity at the end of our meeting we could do it that way when can we set up a question and answer meeting where we can actually interact with you instead of watching you work i've got questions i want answered in front of me i can't see i don't hear well and i want answers for our kids if you would do me a favor and email dr prescott or myself we will um go ahead and have that i don't want to be censored i don't send you an email then you decide whether you answer my questions or not you decide whether those answers or those questions go in front of the board i don't want to be censored i want to be thank you is there anyone else

132thank you if we can um we have to be mindful of our our time and i i do want to hear what everyone has i wouldn't spend as much time if i would have been able to understand months ago that's right thank you this meeting was what walked us out of here it's a good point you have demanded our respect while you disrespect us [Applause] on the table i don't care nine weeks ago i could not get through that door you broke the law [Music] we will have order we're not the boss hey recess it is my job to keep order in our meeting it was also your job everyone speak if that is not possible i will convene and read this and we will make this video at and i will be back and

133i want more than three minutes thank you the gentleman in the blue church that would like to speak please good evening i want to say uh one i appreciated uh trusty response comments on the three to five year plan so i'm sorry joshua fitch i'll get two students in the district and i have the two uh on their way into the district um so i want to say one i appreciate it that we respond to comments uh regardless of three to five year planning i'm a strategic planner at work that's what i do um so so we have to address those problems before those funds run out um so i guess my question would be necessarily the right form trustee claussen had mentioned uh something dealing with the adms i heard it in the budget

134as well so i'm trying to absorb a whole lot of information at one side um but there seemed to be dealing with revenue a significant decrease in edm's the district have we done any studies why there's a decrease in adm is it dissatisfaction with potentially decisions made in the district is it just due to demographics of people moving in or out but what is causing that decrease in adm how can we increase that so that parents want their students to be in the district so that there isn't increasing funds so that we have a plan for three to five years so that those these cuts that are being made are not even more more and more and more um [Music] my name is james harmon one of the questions that i have and want to

135get to the bottom of is finding out how we can be more proactive as parents to keep the after school program for elementary building is there an opportunity for us to you know is it a dollar or two for admission to sports or something like that if the light bill is that big of an issue the more involvement that we can have as parents at that level of our school i think it's going to be a lot better for our kids in the long run because it is a very developmental age for them at that time learning to play the sport or camaraderie as a person that was in the military myself camaraderie is a big thing and teaching that at a young age goes a lot further in life than just leaving them out

136there to try to figure it out on their own so as we continue to figure out ideas i mean i think a great idea would be sitting down together maybe spitballing these ideas together and saying hey how can we do this how can we come together i think the tto idea was one of the fantastic ones there is a lot of money involved with pto corporate sponsorships things like that because there are people in the community that want to make this happen and i think that we have an opportunity to do it so just slamming the door on it saying it's you know there's no budget for it i think we should have should open it up to a little more conversation to engage with the parents thank you yes please hi i'm kathleen cigliano

137um thank you for letting us come up and have some time to speak with you i do have two students in the school district as well um and just like some of the other parents and concerned community members um some of the things that we have discussed just a few of us my mom groups um are you know are there options for funding from the community for the after-school sports um i don't know if this is all set in stone right now and that you've already made this decision or is there an opportunity to have more discussions so that's the only thing i have regarding the budget and that's the one of the concerning things that i know most of us have for that so thank you [Music] thank you i appreciate your comments and

138and uh this is at this time we'll close public comment um this has been incredibly difficult um actually just looking at everything there's many steps in the in the budget and contemplating it um all of the different things that we've had to look at over the last several months and what might happen if the legislature might not happen with the legislature and how that would affect our kids um this is uh i think it's been hard for everyone and realizing that um our individuals that work in this district and that helped drop this proposal also have children elementary students um that are impacted by by this uh proposal as well as well as our individuals on board um and uh i think um you know what we're looking at in 2016 there was a paper

139from the joint appropriations committee that i shared with a few individuals that had emailed me that was talking about the legislature looking at cutting elementary eye for cutting activities um and really targeting activities and i thought to myself long before i was at wrong board and still just volunteering um as parent advisory president in the district i looked at that paper and i thought oh my gosh um you know i grew up in wyoming born and raised in wheatland um a lot of the things in my life have changed um the things that i got to do in education on the trips that we took we've all seen those opportunities get smaller and smaller and of course you know kind of took everything out but i think um this discussion about budget cuts and how

140our funding is handled and whether or not the who controls what and how it's all going to be done that's a conversation i would just ask with all of my heart for all of you to pay attention to those um giant appropriations the joint education committees when our legislators are acting and have those conversations because there's a lot of talk on both sides i would just like to see all of us be able to come together and figure out what's going to be the best fit because i agree with you it's not a one-size-fits-all our district is very different and i would love it if we weren't always comparing um one one district to another but i will tell you if you look at the language in our recalibration meetings if you look at the

141language from from those three calibration meetings and the uh recommendations that were put forward um it clearly states um allocating funds according you know as they've done across the state districts across the state for doing this districts across the state are doing that well our demographics are different our size is different our population is different our needs are different our resources are different um so you know overall i think our districts have across our state and the meetings that i've set in since i don't know 2006 um with district conversations and our leaders trying to figure out how to how to make our funding work here and how to relay this for our legislators parents can do that what you care about is super important and sharing what you care about to our state government

142and the entities that make these decisions as well as the wyoming department of education when i say weigh in on those standards weigh in on what's going on get involved with god take a look at their website go through those things watch these meetings you can watch them online you can go back and watch historical meetings with the lso website please and and be informed about what what is going on there and it will be very helpful and you can watch ours on our on our district website we've been talking a little bit um i know there's some frustrations about public comment and we can't we're not supposed to answer back um taking public comments so maybe um looking at addressing maybe the questions that are raised because you all have very questions with great

143questions um maybe having an faq on the website after our meetings where we can address the the questions that are raised there so the question was x and and we put a quick uh thank you on the website um otherwise um we'll work on addressing that um but in brief we are looking at the meetings being i'm gonna do your little faq here because i think it's important that you all go home with a little a little better understanding of what we were talking about here um i'll address the ones that i can remember quickly um we're trying to keep the sports after school so the kids aren't struggling um we are going to continue i know this board is dedicated to continuing trying to figure out um how how we can make this work

144because it's obviously very important to all of us and it's important for our district we're just in a situation where there isn't a lot of wiggle room here and i didn't know that we would ever be really looking at um you know we're we're dipping into our reserves to pay our bills and you know how you feel at home when you have to get into your savings account to pay your bills and not knowing what's going to deal with that hill it's a pretty unpractical situation and right now we aren't always driving the car the legislators we've had cuts through this for the last three four years our district has had cuts every single year we have really tried to bring our spending in line with the funding model and work with our legislators so

145it isn't this is this is not a new conversation so um the other thing that was right off the bat can you remember those are easy those are on the website if you go to board decks so and just a quick refresher if you go to the board trustee page and then you go to um right underneath our picture or beside it depending on whether you do it on your phone but they don't recommend you're doing this on your phone it's not a good thing um but if you go on your computer and click view board docs it's off to the right of where our picture is on the on a laptop or desktop and click on that it'll bring up board docs go to meetings and then click um on whatever meeting it is

146today's maybe here however many they go back for many many years um they're not all video because video's kind of promising there are a bunch of coding ones on there so if you can um click on that you can watch the meeting and hold you can also pull up the documents um and this document is on that and darlene is a rock star and if you cannot find it or get through it she will be able to call the admin office um superintendent's office she will be able to help you and get together most of our staff um they're really great to work with if you just call the admin building whoever moved it will be able to to help you navigate um finding those those documents with this document and all of our documents

147and supporting documents are on the website um through board docs and actually i found out the other day you can actually just type in lcsd1 um board docs and it links over as well so there's lots of ways to get there i walked the lady the other day through it um is there yes so um do you wanna i'm gonna hand that because this is our our expert here so go ahead and talk about that curriculum so if you um just really quickly if you we're gonna put a hot spot for that budget document as well just so that it's easier access because it's live right now we'll work on that tomorrow additionally there was a curriculum adoption for a k-4 um curriculum there it went through a 45-day process as part of the board

148agenda item um we went through board discussion it's being implemented i last year moving into this year with some kind of professional development around it it is aligned to the standards of the state it allows for our students to engage in deep understanding of what they're learning in terms of reading uh and uh and learning how to read and what those systems look like using a variety of texts and the exact amount i'm going to say is three three five yeah that's right 3.5 is i remember presenting with wisdom those materials were available for public inspection as well so yeah there is a presentation yes and i'll just add their multiple presentations as well as um you continue to provide information as our teachers are getting trained and any questions that you may have about

149it please feel free to reach out and actually a lot of the emphasis behind this so it's a reading program and a lot of the emphasis behind this came from parents it came from parents wanting to look they looked at our third grade um scores and said you know proficiency that's not good enough less than 50 no so there was a lot of talk with the board we took it on it's important so um to be to raise our proficiency we have a timeline we'll be talking to dr kristo about what that timeline is in raising our test scores and helping our kids giving our kids what we need to give them and our teachers what they need to uh to help our kids get to the reading level that they should be at so

150we would like them all to be uh proficient and there's a hole in that but the discussion goes for um discussion about our goals and literacy goes back to i think it's at least october of last year so um trustee fossen what would you like to add and then we'll wrap this up thank you madam chair i appreciate that um as far as that i know that a lot of a lot of our christmas before um was not incorporating fully techniques like just teaching kids and we want our kids to learn how to read properly um the science shows that if they're not reading my third grade their lives are likely to have a lot of problems as they as they age so uh that was the motive behind it as far as critical race

151theory which i think is the question behind the curriculum we do not i do not support critical race theory at all and i sit on this board and will every turn if we ever had anything that dealt with that but having said that i'm not aware at all of any critical race theory being incorporated into that curriculum so i think that uh if if you have some kind of proof that's fine bring the board please bring it to my attention because i want to know about that but i don't think that that is uh an issue that is um that we are at all aware of in the curriculum dr president thanks i'm chair trustee clawson i will reiterate again that the standards are aligned and that's what wooden wisdom provides is a standard curriculum

152there is no critical race theory we will not be moving forward with critical race theory it is not part of the curriculum it has not been part of the curriculum it is aligned to standards the curriculum is considered to be one of the best programs to teach the levels of fluency and phonemic awareness and literacy available um and certainly as as was mentioned there's access to it public documents and an entire process that went through for that adoption and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out and certainly we have incredible professionals that can sit i will sit with you and go over any questions that you may have regarding the curriculum that your students are receiving is um at this time actually you know i think it would be a good

153idea if we'll um you'll let uh dr presbo um because we need to finish our business meeting and kind of took us a little track because i wanted to address those questions because i think that was really important um but i will have dr crossbow um put something together and and make that available all right and if you want to go ahead and email dr preston um with your email she can she can share that with you directly as well as absolutely publicly um so with that are there any other questions bring forth those questions is there a way also that you could um maybe format so that other people see it so that it's not relevant to the same concerns and then that way we'll know what exists yes we will figure we were

154looking at a faq we're trying to be responsive and and we'll try and keep you we'll update you all on everyone probably um at our next meeting but we'll we'll get our heads together and kind of try and figure out because i think there's a lot of misunderstanding and a lot of national conversations that um is not here um so we can we can uh we can probably get ahead of that a little bit so we'll talk to dr preston and the board of work together so we're going to make this really brief yes just maybe for later but there was an additional question on why the adm is young oh that's actually not a good question we'll put that in the faq too because that one is either or if you call darlene's office

155and talk to um if you call darlene's office and she can hook you up with dr preston or um mr bartlett or mr cipherelli but there's a whole team actually of individuals that can answer that question so if the gentleman that answered the pasta all right we are going to is there any further discussion um can i answer one meeting for clarification really quick i'm so sorry it'll be super quick if you're gonna do this okay everybody understands this last one okay so i'm so sorry is there going to be general comment for the public or is it just budget focused this evening there will be general we just have to get through that part of that meeting all right so we just have to get the best part of back into our regular um

156our regular session so we are going to recess our budget hearing and reconvene our regular meeting this time madam chair i move to approve the laramie county school district number one fiscal year 2022 resolution for budget adoption is there any more discussions actually i did have one thing i am going to say we have had this budget as you just heard in our conversations it started um clear back into september or october at the beginning how many how many levels our budget could be at and this conversation of what we were going to go through so no we have been reviewing and i know i sent out a response to a question um there was a workshop in january there was a meeting in um i believe it was march we had one in may

157we had another one in june they're all public meetings you can go through our agenda maybe we could put those on the on the faq as well so thank you um so to answer that question and i think we're pretty close so that is my only discussion is there any further discussion hearing then all in favor say aye opposed no the resolution for the budget adoption passes we are now at a time where we can take public comment again we are going to keep it to three minutes and it is uh it is open um please raise your hand if you'd like to make a comment yes just down then in the back on the right side yep there you go thank you madam chair uh superintendent chris holden trustees thank you so much for

158this time i'm jeremiah singleton this is max mcmillan we're here on behalf of the wyoming air national guard and we just wanted to invite you to our first annual stem day at the wyoming international guard uh dr press will you talk a little bit about building relationships in the community and that's what this is max and i we're not recruiters this isn't a recruiting event for the national guard this is really just a community uh outreach program or it's really a field trip a day where we invite students to come on the base and experience stem displays so we'll have dozens of stem displays and a giant aircraft hangar uh the university of wyoming will be there wild type will be there um flacco's energy will be there in fact most of the colleges in

159the state will be there and we just ask them to provide an interactive stem display and we kind of use stem that just because that's kind of the best word that fits but really it's a uh it's kind of a technical all the things that they've learned in school this is a chance to see it out in the real world and it's also kind of a career path and it gives our students an opportunity to see what the options are after school whether it's college whether it's an electrician whether it's a car mechanic and it just gives our students an opportunity to see kind of feel and touch what's out there after high school invitation for you all to attend let us know if you'd like to be there and we'd love to host you

160and then also just be asked to help uh support the district and the principals in any way you can to help our students participate thank you so much for your time i appreciate it thank you thank you are there any other you guys give us the dates that'd be awesome too for for the battle around here so i mean great program um one of the things that i like as a uh well i just want to bring up i saw your hundred day plan and one of the things that i thought was missing on there is communication aspect there's text messages got everything on there besides that i know we communicate a lot that way through the school already is there any way that you can add that in there as a district-wide text so

161we can stay more engaged as someone that works in the tech industry i know that i could ask everyone in here whose text messages are open and who you met whose emails are pretty stacked up right so having that opportunity to have more clear communication i think would be another open opportunity to keep parents engaged as well too and as far as the faq um i really thank you for taking the time to answer some of the questions now one of the things i think gets lost in translation of faq is if we do like a live pdf you put the questions on there and you type out the answer still can get lost in translations just like email it's like text right maybe doing um using technology and doing a video answering that question

162either live or maybe just doing a recording of it and posting on there too and having a certain spot on the website so that people can go back and see that along with the meeting that we had today and then any of the questions you're now keeping that engagement up level and all obviously the other thing with video too just like that's proven on social media is you have more engagement rate when you have a video more than you just have text forms so something like that i think will keep parents um a little more engaged and also makes your point and any questions that people might have a little more clear and open that opportunity thank you very good are there any other individuals yes please i'm i'm sorry i should remember your name

163my name is amanda angle um i just had a couple just quick questions with the reopening so i thank you so much for not putting that cemented thank you thank you very much appreciate it um are we still gonna adhere to the quadrants that dr hartman had presented last school board meeting our parents going to get more information as to what constitutes quarantining i mean just a little bit more guidance on that would be great um so that's really my only comment um well and then also the antibody you know let's kind of wrap around the axle about that if we're considering folks that have antibodies in the category with the vaccinated as far as quarantine if they're exposed thank you very i much remember your name and i promise it's okay you hear from

164a lot of people and so my name is jamie lee and i again have five children in the district age um so i have a couple of concerns i was just looking at this wisdom um and it happens to mention one second social emotional learning another word for for critical race theory is transformative social emotional learning or sel or c-a-s-e-l those are all abbreviations of critical race theory so i encourage you to reevaluate your uh district purchase for critical race theory um i just wanted to bring your attention that at the school board meeting on june 21st kathy aymond stood up here from the health department and told you that jamie can go ahead and not use names we're friends nothing's not personal i mean i know this subject is personal but if we could

165just not direct a person like that this name was specifically brought up because okay there's a county health department official that the next day on june 22nd gave the news a printed article through um that said that to her knowledge there had been no hospitalizations of anybody that had been vaccinated and then she quickly told the news the next day in a printed article that that was not the case and so i just wanted to tell you that when laramie county school district number one is me giving false information whether it was intentional or not that you need to really know that the professionals that are above you or equal to you or helping you make decisions for our youth are giving you the truth so my recommendation is to not use said individual again

166but that's up to you sorry uh district administration.com offers 37 states with at least one district if not the whole state having optional mass for the year 2122 i'm greatly appreciative that you're taking the opportunity to leave that as a option for our youth i wanted to um i'll pass on that um i also wanted to ask this board if you would consider allowing tech trek academy as a charter school to come in to laramie county to um i see that your enrollment numbers are down and when they were talking about the adm that you're down 250 which is 411 students and if you allow tech trek academy into laramie county school district number one you have the opportunity to seat these students under you but you pay a portion of what the government gives

167you for that seated student to the parents and so i'd be happy to visit with anybody about tech tribe academy coming here it was currently in park county and park county lost their sponsor for it and so i would suggest that as a way to boost our budget as well thank you so much and have a great day thank you okay christy turning again and i have three kids of district age and um for this i'm going to also associate myself with my own health freedom as a director and i wanted to say that we were assured this evening that coven 19 vaccines and mask mandates would be well masks would be optional as a parent of a vaccine injured child i'm grateful for that sort of members of our organization however i did have

168a concern at a recent national education association meeting according to the business item 33 submitted by 50 delegates suggesting mandating non-fda approved experimental vaccinations mandating testing as well as encouraging further mass mandates across the country should a family opt out of the experimental vaccine my concern as it is well known the national education association as well as the wyoming education association has influence on local and state policy makers and so i did appreciate you guys encouraging getting involved with the legislature because that's a key piece as well should these associations continue to push these agendas my challenge to the board members is to protect local community members concerns as discussed in the past and present means should these agendas gain momentum as i and others have previously expressed there is continued concern to the to

169prevent segregation due to independent family medical choices from gaining traction in our district so i i appreciate the stance of making it optional and i just hope that continuous so thank you very much one last one mine's quick um more for my wife than anything else i know we talked about uh parental uh there's parental involvement it was a cyber gentleman do you appreciate your name i'm sorry they also got two children in the district um but regards to parental involvement how uh policy why they know last year we weren't allowed to go into the schools at all um i know this year my wife absolutely wants to go into the school she wants to be able to volunteer to take some time i'm getting some shifts in my job i'm just about to retire

170from the military so i think we'll be able to do something with that this year um so is that something that we're going to be able to do um at least twice a week with something he was looking at i don't know if anyone else is thinking about that question but you see i want to be involved in my kids education i don't want to be blocked from it um so can we do that my name is donald cruz last time i stood up here i was pretty passionate and fired up so i'll definitely tone it down but i want to thank you guys for uh letting us come here but i still have a couple problems number one why are we why are we hiding the names of kathy edmonds is the name of

171the lady that um did the article i i really am confused on that when we talk about transparency when we talk about having the community be part of this and you guys be a part of that but then it's turned around and you you ask us not to say that i don't really understand that number two um why is it that we're limited when you guys get a lot of you know time that you guys can have um the gentleman that came up here and gave us all the data and spreadsheets and everything else like that and then obviously when you see community members that are upset because they were barred and locked out of these these meetings that are for us um it doesn't establish any any kind of trust there you know to

172me it kind of gets the feel that you guys you know you listen but we're not getting any answers so i don't understand why you guys can't answer if anybody could at least educate me or point me in the right direction as to why if i ask you guys a legitimate question why you guys can't answer that to me it seems more like it's just a redirect so that it kind of keeps us quiet and i don't understand you know how that's supposed to work if you guys want us to trust you then i think that it needs to be a two-way street you know they get a lot of time up here and not everybody's going to be um as well eloquent and and have like all of the information that they have to

173stand up here and spit facts back at you guys um but just like the the lady that was up speaking earlier and stuff obviously she's she's really highly offended by it i don't understand any of that it seems like we don't get any answers it seems like we get a lot of redirects outside of that i'm really hoping that this will board if there if it's not called critical race theory if it's called something else i'd really hope that you guys would also take a look at the the adverse reactions that would come along with that you know you uh you guys have a huge responsibility we know it's a tough job for every single one of you but we hope that we can build and re-uh establish that trust there with the community with

174you guys thank you thank you okay actually um jump in and the gentleman in the blue shirt actually had his hand in it so i am going to close this public comment if you would still like to skate the the lightning shirt that you did yes did you want to speak please okay and then that will be our last public comment for this evening please address the podium thank you uh it's great to see such great parental participation uh tonight i heard a couple of things people want to be involved in their children's education and that is a wonderful wonderful thing can you speak your name for me again oh my name is jason hoover thank you you're welcome um so parental involvement great thing and to hear that from the community you guys got

175to be overjoyed um the kind of time that you guys give as volunteers to take care of our schools that's going to be very satisfying to hear we hear we have other issues so they'll make parental involvement i'm sure increase um and sadly that's because we've got to re-establish of this trust between the school and our community and a lot of us out here and probably several of you up there uh understand what's eroded that trust uh there's been a various issues but it seems that a lot of them are rooted in the fact that we've gotten away from education and we've gotten more towards social engineering um for some reason the school has taken on this stance that they need to educate and and expose and discuss with our students every social issue that

176comes down the pipe that's not reading it's not writing it's not arithmetic those are things that divide us everyone up here is entitled to their opinion each one of you guys are too and we respect that and we know you respect our opinions uh but when it comes to matters of social concern when it comes to matters of politics that's the parents place in this and that's what you keep here week after week is that we reserve that space for ourselves and we ask you to respect that and to always be on the lookout for folks that would arrive perhaps from out of town they're not familiar with our community perhaps they're tied up with organizations like chiefs for change perhaps their goal is to bring equity among our students perhaps their goal is to

177educate our students in the social norms that they prefer those aren't ours and we will remind you to give them the opportunity thank you for your time thank you all right thank you closer public comments thank you all so very much um moving on to f in our agenda future business the next regular board meeting will be held monday august 2nd 2021 at 6 pm a work session will begin at 5 pm i'm sure i moved to go into executive session at this time prior to adjournment for the purpose of possible student long-term suspension expulsion we are an executive