Adams 12 Board of Education Meeting 5/6/2026

001Good evening everyone. We would like to call the meeting to order. We will start with roll call. Director Anan Wubo >> here. >> Director Assad Lucas >> here. >> Director Batistelli here. Director Goldstein. >> Director Marsh Holen >> here. >> I would like to uh make a recommended action to approve the agenda as stated. >> So moved. >> Second. Director Anan Wubo >> I. >> Director Assad Lucas I. >> Director Batistelli I. >> Director March Holshen >> If you are able to stand, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. All right. So, as you guys see that President Goldstein is not here. So, we are going to do our best to move on. So, I would like to move to superintendent update. >> So, I've been a pretty busy correspondent with many of you through

002email and text uh in recent days. And we just talked about some legislative developments, some financial things in work session, including the potential for late school finance act changes that could either decrease our revenues further than we've planned for and in some cases increase it. So, it's uh remains a pretty unpredictable time and we won't know for certain where we stand on some of those issues until the legislaturator is done next week, but we're getting close. I thought I might just talk briefly about snow days uh since that was a topic of interest and controversy today and just share with you all and with those present some of the thinking that went behind that. So last night I know lots of our board members were here with me at a retirement reception and a an

003award ceremony for many of the staff who've done exemplary service in the district this year. Uh I'll just share as an aside we had more than 150 retirees this year. um more than three hours of cumulative service given to the district during their career. Those are both the largest numbers that I believe I've seen in my tenure. Um how many? >> 3,000. You said 300. >> Oh, did I say 300? 3,000. More than 3,000. So, it's the largest number of retirees and the greatest amount of service that we'll be losing that I've seen in my tenure. I just think we're starting to get uh to a little bit of a retirement bubble in our staffing and there's going to be a lot of transitions that happen for our system in the years ahead, but this

004is the start of that wave, I would predict. And there were lots of jokes that we made last night about should we call a snow day or not. Uh cuz it was snowing pretty good at that time. In the end, you all know that where I landed was on a 1-hour delayed start today along with 27J Mapleton schools, Westminster public schools, and St. brain have lots of students and parents feel like we're the only ones who didn't call a snow day and not an accurate statement, but because so many people in my view jumped the gun um and got that momentum going. Certainly, if you weren't in the closure spot, people felt like you were the only one who did not. The reasons why we didn't close uh in my analysis started with we look

005at temperatures and the temperatures were right around 31 32 degrees as we started school today. So temperatures weren't an issue. Typically when temperatures are an issue, we have actual temps or wind chills that are 15 or more uh degrees below Fahrenheit. And so we weren't remotely close to our temperature thresholds. In terms of snow, there's really not any magic amount of snow that tilts us into snow day decisions. It's more about road conditions and travel conditions. And the streets were simply wet, but they weren't slushy. They weren't slick. We did have a concern that some expressed about trees and tree branches falling off and might that be a hazard for students and something I was mindful about was also mindful that the temperatures were predicted to start increasing as we got around the time of

006students coming to school and that the storm was predicted to abate and the lesson as uh the sun came up which it did. So, it felt like the risk of having tree branches fall and hit a student or somebody else walking uh was not a significant risk. And I think that's proven to be true for us and the other districts that move forward today. Another factor we look at is staffing. And so, we do a lot of checking to see how many people have called out and announced that they're not going to be at school the next day. And then we look at it again this morning. And I think last night to this morning, we didn't see significant change. We had about 280 people who said they weren't going to come in. We averaged

007200 plus teacher absences every day in normal conditions. So, it wasn't a huge bump. What was a little bit different is we had fewer substitute teachers to come in and cover some of those classes. So, our fill rate coverage rate wasn't as strong uh as it sometimes is. And then on the classified side, I think it was about 60 classified staff who called in ill uh and weren't here today. Again, the fill rate wasn't as good as it normally is there, but it wasn't horrendous. The the employee group that we always worry most about uh typically in these cases are bus drivers because if we don't have enough, then you have kids waiting, getting wet, getting cold. Um, and fortunately, we had enough drivers. Even though we had about 15 call out to operate all

008of our routes, we didn't have any uh routes that were late or delayed uh from what's been reported to me. So, that was a plus. We're mindful about things going on in the system and not every day is equal in terms of implications for kids and families if you make a call. Today was the last day of school for seniors in high school. So, lots of concern about uh leaving things unfinished for some of our seniors at some schools and in some courses if we pull the plug for today. There are also a lot of students taking AP literature classes. And I think I shared with you all earlier a text I got from Sarah Mark saying, "I've got 56 kids taking an AP lit class. We're really happy that you didn't call a snow

009day today so they can get that checked off." When you don't uh proceed with AP courses when they're scheduled, there's a prescribed reschedule retake dates that often conflict with graduation ceremonies. And that was a big part of the superintendent chatter last night in the region is are we going to put some kids in the spot of taking your AP exam or going to your high school graduation ceremony. So some pretty big stakes that way. Um so those are the factors that we we look at. Is it cold? How are road conditions? How many staff do we have showing up? Are there any other variables that make uh this be a spot where we should pull the plug? And we felt like under that analysis going forward was the right thing to do. And obviously not

010a popular decision with all. I would analogize snow day decisions to the dialogue that we had back in the co era about how much risk are some people willing to accept or not. And there's some who uh are very risk tolerant and they would never want us to close for snow days except in really really extreme circumstances. And there are some who are really riskadverse and they want us to close each and every time that we have a little bit of snow. I'll just add this as a final thought about uh that risk analysis. During my time, there have been some really tragic losses uh often transportation related that have occurred. One of them was the bus accident at Denver International Airport where our bus driver, Carrie Chopper, was killed and three of our coaches

011were seriously injured. It was September 11th, a bluebird day. Uh no precipitation, no challenging weather conditions. Another really painful situation was years ago when one of our bus drivers hit and killed an elderly pedestrian at a 104th in Federal Blue Day in the fall. Uh no precipitation. Another tragic situation was when a student died while getting transported home by others from a basketball game in Fort Collins. Again, the weather conditions were just fine. And what I'm also mindful about is there's lots of times that in the course of a typical winter when you have 10 to 15 snow events of various amounts when we go forward and often the ones that I think pose the greatest risk are the ones that have the least amount of snowfall but they're often really slick days. Fortunately we've

012not had any serious student injuries, staff injuries or deaths during any of those weather events that I can recall. Um, we do our best to minimize risk and and stress and burden of people coming to school on those days. Uh, but I guess the point I'm trying to make is it's never risk-f free. Whether it's a a branch that might fall or in a half inch uh snowstorm, somebody hitting that just right piece of black ice at the wrong speed in the wrong location and having a collision. we can't make it risk- free, but we do our very best to minimize risk, think thoughtfully about risk, and then um make our best call about going forward. So, that was the analysis that went on with myself and the other Adams County soups uh who were

013part of that dialogue and um we'll do some more analysis to see what was student attendance like today and what were the implications of the decision because in the end, we want it to be a productive day as well. So that's more on snow days and that's really all I have to add at this point. >> Thanks Chris. We will move on to board of education comments, recognition, awards and vision. Um we will start with Ike. >> Thank you Vice President Lucas. All right. Good evening everyone. Hope everyone is having a good day despite the snow. It's already warming up and uh I was talking to to my fellow board member Alexis about, you know, the fact that with all these temperature changes, everyone it's easy for everyone to get sick. Um so please take

014care. Uh I'll be quick. Um I've had a chance to go visit a few more schools. Uh for those of you who who don't know, over the last few weeks and months, I've been visiting schools trying to kind of put my finger on the pulse. Uh, I had a chance to visit the New America School and want to thank Principal Meera Ramirez uh for her time and her staff's time. Great school. They do a lot considering uh the resources that they have and and that's why we're here to to do all we can to give them and get them what they need. Had a chance to visit Future Forward Bowman. Um, and uh, I'm really I'm I'm an engineer by training, so I really like going to to the future forward centers and seeing like

015the auto class, 3D printing, that sort of thing. Um, in my job, I actually hire electricians and and to see these kids uh, getting these certifications and being able to be hired right out of high school is really impressive. I I find had a chance to go to see uh, Century Middle School as well. want to thank principal uh Kirstson Develin for her time and and I had a chance to to meet their music coordinator as well. And my kids go to Rocky Top and and every time Rocky Top and Century Middle School show up at Horizon. Um I I have to admit they they make us look really bad. Um and and my kids actually play flute and and my boy plays French horn and center sachs and and so it was really good

016to see their music program. uh meet the kids and and see what an excellent school it is. Had a chance to also finally uh visit Pathways and had a chance to meet with Principal Chrissy Cohen. Now, there weren't too many kids there. Uh they had finished up a lot of their studies. Um but it was really good to talk to the few kids that I did and I actually from first time in in one of my visits I talked to quite a few kids. I talked to about eight kids about their future plans, why they were they were at Pathways and what Pathways has done for them positively because let's face it, not everyone learns the same way and and we really through the Pathways School give the kids a chance to to really find

017their niche and find how best they learn. Um so it was really gratifying to see that. um had a chance to go to the AP pack graduation ceremony um which uh with with Paula actually and uh we had a chance to enjoy fried bread um Indian tacos um meet the kids and and congratulate them on a job well done um so that was very gratifying uh the soul food social strength opportunity unity and legacy um a number of the African-American uh families in in the district got together and and had a chance to have all the families come together. Everyone was invited and there was soul food, there was line dancing, there was it was it was incredible. Um I can't dance. Um and and so my wife tried to pull me out and and

018I said no. Um but uh really great opportunity for the entire district to kind of come together um and kind of really have some fellowship. So that was really really nice to see. I want to thank Marie for all of her outstanding work. Marie McKenzie and her staff uh for pulling it all together. Um let's see what else. Ah, one thing I wanted to highlight was um much has been discussed about finance and and the challenges that we face as a state um in in terms of how we're going to finance our schools and also social programs like SNAP. Um, and and I just want to give a shout out to the great work that the FiveStar Education Foundation as well as the Student Family Resource Center uh that Shannon Hancock and Lisa Reed have

019done to make sure that our families are supported during these very uncertain times. Um, I can't thank them enough. I I don't think we can thank them enough. Um because we have some uh families that really are at risk of losing their benefits during time when the prices of everything is going up. Um uncertainty is there. um they are providing that certainty in terms of not only food aid but education and and my mother was an educator and I can remember as a kid she would put together bags of of snacks and and finally one day I asked her why you do that and she said a hungry kid can't learn um and and that stuck with me even as a 9year-old 10year-old watching that and that's what we're doing here in Adams 12 five-star

020schools so I'm very proud to see the work that Lee saw and and Shannon are doing. And I think that's all I have. I rambled enough. My kids love to say I I I love to talk and I do, so forgive me. But thank you. All right. >> Thank you, Alexis. >> Thank you. Um, well, I uh last week was um in DC and came home with this awful cold. So, I unfortunately did not get to be at the Night of Honors last night, but congratulations to all of our retirees. Um I was very very bummed um to miss it because it's it's one of my favorite. Um and uh but we I did um from the last board meeting go to the food of hope gala with Amamira and Ike and we had two

021students um uh perform at that and it was beyond and above and I I think what what you were saying is true. You know a hungry kid can't learn and the work that we do with these nonprofits is is so important. um also got to um attend the secondary uh district award arts award show which having to pick um a winner was the hardest thing I've done on this board. That was just awful. Um and then was um in DC and um Superintendent Gdowski and I were able to have um lunch with Congresswoman Person yesterday and that was really nice. She's very very interested in what's happening in the district and how she can help, recognizing that there's a lot of volatility at the federal level and and the angst that that's causing. So, she's

022really committed to being in the community and and hearing about it and and doing what she can um bringing it to DC and then, you know, just understanding how what we're hearing. So, that was very nice. Um, and I'm losing my voice. So, I'm just going to say congratulations to the um sports teams in in middle school. I know they're wrapping up. Um, and high school and um happy teacher appreciation week everyone. Week month week next week. >> Thank you, Alexis. Paula, I'm like, do I just start or do I need permission? What's the rule, Stephanie? Um, so >> I'm figuring it out. >> Last week we were all worried that we would not get enough water in um in our area of Thornton, Colorado. Uh, and you can all thank me for all of

023the snow because I helped move things along. I had my tomato seedlings and I thought, you know what? I'm going to put them outside. And Murphy said, nope. I'm going to show up and put you in your place. And he did. So, no need to thank me. I'm just doing my part. Um, I attended a few different things. Uh, I attended the classified staff uh recognition event and Grant Dalton at Glacier Peak Elementary School, the custodian was chosen for that. And uh, he's a guy who's near and dear to my heart because um, that's the elementary school my Hi there. That's the elementary school that my um, son went to. And Mr. Dalton really does embody one of the values that the superintendent in the district often talk about. He's one of the custodians who

024can name every child in that school by name, strength, and need. He knows them all that well. Um and so he's a great figure. He's retiring this year. Um we're sad about that, but I'm glad he's going on to spend that time however he wants. Um, I attended two interest-based bargaining sessions between the um, district and the teachers union. They were two two-day marathon events. Um, but I think we ended in a really good place. Everybody was cheering at the end of the second day. May have been because they were glad it was over, but I think it's a good sign. Um, I attended the art award shows for elementary and secondary. I was able to give a little speech at one of them. That's that's an award ceremony that's really near and dear to

025my heart because I think it's important that kids have access to um the electives like art and music and drama and um photography, whatever, because it it like I said at the show, it really helps improve academics overall when kids have access to services like that. And so I support them any chance I get. um stu I al I attended the Apac graduation and it's always so kind of Relle and the Apac the American Indian parents advisory um council to invite us into these spaces to share in that recognition of their students and like I said they have fried bread and that's just always heavenly but u I don't just go there for the fry bread I promise I go there to see the kids receive their blankets and be recognized by their elders and

026it's a beautiful Um, I also conducted a little feedback session at Mali Drive Elementary School with a group of wonderful fourth graders. Um, and I was just so impressed by this group of kids because it was never never once did those kids say, "This this is what I need. This is what I want. This is what I think." It was always, "This is what we need. This is what my classmate over there would really benefit from. This is what I would like to see." Um, and I always like to stand behind my belief that we should center kids and kids voices. And so I try to live up live up to that with the work I do. Um, that's my second feedback session. I hope it catches on with other folks because it's really invaluable

027to hear from kids about their elementary school experiences. I think we do a good job of listening to high school kids and I'd love to know that we're listening to elementary school kids, too. I attended the night of honor as well and it was sad to see that Kristen Powers, the Mali Drive um principal, she's leaving um and Grant Dalton, like I said, he's also leaving. But we're also happy for them because they have um paid their dues, so to speak. They have probably between the two of them 60 years of service, right? Um in this educational world. So, heck yeah, they deserve to retire, but it's going to be a big gap. So, I thank them for everything they do. and teacher appreciation. Same thing for that. Love our teachers and everything they try

028to do to support our kids in a really tough school finance climate. Thank you. Thank you. Uh so good evening everyone and thank you for being here tonight. Most of the things that I did was already mentioned by my other board members. And so he'll briefly go through it. Um as Alexis and Ike shared attended the food for hope gala and got to see two of our students from Pathways um read their poetry and writings and it was beautiful and they got a standing ovation. So um did great. we finished the IB uh S process and um I I really appreciate that just because and I share this every year at the end we always kind of do a sendoff but um it's not easy and as I think there's sometimes this belief that we

029just kind of all agree and move on and that's definitely not it at all. Um, I think what I really appreciate about that process is the relationships in that room and the trust and being able to be really open and honest and have really really hard conversations and people not getting defensive or personalizing it. Um, because the reason we're all there is for kids and students and that's always the core and remembrance. And so, um, I really appreciate it and we come together and make hard decisions again for the what's best for district and kids. And so again, it's always it's a great team of people. Um, I got to attend the classified employee of the year celebration for Grant Dalton. As Paula shared, the district art show ceremony, one of the hardest parts is

030it's picking art. Like, it's so hard. I want to just say all of it, but obviously we have to pick one. Um, but very, very, very talented um, artists in our district. Uh I also attended the administrative employee of the year for uh Deb Vulker who is the principal at Stoie. Um it was so fun watching she I don't know. Do you think she had an idea Chris? Like she came in. >> I do. Yeah. >> She Okay. She she was a really good sport about it then because she came in and she let the kids be so excited for her and her staff and I mean she brought tears to her eyes. The kids even put on a concert for her. It was so so much fun to watch and just they wrote stories

031for her and poems for her. It was just it was really really great to be um a witness to it and just how much love um her kids and her staff have and it just really speaks to her leadership. So, uh, got to attend the case, uh, annual rewards reception last Friday with Lori and other district leadership to recognize Chris receiving an award for superintendent of the year. Um, also got to hear about other great leaders throughout the the state. So that was really wonderful ceremony and event uh as mentioned already is the night of honory and retirey celebration. Um it's one of my favorites as well and just getting to celebrate the hard work and commitment of so many staff throughout decades within our in our system and shaping our system to what it

032is. Um, I was sad that I had missed the AP pack graduation. That is one of my favorite events for this time of year. So, this is, I think, the first year I haven't attended in a while. And, um, it's always very well done and, um, yeah, just a really beautiful event. And then last is Happy Teacher Appreciation Week. Um just a one-hour delay made me really really really appreciate my children's teachers even more so um this morning. So yeah, thanks for not just teacher but all of our staff for all that you do in our district. Um we really couldn't do it without without everyone. So, I'm going to move on to Lori because she sent me some information she would like me to share for her since she cannot be here right now.

033She did just text and say she might she might be able to be here around 7 7:30ish, but um you know she's down the cap working very hard these this last week of uh legislation and so there might be some very very late nights for her. but she just wanted to for me to uh share some of the things that she's done um as board president and was attending the art show uh last night's retiree and um honor recognitions. Um, and also Lori would be really unhappy if I missed um that she really wants to also give her appreciation and thanks to all the educators for teacher appreciation week. You know, she's she's uh had a significant role with that. And so um didn't want to miss that. But yeah, that is it. Hopefully she

034will be able to join us here shortly. All right, we will move on to public comment. Good evening. The board welcomes public comment to learn about the preferences and concerns of the Adams 12 five-star community. Each speaker will have three minutes. Please use the microphone and state your name and city of residence before beginning your comments. Please give any handouts or information you would like to share with the board to David Wearheim. A threeminut timer will be set for each speaker. Please keep an eye on the timer and kindly conclude your remarks when time has expired. Our first speaker tonight is Charity Netherton. All right, moving on to Lauren Hayer. Okay. Thank you. Uh, good evening members of the board. My name is Lauren Hayer. I am the proud parent of two children who attend

035the studio school and I also teach fifth grade there. I am here tonight to ask you to keep the studio school in mind as decisions are made about building closures. The studio school is a successful and scri thriving school delivering real results for students. Academic achievement and growth speak for themselves. We were awarded the 2025 Governor's Distinguished Improvement Award and our 2025 SPF score of 74.5, ranked sixth highest in the district. Our 2024 SPF was an impressive 77.7. We continue to post some of the highest growth numbers in CAMASS and MAP assessments, especially in fifth grade. Over the last four years, we have proven that we are small but mighty. Our students have built a strong identity as artists and now they have built an equally strong identity as academic achievers. That combination is rare

036and it is powerful. We are also the only arts integrated pathway in this district. If the studio school closes, it closes opportunities for students whose passions, strengths, and futures are rooted in the arts. Families actively seek art schools and other surrounding districts understand that value. Surrounding districts all have art schools. Um, families in our district will likely leave to find those opportunities elsewhere, taking their students and their funding with them. We would also risk losing the talented teachers who chose this because they truly believe in the arts. In my 13 years here in Adams 12, the last three have been transformational for me and I truly wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Right now, 47 students attend the studio school from outside district boundaries. That means we are already bringing students and half a million

037dollars into Adams 12. Closing our school risks sending those students back to their home districts and pushing more families out as well. The studio school also embodies the district's belief in creating a sense of belonging for artistic, creative, and neurodeivergent students. Studio is a place where they feel seen, valued, and successful. These students belong here. They thrive here. That kind of culture cannot simply be recreated somewhere else. Our families are deeply invested. Our PTO raises more than $50,000 each year to support programming and opportunities. Nearly half of our students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Yet, our families consistently support one another and show up for this school. Satisfaction remains high because families know what studio provides. Instead of closing us, grow us. Consider a K8 model, the only one of its kind in the

038district. Rebrand us as Steam with a capital A to showcase both academics and the arts. Use the technology positions already funded through the mill levy. >> Your time has expired. Okay, choose us, please. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our next speaker is Valerie Vehill. Hello, my name is Valerie Vhill. I live in Thornton, Colorado. Dear Superintendent Gdowski and board members, I am here as a product of Adams 12, a compl who is completing her 25th year in the district and a union member. I have worked very hard and walked doors, written postcards, made phone calls for every single bond and mill levy for this district and for every school board member past and everyone sitting up there. We promised the community that we are are going to hire and retain our teachers. How is this

039possible when we have a principal in this district that falsifies information in order to non-renew probationary teachers? How is this possible when the same principal non-renews a probationary teacher without giving said teacher a formal observation? How is this possible when the same principal does not give those teachers the opportunity for professional growth? This same principle is using sprint cycles as an evaluative tool. Mr. Mr. Gdowski, you sat with union members in a meeting clearly stating that sprint cycles were not an evaluation tool. As I was walking in, I got a text message saying that we have a high school principal that is using a template for evaluations that list sprint cycles. That is unacceptable. This princ this elementary principal told a probationary teacher that said teachers plans need to be more intentional to meet the

040diverse needs of all students. With all due respect, can someone answer how a nonperson of color can tell a person of color to be diverse? Even though Senate Bill 191 allows admin to non-renew probationary teachers, doesn't Adams 12 want to be known as an ethical, stable place to work? When the principal at Coronado Hills Elementary falsifies evaluations and shares confidential information to others in the district, this makes our district look corrupt to the community. It is my hope that as a taxpayer employee and union member, it is my hope that an investigation occurs to look at the process this principal and others use when non-renewing teachers. We are a great school district and we need administrators that will be scrappy enough to uphold the mission and vision of Adams 12. Thank you. >> Thank you.

041>> So, can I jump in just briefly on this? I just want to share some context uh that may be helpful for the board and for Miss Vehill and others. So, the concern that Miss Vehill uh just ran through in terms of a teacher non-renewal was something that Lori Goldstein raised with me last week as a concern. And so, we've done some investigating and the educator at issue is not on the non-renewal list. That will be something we're looking for the board to act upon tonight or this year. and we do feel like there were some deficiencies in how um that process was handled at the school. We'll do some further investigation given some of the comments that Miss Vhills made tonight, but I just want you to know that this is something that was

042brought to our attention. We've addressed it in a way that we feel like appropriate and responsive to the concerns that you've raised and we'll do some further followup to see if there's any other issues that we need to address. >> Thanks, Chris. Our next speaker is Shelley Garnett. >> Pull Just pull it out of there. Okay. Uh, Shelley Garnett, um, Brighton, Colorado. Good evening, Superintendent Gdowski and members of the board. I'm respect respectfully asking you to consider a bell-to-bell cell phone policy ban. This is not about punishing students. It is about protecting their ability to learn, focus, and fully engage in school. Phones are powerful. They connect and inform us. But in the classroom, they are a constant distraction. Learning requires sustained focus, and it pulls attention away from instruction, class discourse, and critical thinking.

043A bell-to-bell policy creates a clear consistent expectation during the school day where students prioritize learning. While a cell phone policy exists, it is not enough. During this second semester, many educators in my building faced a daily struggle to enforce it as students move from class to class. And over time, that inconsistency undermines both instruction and expectations. Having a bell-to-bell policy would support a student's well-being. Research continues to show that constant phone use can increase anxiety and reduce face-to-face interaction. School should be a place where students build real connections, practice communication skills, and engage in meaningful discourse. Yet, many students daily struggle to simply talk with one another. And I can attest to that in my classroom. Of course, implementation matters. Clear procedures, reasonable expectations, and con and consistent enforcement are essential, but the goal is

044simple. Create an environment where students can succeed academically and socially without unnecessary distractions. I believe a bell-to-bell cell phone ban is not about taking something away from students. It's about giving every student a better opportunity to learn. Thank you for your time and potentially considering this idea. >> Thank you, Shelley. Our next speaker is Scott Michael Pomearink. Thank you. >> Good evening. I'm Scott Michael Pomerank from Thornton and I'm here to ask you as you consider closing schools to please keep the studio school open and consider expanding its mission rather than eliminating it. My daughters Beatatrice and Imagigen are students there and God willing our son Finnegan will join them there in August 2027. We drive them there from We drive them there from the northeast corner of Thornton district 27J 20 minutes each way

045when traffic is good because we love the arts integrated learning that they get there. It is the kind of education that my wife Erica and I both wish we had had in our childhoods. Not everybody learns the same way. As you said earlier, the arts integrated learning makes our children's senses come alive. It makes the subjects come alive for them as they engage creatively, visually, physically with the information they are learning and with their creative, passionate teachers. We know from talking with our fellow Studio School parents that the same is true for their kids. They are inspired and motivated by the artistic journey through learning. It's not only the arts integrated learning, of course, that makes the Studio School special. Its smaller student body makes for a family feel where everyone is known and feels

046part of a loving and supportive community. Our younger kids began their relationships with the school when the oldest began. Though Finnegan is still over a year from entering kindergarten, several teachers and administrators know him by name and he loves to interact with them at pickup and drop off. To be clear, I'm not asking you to keep the studio school alive so that my family can continue good teacher relationships. I think that the studio school and its focus as an arts magnet is one of the best things this school board ever did and I want that to continue for many children to come. We have wondered with our fellow parents where we will find an arts focused middle school for our creative kids. Perhaps the solution for both us and the district is to expand the

047studio school to be K through 8th. The arts integrated learning at the studio school and its warm familial environment make it such a special place where creative kids can thrive, find themselves, and receive an education that meets them where they are and challenges them to learn and grow. Please keep it going, and consider expanding its reach. Thank you very much. Go Griffins. >> Thank you. Our next speaker is Kathy Kelly. Hello again. Um, every year for I I think it's 7 8 nine years now, I have come to speak um to the Adams 12 board of education and your superintendent to say thank you for recognizing that gun violence is one of the biggest issues impacting children today, particularly kids from 10 to 24 are most impacted by gun violence. Um and so as um

048as a resident of Westminster here in in um in the district, as a parent of three children who have graduated and another little teeny tiny one who's waddling her way over as soon as she gets tall enough. Um, I I just want to say thank you for your dedication to safety and the prevention of gun violence for all of the children who attend um Adams 12 school district. Uh I know that later tonight you'll be talking about the wear orange proclamation which is an opportunity for the school district to recognize the importance of gun violence and um and how gun violence is impacting our students. And so I just want to again remind you um that we're here. We are present and um citizens here in Westminster um and are grateful for everything that you

049each individually and collectively do to keep our students safe. Thank you. >> Thank you Kathy. Our final speaker is Ari Bonitez. Good evening. Oh, >> yeah. >> Um, good evening. My name is Ari Bonitez and I am an alumni and a parent from Broomfield, Colorado. Um, we also travel um about 20 minutes um to get to the studio school every morning. And I ask you today to please consider the children before we make decisions about the budgets um the buildings and consolidations. Um as not only a first-time parent but a single parent, everything is a learning experience. I had no idea what to do a lot of um I I had no idea how to do a lot of things as many new parents can relate. I left an emotionally abusive relationship when my child

050was 6 months old and I have been winging it ever since. Although I am no longer physically in that situation. Um, anyone who has been in that position knows all too well that the damage does not end there. Um, in fact, today I find myself more and more exhausted. Um, 12 days before the first day of kindergarten, I realized that my child was now five and I needed to find a school. I had no idea where to seek, what to look for, or how to find it. A former teacher of mine, Lindsay, also through Adams 12, had her students enrolled at Studio, and I figured if it was good enough for her, it had to be a credible choice. I knew very little about it, but what I did know was that it was an

051arts integrated magnet school with a heavy focus on performing arts. This was important to me because I wanted my child to have the same tools that helped reshape me. The arts where I found my are where I found my voice. I was a child who was always afraid to advocate for myself. I would miss classes in high school because I did not want to walk through students to get to my desk. I would take failing grades because I was not going to present in front of a full classroom. I missed out on opportunities and enrichment because I was not confident or bold enough to chase my own potential. Frankly, I'm still not sure how I graduated high school. My GPA was appalling. My grades were consistently slipping. And I absolutely hated everything. And I mean

052everything. I am choosing lighter words because of little ears, but I am sure we can all fill in the blanks. In 10th grade, I met Lindsay. She was instrumental in developing my confidence. I joined my first extracurricular activity and slowly was uncovering my own strengths. I was able to recover my GPA and enrolled in CP and AP classes. I had an easier time in the advanced classes than I did in the regular classes. I now had an outlet. I had things I was interested in in a world that was no longer um just failing classes on spoken struggles and silent cries for help. I share this story with you today because my child is extremely timid and through the school he is a completely different kid. He is not afraid of advocating for himself, expressing

053himself and truly just shining in the spotlight. Right? There's a reason why we turn to the arts in the time of need. We find our voice. We find innovation. We find healing in the arts. And I ask you today to please consider keeping that school open to expand the opportunity for kids to come. Thank you. All right, we will move on to board business. Um, we will start with the American Heart Association student recognition. Um, the American Heart Associ Yeah. Yeah. Will recognize Haley C. and Skyler H for placing in the top 20 participants in this year's Kids Heart Challenge in American Heart Challenge. Is Haley here anywhere? Okay, so I got Skyler with me and my name is Ben and I'm from the American Heart Association and I'm the partner that works with Adams

05412 schools. Um, I'm here today for two uh to recognize two extraordinary students who did an amazing job in Kids Heart Challenge this year. So, I have Skyler here and on behalf of the American Heart Association, I want to congratulate you on being a top student fundraiser in Colorado for the American Heart Association through Kids Heart Challenge at Eagle View Elementary for the 2025 2026 school year. The American Heart Association is incredibly grateful for your dedication and generosity. By raising $1,310, you are helping life-saving research, advance medical care, and provide education that improves and saves lives for those affected by heart disease and stroke. Your efforts are also inspiring others to build healthier habits, creating a lasting impact in your community. Kids Our Challenge is more than about just fundraising. It's about learning how to

055take care of your heart while making a difference for others. You, Skylar, embraced that challenge and truly stood out, showing leadership, compassion, and commitment to helping people live longer, healthier lives. Your actions also inspired others around you to join in and be part of the fight against heart disease. Reaching this milestone means that you are the 20th highest fundraising student in the state of Colorado where 12,700 nearly 13,000 students participated. So 20th out of 13,000 is truly amazing across Colorado. Uh because of that I have a heart of gold certificate to award you today. Round of applause please. Truly truly amazing stuff. Um, a heartfelt thank you to uh Joel Bun and Principal Oliver um at Silver Creek and Kathy Hogan who's here today and um Principal Peterson at Eagle View for bringing this program

056to life in their communities. Um Haley who is not here. I have a certificate for her. She was the 12th highest in all of Colorado. Um but for bringing these uh programs in to life in their communities and inspiring the next generation of lifesavers. Skyler and Haley who is not here, thank you for putting your heart into this mission. We are so proud of you and all that you have accomplished. Thank you. Thank you and congratulations. All right, we will move on to mill levy oversight presentation. I think that's going to be done by is it fact? Yeah. Thanks for being here tonight. All right. So there's no irony, I suppose, for having me go after such a cute little kid um who is concerned about everyone else's heart. Um so now you got me.

057Good evening to the board. My name is Aaron Bberg. I'm the director of finance for the school district and I appreciate this time to spend with you to review mil levies mil levy override spending and I'm just going to take a few minutes prior to our members from fact to level set. So the first thing I want to do is level set our different mills that the district has. So as you're aware the district has six different mills. Each of them have some uniqueness to them. The first four were fixed dollar mills. And what that means is that regardless of what happens with net assessed valuations, regardless of what happens with tax levies, the the district will generate from these four mills 35.4 million. That means when they in 2008, we generated 35.4 4 million

058and in the 2627 budget year we will generate $35.4 million. The next mill set in 2018 is what's called a fixed dollar mill again but this one is unique from the prior four in that it grows by inflation. Therefore, at this point in 2026, that uh that mill now generates 34.7 million. So regardless now of what happens with um the net assessed valuation, if the net assessed valuation goes up, it would have to go up, you know, depending on how it went up in relationship to that inflation number to to depend on what would happen with the mill levy rate. The last one which was passed in 2025 by our voters is what's called a fixed mill rate. And this is a mill of 8.795. That mill rate or the tax rate will not change.

059In other words, in 2026, it will be 8.795. And assuming everything is okay with my heart in FY uh 56, that was a joke. In FY56, uh the tax levy will still be 8.795 mills. So if the NAV uh increases, the net assessed valuation increases, then the dollar amount generated from that levy would increase. And as we've seen now uh where we're in an environment where net assessed valuation actually decreases, then the amount we would generate from those mills would also decrease. This is in addition these mill levby overrides. An override is an override that overrides the other statutory statutoily required mills. The first one of those is the total program mill which helps to fund our per the district's per pupil share of the school finance act and that is set by statute at

06027 mills. The next is our abatement mill and abatements are statutoily required to recapture prior year abatements at both of our counties. And the last is the bond redemption mill. And that mill levy is set to collect a sufficient amount for the principal interest uh payments on our bonds. So again, the mill levy override overrides the statutoily allowed maximum that is set in the total program levy and the abatement levy now and I'll turn it over to our fact team as we go through uh the the other pieces of the report now. We focus specifically on board policy 2.4.16. 4.16 and the superintendent shall not fail to ensure that the mill levy override funds are used and distributed according to the plan established by the board. So I want to talk just briefly about that

061is that every year we about this time and in fact by the end of this month we will come to you with a proposed budget. Within that proposed budget, uh the superintendent has allocated the mill levy override funds in that budget and for the 2018 mill specifically around the strategies identified in elevate. The next uh few slides which I won't uh go through individually are very similar to of course everything that we have said about the 2018 5C mill in that 5C accountability then uh specifically has identified as it did in the FY 2526 budget and it will in the 2627 budget identifies the program areas u that relate to that mill. And prior to the passage or the adoption uh by our voters of the 2025 mill, we shared with you the slide that

062showed the decreasing purchasing power of of the inflation of of those additional original mills. So you can see that inflation has really driven uh quite high but the dollars that we've collected over that amount of time because none uh those were not inflation adjusted except for the 2018 mill we've really lost that purchasing power over that amount of time. during our presentation to fact our chief academic officer uh Megan Kaine as well as members of our IT team and members of business services uh presented to fact the different pieces of of the 2018 mill and I want to turn it over to two of our members there are probably two of our more recent members and I'm glad that they are here and uh they they promised me they would come whether we had a

063little bit of snow or 25 ft of snow. So I'm very glad that they are here and what I would ask uh for them to share with you tonight is uh the discussions that they've heard over the last year uh from both the chief academic officer from IT and business services around areas in which we are spending uh these funds and that they have heard uh the areas uh of emphasis for the 2018 mill for 21st century learners for diverse learning for outside the classroom learning for safe schools for seals for world-class staff and overall in the 2526 investment of $34.7 million and again this begins at the cabinet level. The budget then is presented to the board of education. uh it is amended at the usually in January as it was this year January

064of 26 and then the fiscal year u budget does uh as adopted and amended uh includes the $347 million. So I'll have Bob, are you going to start and introduce yourself to the board and and here we go. I'll step over here. >> Hello, my name is Bob Keeler. Thank you for having me uh this evening. It's been a pleasure being on the FAC. I've been there for about a year. A little bit of history, I spent almost 20 years in public accounting focused on uh governments, higher education, hospitals, uh not for profofits, and then the last about 16 years I was the uh system controller for the University of Colorado. Uh so uh as uh Erin was saying uh we've had some great presentations to the audit and finance committee, finance and audit committee.

065Uh one thing that uh we've gone over is uh the proper um um u uh use of the funds uh to make sure the funds but from these mill levies are being used appropriately. and based on the presentations from Aaron and Gina and the others that he'd mentioned uh we feel comfortable with that. Uh there's also things what we call internal controls that are in place uh that have been discussed uh in depth uh to ensure that these funds are being used appropriately and those do appear to be being used as they are have been approved both by the voters and by the elevate program itself. Um uh uh we've um part of our responsibility is to be informed of all this and uh again Aaron and Gina and the others have done excellent job

066of doing all that. So I feel very comfortable with what uh is being presented tonight and I'll turn it over to uh Chris. >> Hi, my name is Christa McGrady. Um I am also new to the fact I'm also new to Adams 12 as I have my first kindergartener in the district this year. So, um I was excited to jump in and as Bob said, I also have no concerns. We've received a lot of um presentations around this and frankly the district is doing a lot more than I realized um coming into the district. So, this was very eye opening and um very kind of encouraging too, I would say, as a new parent. So, again, no concerns and no findings with the um presentations that we received this year. Any questions for Kristen or

067for Bob? And I just want to finish uh this piece of the presentation on 2025 the 5B mil levy override. We're going to eventually run out of letters and numbers to uh describe and we sit in cabinet at times and and the superintendent will say 5B and I have to look back at my cheat sheet to remember which one we're talking about. If we're talking about 5C or 5B, 5B uh as you all know, we've begun collecting uh the tax receipts for 5B as they were initially uh build and sent out to our property tax owners in January. This is the investment uh focus for 5B and you will see this in our budget presentation in the superintendent's proposed budget at the end of this month. One thing I would mention about the 25 5B

068mil levby override is that we have as was allowed in the budget for 2526 to distribute approximately um we're in the middle of the distributions approximately what we believe to be 3.6 million to our charter schools. So that is an expenditure that is occurring out of the 5B mill levy funds and as we receive those funds through June uh we will make the appropriate per people distribution to our charters as it relates to the 25 5B mill and of course the 5B accountability will remain the same and we will extend the accountability presentation to FAC to include 2025 five uh throughout the 2627 uh fiscal year as we had mentioned earlier it adjusts it would adjust on net assessed valuations but it will not exceed 8.795 mills and similar to all other pieces starts with

069a cabinet planning presentations to cabinet and then it is presented by the superintendent it to the board for adoption by June 30th. So, it'll be at our June 3rd board meeting and then amended as appropriate at the January board meeting. This elevates the purchasing power of the mily overrides because again uh this adds now the allowable taxes from the 25 mil. However, uh this does not necessarily mean that the purchasing power will always increase based on the 25 mil, right? Because if NAV goes down, then the amount of funds that we would collect would also go down. Okay? So, um, for the sake of my own heart, uh, that is all I have to present and and to see, uh, Gina's not going to let me forget this little presentation, um, from the American Heart

070Association. I'm going to be I'm going to be in trouble for a while. Any any questions um, from the board that I can answer or members of fact can answer at this time? No questions, but thank you to Miss Mcrady and Mr. Keeler for your work on the financial accountability committee. It's an important service to the district. Thank you. >> Yeah, I would echo that and the experience is is invaluable that you guys bring to the to the committee. >> Same. That's what I sat on the committee before joining the board. So, I know the hard work that the members do and the extra time they put into it. So, thank you. >> Yes. Thank you. Um, we wouldn't have committees without community input. So, thank you. >> And I'll say a few things maybe

071a little bit longer than board members, but not too long because I know you're chomping to get on the treadmill, Erin. So, uh, just a few things I would share. Uh, one is that I probably uh looking through rosecolored glasses, but my hope is that we don't have to continue to play the number and alphabet game and have more and more overrides. I really hope that the last override is the last one that we pass. And I just feel like it's another opportunity to remind folks that our Colorado Constitution says that we should have a thorough and uniform system of public education in the state. And because we have such huge disparities in these Milwaukee overrides across the 178 school districts, many of the students in the state don't have a thorough education that certainly

072isn't uniform. There are gross disparities that exist out there. And there's also disproportionate burdens that Malevy overrides place on certain communities based upon income and property values within their community. So the 27Js and Adams 12s of the world, if Malevioites continue to be the funding mechanism to really get us to a place that's more adequate in supporting kids and providing the right things, it's going to to continue to have the huge disparities between the halves and have nots. And I I see hopeful opportunities at the state legislature to look at different ideas in the future for the state bringing more money in and placing less of the burden on property taxes and local communities, which I think will be a huge step forward. The second thing I would just emphasize that I I felt like

073was validated by uh our outside reviewers is that we take our finances and spending money on what we promised and what we said we're going to do and accounting for it and all the technical ways that GAAP requires very seriously. And I'm just mindful about some of the controversy that's been in the Cherry Creek schools recently as one example that if your financial house starts to become in disorder, it compromises your reputation on all the other things that you do. So, we invest a lot of effort in that. And we're grateful for Gina and Aaron and others who are involved in that effort. And then finally, I just want to thank Kristen and Bob, too. It's nice to have your commitment, your time, uh your expertise, and thanks so much for lending those gifts to

074us. Thank you, Chris. I also want to say, sorry I'm late. Um, but I also want to take a moment to appreciate our community for supporting this mill levby override last fall because I think that it's been a game changer for what we have to look forward to um in planning next year and not just Cherry Creek, but I hear a lot of other districts, you know, thinking about next year on the ballot. I'm thinking, I'm so glad we don't have to do that. And of course, you know, I am very glad uh thanks Chris for moderately mentioning uh that perhaps I do have a brain uh but I do not have a heart. So I I am actually good. U you have to love uh you have to love the Wizard of Oz. Thank

075you all very much. Thank you. >> Thank you. and I'm gonna jump in and thank you um repres Thank you, Vice President. >> It's been a day. Okay, take off the rep hat. Put on the schoolboard hat. Um sorry, it's the end of the session and things get kind of crazy. Um thank you for stepping in for me until I could get here. Um our next agenda item is recommendation for North Glenn High School PBL problems. Um the North Glenn High School uh is a STEM program and um they reached out to the whole world actually on ideas for pro problem based learning projects. So, I have offered to the board to come up with ideas and I see that uh Paula has a whole list there. But, um just some of the it would

076be a great conversation for us to have to come up with some um ideas to send back to North Glenn High and maybe even STEM lab and STEM launch for their kids to take and solve um a real life situation problem. So, who has some ideas? So, just to clarify, I have vision problems right now. So, I have a massive and I forgot to print double-sided. So, don't let that suggest something that's not true. I so public comment brought up cell phones, which is very funny because I was saying to Congresswoman Person yesterday that um I ask every student I get a chance to like what's what do you think about cell phones? Um and and surprisingly they they do want them limited although none of them would admit that. Um and they get mad

077when we do. But um it also wraps around this AI idea and I just I know it's it's was just introduced in the legislature. I know um when you expand AI, you talk about data centers, you talk about uh privacy. So I I feel like there's a lot around that. And then also um and this may be too much, but we could break it up is um talking about digital literacy in general and and you know that need for librarians and that that piece of it. So I think that would be a really unique um I I would love to hear the perspective of the next generation that generation coming up on that >> piece. Well, and to kind of I guess maybe be in the same boat as well as like social uh AI

078and cell phon but social media. Um you know this generation has grown up with it. Um, and so it's the impacts of social media on I mean literally everything I think making friends, socializing in school, learning um, jobs. Uh, yeah. So something around that. I think AI could be a really interesting topic for students because it's really it's it's juicy in that we have a group of people who are very very reluctant to adopt it because we're still waiting to see the impacts on students and learning. I say we because we obviously know what camp I fall into. Um but on the other hand, we have a society around us that's really pushing it and advertising it. And at my position at CU Boulder, I get an email at a from a company trying to

079get me to adopt an AI software um for pedagogical purposes. Um and uh they don't know they're barking up the wrong tree. It doesn't matter. I digress. Um, I do think it's something that students would really benefit from interrogating that problem and determining what role, what limitations, what guidelines might need to be in place to effectively and I don't know why I keep looking at Ike use it in the the high school setting. >> No, I I think we did talk about our mutual concerns during the working level session, Paula and I, regarding AI and my company. In fact, it's it's required that we use claude AI and and I I think Claude can be or any AI tool can be a useful tool, but my concern is that, you know, especially young folks just

080jump into using it without thinking about it analytically. And and I want to thank Shelley for for raising not only the the the cell phone the B2B cell phone concerns in in possible you know process or program that we can have but you've also raised concerns regarding AI and and I think that some of us have those same concerns right um so I think that's something that we should definitely should focus on and and I think when it comes to the North Glenn High School folks I think this could be a juicy problem for them to jump into Um, and it would be interesting to get their feedback because like I mentioned in my company, we're mandating the use of AI, but our engineering group for instance refuses to let young engineers who don't have

081a lot of experience use AI because they don't understand the inputs and they don't always understand whether the outputs, the data that they're getting back makes sense. So they've only restricted it to engineers with at least 15 years, 20 years of experience. So it would be very interesting to see high school kids and see if they can see the same thing they run into the same roadblocks. So I think that's a good opportunity. Actually >> I'd like to add to the mix too because we just had a big discussion about it today was mental health and the effects of all this technology on kids mental health and um even um when it comes to AI chat bots um Unfortunately, it takes imaginary friends to a whole different level and it's scary um to see the

082effects that it has on our young folks. Um but add that to it, too. But it just seems like technology is something that if we're not very careful, it's going to get away from us and the science fiction movies of yesterday are going to come true. So >> well to go off that that you just reminded me I just read an article of how especially kids students are more engaged in a relationship with like AI bots than they are with physical peers. Um so >> it's turning Yeah. >> Yeah. There's a legislation that we're just moving forward this year with that about that because there's been some real serious tragedies because of it. >> Very much so. Yes. including here in Adams 12. >> Yep. >> Um so with that being said, do you want

083to add to it, Chris? >> I'll just share a few things. Uh I think these are great topics to to submit on to the North Glenn leadership team up for students to to consider PBL's on or for staff to develop PBL queries around. Historically, there's a couple of times where students have done PBL work or PBL like work that really has made a a difference in the system. The one that was coming to mind for me is a group of young women at Northland High School years ago who were very interested in pediatric studies around sleep for adolescence and felt like you guys need to change when high school starts and your school start times. And so they did a PBL, they presented to cabinet that took us a couple of years with some other

084stakeholders to make some change. And now we're in a place of uh re-evaluating whether we've received as much bang for the buck as we hoped in terms of students attendance and engagement and all the other things. Um I think some other districts like Pter have since concluded that they didn't get as much gain as they had hoped by changing start times because kids will just stay up later and not sleep anymore than they were before. But it was really influential in terms of saying we need to listen to this. student voice is powerful and when you go through a thoughtful analytical process like a PBL requires it moves people and then more recently at the superintendent student leadership council this year uh for a long time cohorts of that group have said we just feel

085like our high schools don't have the sense of belonging and connection among students that we'd like and so a student who uh did some foreign study in Australia talked about a house system where you get assigned in a vertical cohort of kids where you build deeper sustained connections with one another. And that group did a lot of work to refine the concept, present it to high school principles, and I think it's going to get piloted at Mountain Range next year. So, I say all that stuff, this isn't just like busy work. Uh, it really can have impacts on what happens in the system. And I think whether it's cell phones and should we go from what we've tried this year which is time of day limitations uh to just a complete bell-to-bell ban as Shelley

086suggested whether it's AI and what are the right ages and the right times uh for AI to be used or not looking at things like the use of technology in the school setting and what we permit or require um and how that impacts mental health. I think they're all really weighty things for students to consider and the faculty to consider. I would assume in terms of next steps, we'd have Stephanie probably communicate this discussion and what you shared with the STEM learning coordinators over at Northland High School so they can take next steps. >> Well, the only um caveat I would offer is that I think it's also good, you've already mentioned some of this what sort of outcome or how we might use this information that we gain from them, right? That's an important

087part of the PBL experience. So in with AI, if we suggest that as a topic, the board would like to see suggestions on AI adoption for the following grade levels, I think that would be good direction to give to North Glenn High School. Um, what I did have another idea of a really concrete output that we could ask the North Glenn students and that is the question around preK through fifth grade access to laptops and whether or not that should be limited or how limited should be limited it should be and that could be really great exploration for for them to look into um from a civic participation sort of government lens I think so that's another suggestion I have um again a lot of this could be just policy suggestions for the board but

088you know and some of it may not actually uh come back to the board at all potentially they could be just district policies that go through policy council but having the analysis uh and a presentation from students could really be a useful part of that discussion >> and you know just wanted to add going to a lot of the future forward centers um a lot of the companies that great kids are going to um are using AI. So, I think that whatever North Glenn High School does in in terms of looking at some of these pressing challenges, they should also look at it through the lens of kids going right into the workforce and how that's going to help them as well. You know, we have our concerns obviously with AI chat bots, but there's

089a practical application in using uh AI and some of our kids are closer than others to using it for practical purposes that allow them to start their career. So, I think that that should be also possibly in scope. >> Okay. Well, I think we got some ideas out there. Okay. Um on to operating limitations 2.1 closure, consolidation, repurposing of schools. Um you have in your packets a draft and a revised draft because we went over the draft last time. Um, do we have any um thing we'd like to discuss here about um any of the changes that we made from last time? >> Were there any revisions made to the previous version? >> No. This was you guys were kind of taking the time to reflect on it was kind of presented last time giving

090you guys some time to >> have any suggestions for this time. The only suggestion I had at that point was uh revisiting making sure we specify some sort of community input avenue um and leaving it to the discretion of the best way to solicit that community feedback. >> Paula, can you talk more about input on what issue? Like for example, I think there's been some discussion at our webinar and I think Bo last time in my absence talking about working with LRPAC for example to say what are the criteria for thriving schools that could be really the standard we try to achieve at greater scale and schools that aren't three rounds for example might be ones that we look at for possible closure or consolidation and there's a lot of other input things that we've

091done but my sense is maybe that is or isn't aligned with your interests. So >> that is aligned. Um I think it's just and I will let anybody else here who wants to jump in on this. If you have ideas or suggestions, please do. Um it's just making sure that people have feel like they have had a say and that they were able to weigh in. Um and it could be um just ensuring that the thriving schools piece if this is going to happen how can they ensure that their kids move from one school to an equivalent giving them space and time to get details on that those assurances. Um it could also just be the LRP pack or other committees finding conduits to solicit information. And the important part to me I think is

092just specifying in the policy language that avenues will be provided for that input. I think we need to be very careful about that though because in any time where we've asked for community input on very important things like start time, end time, calendar. What we tend to see is half want one thing and half want the other. So that means half are going to be happy and half aren't. So I I'm all about collecting information from the community. Um but I think also they need to understand that that the district has um a framework of how they're going to make their decision. And maybe that's part of where um it's giving making sure that people are aware of that framework and how it's functioning and the um how we're really trying to cure the best

093interests of the students in this endeavor. Yeah, I was going to add that I I think that in this very challenging time, and I appreciate the parents uh that came and and spoke today, um transparency is going to be key. >> Um there are going to be people that are going to be disappointed, people that are going to be fine with it, etc., etc. But I think to Paula and and Lor's point, transparency is key. That's what you want. You want to understand what's going to happen, why it's happening, what are the next steps to support you and your kids and and I think that's what we will do our best to do. >> I think well I have a procedural question so go ahead. >> So I just want to try to search for

094more clarity here. So I would say I concur 100% about transparency and thoughtful explanation. I would characterize that as an output instead of an input. And I'm just wondering um getting back to where we started with Paula. It feels like we've done work with LRPAC. We had a webinar last week and we asked people give us feedback about criteria. What things do you care most about? One of the things uh the big winner in terms of things that people would want to make sure that we have more of are full-time people in schools and not specialists teachers shared between buildings and APs and interventionists and the rest. in terms of what criteria do you feel like are most compelling? Um there is a a really tight horse race uh like the Kentucky Derby between like

095four or five of those criteria that were pretty close, but we've gotten input through folks like that. We've talked to principles and teachers about what makes your school work and what are you missing right now that you feel like is an impediment to doing the best work. So, I feel like I'm just searching. Are there more input things about developing criteria that you feel like we haven't done that we should do between now and making a recommendation? Or do you feel like what we've done to try to develop criteria that are in many cases reflected in this draft policy that what we've done so far is fine, but moving forward transparently communicating our why and our analysis um and our why not potentially for some decisions would be really important. And then really having a

096lot of engagement with families about we want to help you find the right next place. If it's not your new boundary school, we want to help you find the new right place. And we're going to do lots of partnering and discussion and collaboration with you to make that happen. I'm just trying to figure out what do we need to do now? What do we need to do later in terms of expectations? >> So the criteria piece and maybe it is that I'm confusing my inputs and my outputs. Um uh the criteria I think that we established was solid criteria. I think it's a matter of just regularly communicating as we move through this process. Um instead of once we have people coming in and giving feedback and then maybe 8 months later we do it

097again. More consistent frequency I guess in here's what's going to happen next. Here's where we are. Here's how we're going to comm. So just people maybe I'm asking for people will receive regular communications on the process of school consolidation. Um and the other piece is um it goes back to the equity audit that I had referenced earlier just in the process like Ike said making it transparent. Here's how we evaluated each of the schools we suggested according to the criteria. I think doing that will help allay any sort of equity concerns um with which schools were closed and why. Does that help? So, I I appreciate um Lor's point that um we want to we want to stay away from like pitting um and I know that that and and my job has happened this

098year and in budget cuts and you guys just figure out what program uh and Medicaid to cut. So, and it it did not go well. Um so, I I think we want to stay away from that. But I have I have a question on where the data or where the feedback um like from the webinar is being housed and is and and I think that's an output question, right? That's not that's not necessarily what we need in the criteria, but I'm just curious um and where it can be accessed by people. So I believe on that uh I did a little video afterwards and just encouraged people to look more at the video if they weren't able to watch live and I think that was emailed out to people today. I'm going to look at

099Joe for just affirmation. I think it will live on our website on a page dedicated to closure and consolidation so people could look at it at their leisure. I assume that there's probably things that extract out some of the polling data that we had uh especially about what's what's the most important thing for us to uh to make better, which is this full-time staff piece, and then what are the criteria that should receive the greatest weight in the in the system. if it's not already broken out and boxed on our website. I think those are easy things for us to do. >> It's also on the is it Apogee or whatever the app? Um because I got the notification for it. >> Yeah, I got No, I sorry. I meant the didn't we ask for

100input from the community back. >> So, we did some live polling that night. Uh some was like basic are you a parent, a student, those kinds of things. Then we asked probably three or four other questions as my recollection. And the two that are most prominent on my mind are what are the factors uh that should be attached uh what are the most significant reasons that would support making a closure consolidation and I think 74% or so of the people said getting to a place where we don't have part-time staff for specials and those things uh was the strongest interest by far. And those results are up. Is that Sorry. That's what you're saying. Those >> I'm I don't know if they're like boxed out separately from the video right now on the web page,

101but if they're not, they will be. Sound good, Joe? Is that something we can do? Yep. >> And I just wanted to follow up with I think Paula actually said it much better than I did. Um, transparency, just regular communication. I think that's what I meant to be honest with you. Um, and I think as long as everyone is kept up to speed, regular basis, uh, on on what's going on, I I think that that would go a long way. But the transparency, you're you're right, Chris, it's it's there. Um, everything is, you know, already been laid out. It's just a regular communication, that's all. Yeah. >> So, on the communication part, another check-in. Um, so we started being really public about we're going to need to do this starting in March. Um, so we're

102now a couple months in. We're likely to do another communication to folks. Uh, as we head into summer and then probably be fairly quiet in summer because a lot of people check out and don't pay attention and then start messaging again in August and have I would think maybe two or three communications before a set of recommendations comes to the board midepptember to late September for your consideration. I'm just checking to see if that amount of communication feels like sufficient. Um I'll just share that we've talked to lots of other folks who've been down this path in other districts before and um I think some of the critical things is we don't want this to fester too long because there's so much speculation and fear going on in our system right now. I mean, we've

103heard some of that tonight that there's a lot of schools right now that are engaging in that and it can be distraction and stressful and hard and the longer you prolong it, I think uh the misery index can increase. And then you want to have some meaningful amount of time is our sense for people to react to a sense of uh to a set of recommendations but not have it linger so long that people are just in a place of conflict for months. Um, and so really just on those two pieces, I would expect our current thinking is communicate in May as we're finishing up, communicate in August when people come back, probably a couple communications before recommendations or to the board and maybe um about a month's time between recommendations are made to you

104and when the board would take action with some opportunities for people to provide feedback about I think this is really a good idea or a really bad idea or I have questions. That's the kind of thing we're thinking about in terms of timing. Just helpful to and we can get we will get more specific and dialing out those details, but it's just a temperature check right now to see is that aligned to the kinds of expectations you would have. >> Uh, that sounds like a good place to be. >> I don't know. >> Sorry. Are we good with the draft then? I don't have the draft in front of me right now, so I don't know if it references regular communication, but I would like to see just a reference to regular communication. And again,

105this is just to codify in the future. Um hopefully we will not see this happening anytime in the next 10, 20 years, but for the next group of people, um that same expectation. Can we find a place to >> No, there's definitely ways we can tinker with this. I would suggest just given some of the feedback I've heard about the input feedback p uh part uh the communication piece that we can bring another draft back for the next meeting of May. And I think hopefully uh that one will be ready and ripe for adoption. I would just want to explore two other questions with you uh quickly to make sure that uh we're heading down the right page. So, one of them is in um section 4A of the draft policy. It talks about minimizing

106reassignment of students to multiple schools. And I'll just say as we've modeled a variety of scenarios uh over the last number of months, there are some scenarios that will be a onetoone. We're going to move all the students in school A into school B. There's a a number of situations probably um the most number of situations where you move students into two schools just because absorbing an entire school and another school uh is problematic in some places. And then there might be u situations where you have a split to three three schools being probably the most number of uh reassignments that we've seen. Um, so I guess the way I'm interpreting this language is that there's an expectation and a desire that we minimize those um those choppy assignments to other schools, but that if

107we do have situations where it's more than one and it's two or three, depending on the why behind that, that might be an acceptable recommendation through this policy lens. So, I'm just checking on how people might react to that. And then the final thing I'm struggling with or just wanting uh to highlight as uh one of the pieces of this is that um there's a t there's a reference in section 2B and then again in 4E about in general having students have maintaining or improving their learning opportunities for displaced students in their new school. And then in 4E, it says something pretty similar about providing similar or expanded opportunities for displaced students to be part of a thriving school experience. And I'll say one of the things we're wrestling with and his attention is that

108um this issue about what we're providing to to to display students can also conflict with what we're providing or not providing to all the rest of students in the system. So part of the reason why people start to look at school closure for smaller schools is that they often receive disproportionately significant resources compared to others. We we have some schools that might receive three or $4,000 more per child at an elementary school than other schools in the system and we start multiplying by like 350 students which can be is becoming a more typical elementary school size. That resource differential is in excess of a million dollars a year. So, if you're closing that school that has a million dollars more per year, it's possible that those students will go to a new school where they

109don't have the same robust services and supports that they had before so we can provide more of those things more consistently throughout the system. Um, I'm just checking in to see if if some recommendations of that sort make the list. Do you feel like that requires some policy language adjustment? Um, I just feel like it's one of the heavy things we're wrestling with right now. We want to do right by all kids and we don't want kids to have a marketkedly different experience. We want it to be the same as or better in material ways everywhere that we can. But there could be times that if you're a school that's received a lot more per pupil support than some other place, maybe your new school uh doesn't have some of the extras that you had

110before. By extras, what do you mean? >> I mean, we're not talking about We're talking about extras as an afterchool uh clubs and programs. >> It could be extracurriculars. It could be specials allocations. It could be uh electives at a middle school level because we're looking at elementaryaries and middle schools. So, it would be things in those categories. Again, I think it kind of goes back to, you know, as decisions continue and looking at all the different options, it's kind of going back to what you said, Paula, of being able to whatever decisions are made in outcome, being able to align to those criteria that have been set >> to be able to explain explain why that might be and why um to help better understand is it what two you said 2B and um

1114E so those within this uh policy but to help explain that because I don't know how that might be avoided completely >> and I do I can't imagine some trade-off trade-off scenarios where maybe there's not um x y or z special, but maybe they will see benefits in other areas like maybe there will be more interventionists at that school or maybe there will be um more co-taught classes for kids who are on IEPs that they would benefit from. And I think that's what I think of air when you say it's just a matter of communicating with parents that this is what they will be gaining from that. So I guess the way I would simplify uh what you said um Paula is instead of like a line item analysis about I had this at school

112A and it's either present or not at school B, it's more of a holistic review of what's the set of things that are part of a school experience now and what's the set of things that are available in a new situation. I mean, there are some things we do want to to be careful about, but you all are obviously aware of them that if a child has an IEP with X, Y, or Z um guaranteed supports in one school, we want to see those in the other school, too. But, you know, >> maybe one last thing I'll share. Uh, I think you had discussion last time about repurposing of sites. Um, and this is thirdhand. I've not like watched the video of that meeting from when I was in DC, but it sounded like some

113there might be some interest in having really a concrete plan about if school X is going to be closed, it's going to be use Y next. And we know that uh as part of rolling this out, I'll say uh that that's an expectation. And I think it's going to be a really difficult one for us to meet, not for a lack of interest or effort, but we've began meeting with uh city leadership across our uh school district and talking about the possibility of some school closures so they can start to think about needs they may have whether it's for recreation purposes, senior citizens, housing. Um there's a whole lot of things that are possibilities, but until you can get to the spot of saying it's going to be school X that's available where we won't

114be in that spot until after these announcements are made, I think a lot of things aren't really going to take get traction in terms of either a city use or some nonprofit or third party use until we say school X has been closed or will be closed. Um, so I I may uh suggest some edits that I feel like we are earnestly uh putting a lot of energy into letting our cities know well in advance so that they're not surprised and so that they can partner with us and finding new uses where we need to have new uses that are compatible with city needs and neighborhood needs because we don't want um school closure to be any more painful than it will be already. uh for displaced families and kids. But just wanted to bring

115that awareness in that as much as we'd like to have the whole master plan locked down and say here's where everything's going to be and here's the next use and it's all going to be in place by August of 27, it's not likely to work that way. Okay, great conversation. On to an action item. Proclamation National Gun Violence Awareness Day. I will entertain a motion to adopt the proclamation declaring June 5th, 2026 as National Gun Violence Awareness Day and Adams 12 FiveStar Schools as presented. >> So moved. >> Second. >> And I understand that Kathy Kelly was here and spoke earlier. Thank you Kathy for being here. Um Kathy and I um have conversations fairly often now at the Capitol. Um and some of the stories that I hear from some of the moms um

116in terms of gun violence are very heartbreaking. Um and you have to compete with uh some of the Second Amendment rights advocates that sometimes can get a little um uncomfortable. But those of us that have spent any time in schools understand the importance of um safe gun use. That doesn't mean it belongs in school. And uh unfortunately June 5th we're out of school, but um we will still rec we can still recognize it. Comments. Oh, I would just like to add that I think, you know, when we when we think of gun violence, we usually think of it um you know, being inflicted onto somebody else. Um and yeah, that is a big portion. But what I don't think people realize is the majority of gun violence is self-inflicted and um and usually by very

117young members of population. And so, um, yeah, this is really critical. Again, it ties into mental health, obviously. And, um, so thank you for fighting the good fight, Kathy, and to everyone else. This is a really, really important topic. And again making um just bringing awareness of um yeah mental health and our young people that are put in situations new situations every day that we are not prepared for. So I'd also say thank you. this is a fight we shouldn't have to have, but um the work is important and I I appreciate it. Um and since studios in the house, I would also say that I um call them out a lot because I think the relationship with their SRO and and the community has just been one that we can truly highlight. Um, I

118know, you know, my son knows and feels very comfortable and, um, I know that doesn't work for every district, but, um, I appreciate the way Adams 12 has has gone through this and thank you again for passing the mill so we can, um, increase safety, but again, I I think that relationship is and and how it's borne out is just really really um, good for our our students. So, >> director Anan Wubo, >> I >> director Assad Lucas, >> hi. >> Director Batistelli, >> I. >> Director Goldstein, >> hi. >> Director Marsh Holen, >> hi. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. On to minutes. I will entertain a motion to adopt the minutes of the April 15th, 2026 work study session and regular board meeting as presented. >> So moved. Second. >> Director Ananubo. >>

119I. >> Director Assad Lucas. >> Hi. >> Director Bastelli. >> Hi. >> Director Goldstein. >> Hi. >> Director Marsh Holen. >> Hi. >> Okay. On to uh monitoring report number one. Internal monitoring report 1.1 K12 core content curriculum articulations with school specific examples. I will entertain a motion to acknowledge that the board received a monitoring report as of May 6, 2026 for the 2025 2026 school year and finds the superintendent's interpretations are reasonable, supported by data that is relevant, justified, and complete. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Okay. Hi, Mr. Mayor. >> Good evening, Superintendent Gdowski, board members. Um, this is one of the more extensive monitoring reports we put together, but also one of the more, I think, illuminating reports to give you a feel for what content students are being exposed to in

120our schools and these activities that they're engaged in. Um, there's two components to this report. The first is the curriculum articulation that shows how does the curriculum expand from elementary through high school. The second is around um educational experiences students have the opportunity to experience in their classrooms and in their schools that align with the definition of these complex life skills or what we call a complex demonstrations of learning. Um I do before we start I'll give give you a high level overview and I'll be happy to uh entertain any questions you may have. But I want to first uh give my sincere thanks to the content coordinators who really invest a lot of time and effort to give you this curriculum articulation and show you not just the standards but then what are some

121tasks what are some things that students will be doing and what level of demonstration do they have to make to meet the standards. So I really want to express my thanks there. I also want to express my thanks to all the principles in our system who take time to review these documents and and highlight the good work that's going on in their schools. Um, so really want to start there. In the first portion, you'll see that this articulation is for all the four main content areas, English language arts, math, science, and social studies. In ELA, what we're looking at is the articulation informational text reading and thenformational expository writing. In math, we're looking at a math practice standard. It's not necessarily one particular content area of math, but it's how do you model mathematically, which

122can apply to any real content standard. In science, we're looking at a life science standard about uh interdependent relationships and ecosystems. And then lastly, in social studies, we're looking at the economics strand, the Colorado economics strand. And so it really provides an overall picture of what does this look like from early elementary all the way through high school in each of those areas. Um before we get on to the complex demonstrations, I didn't know if you had any questions about what you read or saw. >> Okay. In terms of complex demonstrations, what I can share is I reach out every year to the schools to get their information that they'd like to highlight. And what I would say is over half the schools, 53% of them made some change to the content they provided this

123year. They're constantly looking at what are they providing and then how can they really help students reach these high standards of comp complex reasoning and problem solving things that are really going to be the most important things they learn in school as they go to apply in their life. Any questions about the the uh complex demonstrations from the schools? >> I appreciated the layout and the organization of it. It was easy to follow. >> I have to say it's much improved from years past on how we've digested this. >> It really helps to see what students are actually encountering in classrooms. When we get to a good point, I do have some love I want to send out for some of the activities I saw. So, just put a pin in that shar. >> Sure.

124>> I didn't know it was time. I'm sorry. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Thank you, Mr. Bo, for always being willing to stick with us and we make make you wait till the very end. Um, so I don't have the name of this one, but one of the organi one of the the schools and I feel terrible for this. Um, they have a no place for hate student leaders group that they offer and um an anti-bullying superhero day where they identify their anti-bully superpower. Um, and that just that was amazing. I love I love that idea. And uh I I read through all of these. I don't know if that's a compliment or weird on my part, but I'll, you know, they're both fine. And ML Wayne had some really interesting activities. I liked their um

125common educational opportunity, a study of how communities manage resources and resolve conflict. And that was really interesting to me because when I looked at other examples of a marit town and the financial park, it was all very sort of informational, but this seems to really complicate that topic. And I appreciated that that sort of nuance and having people think through the fact that resources, finances, they're they're they're scarce and it causes conflict. So, um, Coyote Ridge, their partnership with St. Paul Primary School in um what's the in Uganda. That's amazing where the kids get to meet with the students and they raise money for the school. I loved seeing that. I love the fact that they have that sort of global connection. Um which is great for developing appreciation for other cultures. Uh and apparently

126oh uh Cotton Creek they have three special education programs um beyond beyond mild moderate support SSN and two SLS and they work really hard to integrate their kids into the general education curriculum and they have a a a system there where they keep them in the core instruction as much as they can and I wanted to call that out as a really great thing to I don't know if anybody out there is listening but I I want to make sure I say that there's some great stuff happening. Um, and then finally, the Spanish for native speakers course at Federal Heights is just a beautiful thing because I hear so many stories of people who grew up speaking Spanish, but when they came to the states, their parents to help them acclimate did not cultivate that

127continued use. And so they lost that skill. And so seeing that appreciated and continued uh to be offered to native Spanish speakers is so important for for that cultural competency piece. So yeah, I just wanted to call those out. >> Absolutely. I'll be sure to share that with those principles. Thank you for looking at these these activities so carefully. >> I read every page despite my eyes complaining the entire time. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great evening. >> We have to vote still. >> I know. >> Oh. >> Director Anan Wubo. >> I. >> Director Assad Lucas. >> Hi. >> Director Batistelli. >> Hi. >> Director Goldstein. >> Hi. >> Director Marsh Holen. >> Hi. >> Okay. Thank on to internal monitoring report 2.4 financial conditions and activities. I will entertain a

128motion to acknowledge that the board received a monitoring report as of May 6, 2026 for the period July 1st, 2025 through March 31st, 2026 and finds the superintendent's interpretations are reasonable and supported by data that is relevant, justified, and complete. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Hi Gina. >> Good evening board. I'm Gene Elvinir, CFO, and I'm here to report on internal monitoring report 2.4. In your packet, you have the monitoring report, the presentation, and the quarterly financial statements. I will go through the PowerPoint presentation. Um, as always, ask questions along the way, and um or hold them to the end, whichever you prefer. So, as a reminder, we review the financial conditions of the district on a quarterly basis. We're primarily looking at um those two four five categories throughout the monitoring report and

129I'll touch base on each of them. So we um monitor our fund balance and reserves and so of note as of March 31st our Taber reserves are around $15 million. That's on page two of the monitoring report. we we are required to set those aside. And so in the report, we're showing that compliance. The next piece is where we highlight how the district is doing with the board policy requirement to hold no less than 4% of unassigned fund balance and no more than 8%. We are currently forecasting that as of the end of the fiscal year, we'll have roughly 5% which is just under $25 million. And um I think this is a really good place to land at the end of this fiscal year, especially with some of the uncertainty you're hearing about things

130wild, I don't know, wildly might be an exaggeration, but things changing in the school finance act, what we are expecting, and then cushioning us against any unexpected things around enrollment, federal funding policies, and whatnot. So, you can find that information on page four of the monitoring report. We continue to monitor our cash position um investments and liquidity. And so if I flip to the next slide on page five of the monitoring report, we show the district's um cash position, what you may notice is um in March, our cash, that tall bar graph line is um a lot higher than previous months. And that's because of the timing of collecting our property taxes. So that number I expect will be even higher in June and some of that is um directly related to the passing of

131the new mill every override that we are not going to spend in this fiscal year. So that impacts our cash balance. Um, the other thing I'll note is our monthly operating expenses, they they really trend pretty average and that's because the bulk of our expenditures over 80% are related to salaries and benefits. So, we don't have big swings with that on a monthly basis. And then we uh monitor our accounts payable to make sure that we're not paying late fees, paying things um paying any fines, assessments around those type of things. We're reporting compliance there. We monitor our accounts receivable and we um consistently monitor our liquidity around what we have what we have obligations for. And then on um pages 8 through 10, we have our information around what the district is doing year

132to date through March 31st around spending with the bond override. So, as of March 31st, the district has spent $44.7 million. That does include the 12.4 million transfer to charter schools, and we've obligated encumbered 51.9 additional million. And so, that's as of March 31st. Um, as the summer goes on, I anticipate we will be spending the bulk. Um, on a side note, we anticipate issuing the next trunch of the bonds in April of next year. So, the team is still working through some cash flow analysis. And that work, you'll start hearing more about it probably, my guess is maybe October time frame about where we are because there'll be work to do as we plan for that issuance. we don't want to issue too soon because we need to be able to spend it within

133within a certain amount of time for IRS guidelines. So, we we really pay attention to what that looks like. Um, in addition to the bond, we report on the mill levy override. And so, the fact presented tonight, so was a nice tie-in to what you have here in the monitoring report, but you can see that information on pages 11 and 12. And so, it breaks out the um the where those Millvy override dollars are being spent. Okay, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on audit compliance and internal controls because I think the last monitoring report we talked about the update around getting um the and it goes into yeah this is the right slide um where we did the RFP for audit services you've received information around that so we are sticking

134with Clifton Larson Allen and then you received the audit report um you know I'll I'll continue to be super proud of the district for having no findings both on the regular portion of the audit as well as the single audit around federal funds. Um that's that's really a big deal. And so then you have the quarterly financials. Um in the packet I I will say that the um the spending and the revenues really are trending to what we would expect. Um, what I didn't highlight is the last time you received quarterly financials, the budget referenced the adopted budget. Now the budget references the amended budget that you approved in January. So all in all, I said a lot. Um, but I we do report compliance throughout the monitoring report. Any questions? >> Any questions? Let's

135just hope school finance goes well. >> Can I say it was nice to see the numbers going up? >> I don't know. Something that caught my eye is showing Lori is the losing purchasing power and a $20 million difference in 10 years. >> Double. Yeah. >> Yeah. And and as you know that's because those mill levy overrides that we approved prior to 2018 they never change >> right. >> So >> yep >> they cannot keep up they cannot keep up with inflationary costs. I guess I have a a and I don't expect an answer tonight, but just are there like as we're going in this, you know, further in the war and everything else and with the inflation going up, is there like catch points that you guys are looking at or just like, you

136know, kind of like concerning points where purchasing power or um even like in the building of Thornton just like those cost pieces. Um I mean that's kind of a really loaded question I know but um just like things we should be on watch for. >> I I think those teams um even prior to the war we were seeing record inflationary costs as we went into this bond program and so hopefully we built in enough contingency for those pieces. But it's something we do monitor as we're working through the bids on projects. So, it's something we pay attention to, we watch, and um have a lot of conversations about. >> I would just add two pieces to that. Um there are some projects like our nutrition services center that's probably going to cost us $9 million

137or so more than we expected. Um so, for a variety of reasons, including inflation, there are some things that um are not going to go the way that we had hoped. But at the same time, the analysis about contingency and funds on hand has been reassuring to date, and people don't feel like we're going to have to value engineer things down or not complete anything that we've uh committed to trying to pull off. Um the one nice thing about a high inflation or a high interest rate environment is that all the bond proceeds from our first trunch are earning a lot more money than we anticipated. So that helps give us some more hedge against some of these uh inflationary pressures that we're facing. So on the bond side reports to date and bow more

138consistently attends those meetings. Uh nothing that rises to a level of concern at this point. And then in terms of general operations, I just feel like our current model of doing um just funding things isn't sustainable. If inflation tends to continue in like a 2.2 2 2.4% range and you have step increases that are like5 or 1.6% and then you have inflation on health insurance that's 12 to 20% a year and then you have sometimes water rates increasing by 50% in places like Broomfield and on and on and on just all those increasing costs compared to what your new revenue is if you're just getting increases for inflation and then you're decreasing some of that by declining enrollment. It's just a really complicated ongoing calculation and I think really the only way to manage it

139that I see at this point is you just have to be really dialed into all of those factors and you're probably having to trim each year some of your expense so that you can keep up with the market and compensation, pay for health care, pay for non-negotiable things like water and utilities that you have to do. But it feels like the inflation part of things and the more modest increases we get from the state under school funding are squeezing us tighter and tighter every year. >> Well, as always, thank you so much for everything you do to keep us monetarily and fiduciarily responsible. Director Ana Nubo, >> I. >> Director Assad Lucas, >> hi. >> Director Batistelli, >> I. >> Director Goldstein, >> hi. >> Director Marsh Hen, >> I. >> Okay. On to the

140consent agenda. I'll entertain a motion to approve consent agenda items E2 and E3 as presented. >> So move. >> Second. >> Can I say something brief on this? So on item three, um, one of the things that's linked there is a non-renewal report. And I can't recall if Phil Spar um, as Ike was on boarding talked about non-renewal or not. So I'll just give you a a brief overview of what this entails. So under carro state law, the first three years that a teacher works in a full-time or sometimes in a close to full-time uh, status, they're considered a probationary employees. And then after their third year, they become non-probationary and the grounds for releasing them from their employment become more restrictive. Your first three years in general, I think attorneys would say you can

141non-renew a first, second or third year teacher for any reason uh that you deem fit so long as it's not illegal or discrimination, those kinds of bases. So you have uh on this list a number of probationary teachers who are in their first three years of employment across our entire system. And typically the reasons for non-renewal fall into two general categories. One is that we're seeking stronger skills. So we feel like we could find somebody who' be more effective in their role than what we've seen thus far. And so there's a lot of folks where the explanation given to them is we're seeking stronger skills. A second common reason is that we have a a budget-based reduction in your building. We no longer need three fourth grade teachers next year. We need two instead. And

142so then there's processes that typically have us look at our probationary teachers first and then make recommendations for non-renewal. Many of these people who are on a non-renewal list may secure employment in the end uh depending on how things shake out. There are times that somebody's non-renewed, but they wind up picking up picking up a job for the next year because there's an opening that emerges. But that's um from a framework standpoint, what's going on here? And um the person in public comment was speaking about one of those non-renewal situations. Um and just feeling like the process wasn't adequate and we've investigated and felt like non-renewal doesn't meet our standards in that case. Um but otherwise not aware of any controversies or challenges about somebody on the non-renewal list here tonight. >> Um one thing

143I've always had an interest in is that if we have a young person who or young unseasoned educator that can be older too um that's struggling that we do what we can to help them uh strengthen their skills before it's too late. Um because one thing I think that we all see is the um pool of applicants is diminishing as time goes on and um hopefully we're helping um these people grow as educators. Yeah, if that's a commitment we have, we want to be clear with folks that there are things that aren't meeting expectations or could or need could or must be better to be clear about that and then provide coaching and support and monitor and give feedback. So, that's a commitment that we have and I think we meet it uh the vast

144majority of the time and when we don't and it comes to our attention then we want uh to give that person a second shot um with the right kinds of supports to get to where we're expecting. Hi, >> Director Anan Wubo. >> Hi, >> Director Assad Lucas. Hi, >> Director Batistelli. Hi, >> Director Goldstein. >> Hi, >> Director Marsh Hen. >> Hi. >> All right. Um, our next regular meeting is moved to the 27th because of graduation on the 20th. Correct. >> And uh um yeah, we'll be wrapping up. By that time, the school year will be over for the kids, too. And this is my last meeting that I have to juggle with the state legislature. Um, and next week we have graduations, the five comprehensive high school graduations. And unfortunately, um, I might

145it might be difficult for me to make any of them. Um, with a little luck, I might make the evening ones, but um, I did make a video and, uh, I approved of it. So, um, I am going to be really sad not to be there. Um, that's been the highlight. That's the highlight of being a board member is shaking hands and watching the kids with the smiles on their faces and they, you know, their families are there cheering them on and they throw their hats at the end. It's just the coolest thing. So, I'm really sad that I won't be able to do that. And I This will be your first season of graduations. >> Indeed. >> Yeah. >> I'm already a little overwhelmed, >> but I I know not to dress like this.

146No, it will be hot. >> Alexis and I had a long talk with him about his like do not dress warmly. >> But anyway, congratulations up front to all the seniors. Um we're all proud of you and uh you know you've had a five-star education. Um anybody else have any comments? >> Well, you will be there in spirit. Just a quick ad for from me on the calendar that uh unfortunately, regretfully, I won't be at the May 27th meeting because I'll be heading to Africa with uh my wife and my brother-in-law and my other brother-in-law, sisters-in-law for my brother-in-law's 60th 60th birthday. So, the day after uh school concludes, we're heading off to Africa to South Africa and Batswana. But I'll make sure that I've worked with Bo um especially on this closure and consolidation

147language that uh you've given some feedback around so that it's in a good spot. I think everything else is in a fairly routine spot. So I don't expect my absence to cause any challenges and I'll be coming back on the third and we'll show up here uh to close it down for the school year. >> Well, in the words of the Swahili Hakuna Mata, I also won't be here as a reminder on the 27th. So, I'll be in New Orleans. Nothing fun presenting on case conceptualization at a conference. So, instead of, you know, getting to do fun things, I'll be putting people to sleep. So, >> well, have a good time, Chris. Be safe. >> Really exciting. >> And to to Lori, thank you for everything you're doing down at the state capital. Can't thank

148you enough um for putting up doing a good fight. >> Thank you. It's been exciting. Um, so is that mean you're hinting that we won't have a June 17th board meeting? >> Yes. >> I think we may have checked in with you all before and just given what is now emerging, I see no need uh for us to have that meeting at that time. I think we're going to have everything wrapped up uh and in fine shape. There's certainly work that staff is going to do earnestly around closure and consolidation in particular this summer.