001Good evening. Welcome to our regularly scheduled board meeting. Excuse me for being slap happy. I've been graduations all day. Start with roll. Director Assad Lucas here. Director Badestelli here. Director Goldstein here. Director Marsh Holen here. Director Potter here. I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. Director Assad Lucas. I. Director Batistelli. I. Director Goldstein. Hi. Director Marsh Holen. Hi. Director Potter. I. Okay. Rise if you able for the pledge. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation. indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right, next is superintendent update. Thanks, Lori. So, I have a number of things that I thought I would share out tonight. Uh, not necessarily in chronological order, but it's all been fairly recent. The
002first piece I would highlight is the opportunity I had on Monday morning to appear on the CBS morning show along with Michelle Pearson, one of our social studies educators from Century Middle School. four other outstanding educators from other parts of the United States as well as their principles or superintendents. And the purpose of our appearance on uh the morning show was to recognize each of those five individuals as new inductees to the National Teacher Hall of Fame. It was an uplifting event. each of the individual recogni individual inductees receive $20,000 from Canva, which is a tech company that supports education that they can use for whatever purposes they see fit. And I know some of the educators were looking forward to taking parents on trips uh including one woman who wants to take her 94
003year old father I believe uh to the United Kingdom to visit a a museum where there are some things in the family history that are there just uplifting and I appreciated CBS's commitment to recognizing the important role that teachers play in our country and in serving our young people. and it was a pleasure uh to join Michelle for that event. As in addition to the 20,000 that she'll be receiving, Century Middle School will also be getting $20,000 that they can use to further support student needs as well. So, it was a great day. Canva contributed $200,000 in total that day and just an uplifting event. Second of all, I think board members will likely talk about some of their graduation activities over the last week or so as part of their remarks, but I just
004want to thank you all for coming to our graduations. consistently whether they're big or small. Today we had a gradu graduation ceremony with just 50 students present. And um I know from a lot of settings that I've um either witnessed firsthand or that I've heard about from colleagues that boards usually divide and conquer who goes to graduations. And they'll designate a person or two to go to a couple. But for a board of education to consistently appear at 8, nine, 10, 11, depending on how many of the charter school graduations you're able to attend is really unheard of. And it says a lot about your commitment to all students and your commitment to celebrating this important achievement in their life. So, thanks for making time juggling it around with work commitments and other obligations you
005have. It's really impressive and I believe it just sends a really strong statement to our community about the values that we hold as a district starting at the board of education level. Third thing I had jotted down here is last Friday I went to the C uh CSU Spur location with uh Silver Creek principal Darren Oliver and Holstrom principal Colleen Erlic to receive some awards uh from CDE. CDE is apparently a strong believer in the in the saying that it's better to do something late than never. And the purpose of our Friday appearance was to get awards for the 2023 and 2024 school year. It was obviously unusual to be getting those things in May of 2025, but we were glad to go down. And the schools that received recognition included Coyote Ridge, Holstrom, Meridian
006Elementary, Silver Creek Elementary, Stargate, Thunder Vista, K8, and Arapjo Ridge. And some of them received awards for both years. Some of them also received duplicate or two different awards. One for having high achievement, which is the John Irwin award, and the other for having really exceptional student growth, which is the governor's distinguished improvement award. So, it was nice to to be part of that ceremony and we'll be going on the road to recognize school teams as a leadership team over the next few days just to say thanks and congratulations to them. Fourth thing, I just would note that we're almost done with hiring season and that feels really good. This morning, we had finalist interviews for two outstanding candidates to be the next principal at Morstar Elementary. We should be able uh to nail down
007our finalist, make an offer, and make an announcement about that in the next 24 hours or so. And then unless we have an unexpected change and somebody making a a late decision to resign, retire or move somewhere else, we feel like we've got our leadership roster set for next year, which I think this is the soonest in time that we've had that done in a number of years. Feels really good to have that settled and to have outstanding people on board for next year. And then the final thing I'll mention is that tomorrow night I think I'll be seeing lots of my colleagues at on the board for a night of honor ceremony here in this space recognizing some of the staff and volunteers who've been recognized for exemplary performance this year as well as
008saying thanks and goodbye to a number of folks who are retiring after this year of service in our district. I love this time of year hearing our students recognize teachers who've made a huge difference in their lives all throughout their education journey. I love how parts of our community also go further to do that. The Latterday Saints Church community is a place um that often reaches out to us and I think does an exceptional job of recognizing at a night of honor ceremony educators who've done amazing things in the lives of young people and their faith community. and it's going to feel great to do the same here and recognize all those folks tomorrow night. So, look forward to doing that with you all. It's a busy time of year, but it's a good time
009of year. That's it for me. Thank you, Chris. All right, board of education comments, recognition, awards, and vision. We'll start with Director Potter. Thank you, President Goldstein. Um, as Superintendent Gdowski had mentioned, it's been a very busy time of year. So, I want to start by congratulating all of the 2025 seniors that have graduated and I think we have one more left to still graduate. Um, but also thank you to all of the staff that have supported them along the way. I know that we've heard a lot of really um kind of heartbreaking stories about some of the adversities some of these kiddos have had to overcome to make it to graduation day and they wouldn't have gotten there without um the support of all the staff. So, thank you to all the staff um
010and and and most of their parents as well for for helping get these kids to this momentous um occasion in their lives. I also want to recognize um one special person that is retiring this year is Ralph Garcia, the dean at um Horizon High School. Many people don't know that in addition to being the dean, he's been the Horizon baseball coach for all 31 years. that is a long time to coach a program. Um he's had, you know, he was sharing with us there are kids now who he coached their dads back in the day and his entire coaching team is all kids that have come back that have played for him. Um and so I want to take a moment to recognize him and his commitment and his passion for for the boys. Um
011my my own son plays baseball at Horizon and we were at the banquet and just seeing the love and appreciation that the whole community has for Ralph was quite moving. And um with that, I also want to say to our staff and our teachers, not our year- round staff, but everyone else. You're almost there. Keep going. We're almost out for the school year. I know it's a really busy time, not just for us, but for all parents. And you know, kind of the stress and things that the kids deal with going into finals week, it can be a lot. So, hang on. You're you're almost there. Um, and then the final thing that I wanted to share out is um the 2025 free summer meals that are free for youth ages 1 through 18. Um,
012that is provided, I believe, by our nutrition services. Um, there are several locations where families that need additional food resources can go throughout the summer. So, don't don't fret. don't feel like it's the end of the year and and you don't know what to do, those resources are still there and I believe you can find them at our website at adams12.org/summermeals. Thank you. Thank you, uh, Director Marsh Olsson. Thank you. Um, I too want to extend my congratulations to the class of 2025 and um, thank the staff and the support that we get in graduations because it takes a lot um, to put those on. And um, I wanted to just also mention that I don't know that we're unique, but I'm going to go ahead and say that I think we're pretty unique. I
013know um Superintendent Gdowski mentioned um at the Horizon graduation how many of the ES the people on the stage were um Horizon graduates. When we were at the Thornton graduation, I was sitting next to the assistant principal who I went to high school with. Um and I just think that's a really unique thing that we have in this district. Um it's fun. I didn't appreciate hearing this was Legacy's 25th year as it means it's my 20th high school reunion, but um I think the fact that so many of our people stay in this district um is incredibly impressive and it reminds me that of this time every year. So um and I'm very excited tomorrow to honor the those retiring. Um and yeah, that's all I have. Thank you, Director Bastelli. So, um I did
014manage to make one school visit to uh FiveStar online academy and as a lot some of you may know I work in the online world for higher education and so I'm always very appreciative of the work they do to provide alternative means to access education because some kids really need it. Um, and we talked in the graduation ceremony with them today. They they talked about health conditions that they were facing predominantly. And there were also a lot of kids who were on the spectrum, a lot like my kid. And I just appreciate that there are spaces for them that allow them to flourish. So, um, uh, and that's largely what Audrea Merson Lamb talked about yesterday when I met with her. Um she talked about some of the plans they have and I'm just trying
015to re because it feels like forever and a day since yesterday. Um it's the second year they've been in the space. The space really works well for them. Uh the teachers are finding really innovative ways to connect with students. We tend to think that it's all asynchronous and all online, but they actually have the kids come in a couple of times during the week and do some activities. Um they brought in some guest speakers from B Mocha. Uh they brought in a transplantation team from uh one of the medical facilities around here to talk about heart transplants. They um have a community partnership with Anchute's uh student uh staff who came in and offered some cooking classes to kids around health and wellness. Um so they're really doing some wonderful things there. And I we
016also, as they've mentioned, attended several high school programs and just the energy and enthusiasm and love the parents and the community have for their kids is so uh uplifting and wonderful to see. And I'm sure some of those kids when they cross that that stage and they're shaking our hands are thinking who's this and why are they sort of the center of attention? But I tend to think of it as it's not so much um we are proud of them, but it's also an effort on our part to recognize the really hard work that they've put into the 12 or 13 years of their education and to recognize their parents and their grandparents and all of the village around them who contributed to to make that successful. So I was really happy to see those
017enthusiastic crowds and I was grateful to take part in those moments. Thank you, director of Sad Lucas. Good evening everyone. Um, yeah, as mentioned, it's been a little wind of a couple weeks with graduations. Uh, I had my oldest graduate this year from Thornton High. Um, and it was just it it was exciting as a parent to be able to be there and celebrate her, but um, really special as a board member. Uh, a lot of the kids, not a lot, there were a few kids um, from Thornton that I've known since kindergarten. And it was so exciting to be able to shake their hand and give them a diploma. Um, hug some of them that were a foot taller than me now. When, you know, they started school, they came up to my waist.
018Um and so yeah, it was just really exciting to be able to see their growth and not just in height but as the people that they have become and what the great things that they will do um in the world. So such a great time celebrating kids achievements and yeah the excitement of family, friends. So, um, one of my favorite parts of our times of the year. Also got to attend the native education graduation celebration. Um, I was late getting to it because I had to work that evening, but snuck in and was fabulous as always. It's really, really uh, well put together and um, just a great way to celebrate kids further. Um, and then again want to congratulate Michelle Pearson. So I have a funny story about Michelle. Uh, she just took middle
019schoolers to Boston and New York over spring break and my daughter happened to be one of them. And anyone who knows my my sixth grader will appreciate anyone being able to handle her. Um, and uh, she's just she has a really high emotional IQ, really funny sense of humor, and Michelle just approaches it with grace. And then you put caffeine in that kid cuz she made it a point to go to Duncan every day in Boston, I guess. And um, but I'm on the phone with her and it's probably 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock our time and they've been out since 9. And of course, she's going 900 miles per hour talking. And Michelle comes into the room to check on him, to tell him to get to bed. And of course, I was like, "I'm
020talking to my mom." And you know, whatever. And Michelle's like, "Hi." on the phone. And she's like, "Well, when she's done when you're done talking, it's time to go back." She's done. She's done talking. And Michelle just laughs. And but um you know, my daughter was so nervous about going on that trip and worried. and Michelle made it such a wonderful experience and helped foster and grow the relationships with the kids on that trip across all grades that I mean my probably one of the best experiences my daughter has ever done. And so um that's just what Michelle does and many other educators in our system. But yeah, it was a pretty special um time. So, thank you, Michelle, and again, all of our educators, and congratulations, class of 2025. Thank you. All right, so
021today was my ninth graduation and I have one more vantage point next week, right? Um, I want to thank all of you for showing up, but to all these graduations, too, because I know, you know, you have other obligations during the day, and I know it's not the easiest to take time off of your um, obligations to do this, but you do it, and you do it with a smile. So, I want to tell four of you that I appreciate that. Um, I think graduation is always the funnest time as a board member because all you do is shake hands and look into smiling faces and and the kids their expressions on their faces when they get their diplomas. I mean, you you might not know these kids at all, but you can tell that
022they're happy and you're happy for them even though you don't know them. And, um, it's kind of fun. Um, I don't know a ton of graduates this year, but I guess I knew more than I thought, or at least I know their parents because their parents would post pictures of the graduation and I'd be in it. It's like, oh, I was that I shook that kid's hand. Um, and I, you know, and you know it, somebody made a comment today about the speeches, the difference in the speeches of the kids even, and you know, and you know, the traditional high schools, you know, it's all about, well, we all did this kind of stuff. We're all going here. We may never see each other. blah blah blah and it's but it's very poant and then
023some of the speeches today especially I really took note of uh with like pathways and a little bit with fivestar online um that some of these kids it was a real challenge for them to get to the finish line and some of the challenges that they faced that they shared today were pretty pretty hard. Um, and I I noticed this today when I was sitting there at Pathways and I referred to it in my speech because sometimes I go off script, not very often, but I did today. And we were Mackie Auditorium. And if you know Mackie Auditorium, it's it's like a it's old. It's really classy and it's it's like two levels. And the graduates, there are about 200 of them all sitting in the middle in the front. And for the first time
024I've been at a graduation at Mackie Auditorium, the rest of the auditorium was full of family and at both levels and and the balcony and then on the side of the balcony and then in the front on the lower level and it really did look like the way I described it was you're being embraced by your family because you know the graduates are very distinctive in their robes and then the family was around them. So that was just kind of a special moment for me in all these graduations. And yes, we do have one more next week, Vantage Point, and that will be special. Also, um, congratulations to Michelle Pearson. I've known Michelle for a long time, and she's been an amazing educator for a long time. She was teacher of the year back in
025like 2011, 2012, somewhere back there. And she is the queen of taking field trips. Um, the places she's taken kids and her ease in doing it is just amazing. And then her energy level is always so high. and she's I mean she just is like the ever she is the ever ready bunny. Um so I really want to say congratulations to Michelle. Um I also do look forward to tomorrow night's celebration. It's going to be kind of a different type of celebration than we've had in the past. We're combining a retirement celebration with honoring our special awards. And um the the retirement part is always kind of um special for me because there's still a few people I know that were still working that are now retiring. So every year there's a fewer and fewer
026of them. But um because I retired a long time ago it seems like. But I'm really looking forward I want to just ahead of the game thank all the staff and all the hard work that you guys are putting into the celebration because I know it's going to be amazing. So that's my comments. All right. on to board committee liaison reports. Deck. Well, I am ashamed to say that I missed the past two meetings for two board related items. Um, but I'm sure that Dave and Bo held down the fort quite well. And I'm you're giving your own presentation tonight, so why be redundant? Thank you. Okay, LRPAC, that's me. Um, I went to uh the last LRPAC meeting last Thursday. I think it was last Thursday at the um we had to go off
027site because um AP testing was happening here at the ESC. So we went over to the um county building over the Pete Morales building. And I'm the kind of person that the more times I hear something, the more I learn. And so it was a big chunk of it was about the new Thornton High and the rebuild and how they're going to do it. And so that was the big part of the first part of the meeting. and I finally started understanding how you're going to build one part and tear down another and what's going to look like and where on the property this is going to happen. But it's going to be really cool and I'm looking forward to the progress of that. And then the other thing we talked about was the new
028food services um kitchen and warehouse. It will be built just south of the stadium, the North Stadium um behind Silver Hills Middle School. And it's going to be a warehouse where it's going to have uh cold storage, frozen storage, and shelf storage. And then there's going to be a a prep area where they're going to start working on that. They'll bring things online slowly, but like salad dressings and sauces and that kind of stuff so that kids can have more of a home cook kind of experience. And then they're also, did you know, and I hope I get to go see it, a test kitchen. They're going to be testing things. So keep that in mind down the road. maybe test some things. So, that was the last LRPAC meeting of the year. Um, yeah.
029Okay. On to general 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 Lee Koko. A threeminut timer will be set for each speaker. Please keep an eye on the timer. Speakers will be informed when time has expired and we ask that you end your comments at that time. Our first speaker is Thomas Scoville. Good evening. I'm Thomas Scoville from Thornton. You say parental support is key to the well-being of gender dysphoric youth, but do you really mean it? I wonder because even though an itty bitty
030school trip requires a written parental consent, on the life-defining matter of gender dysphoria, if a counselor talks to a lawyer and then decides informed parents are a problem, you will keep them in the dark. You have arrogantly assumed authority for which you are not qualified. This is absurd because the decider knows little about the student and nothing about the parents. He decides based on what the student tells him. This information may be incomplete and likely misleading, erroneous, or even mendacious. The decider forfeits knowing what parents know of their child's personality, history, health, comorbidities, treatments, and prescriptions, past and present. Good decisions require good information and parents. You let one person decide if informed parents are a problem. You let one person make a life impacting decision. He could be a rookie. There's no decision criteria,
031no requirement for review or validation, and no assurance of district-wide consistency. Parents are stakeholders in their child's life journey. They should travel with him. Good decisions require their love, help, and support. And without informed parents, a gender dysphoric child risk missing opportunities and off-ramps and stopping points short of irres irreversible treatment with drugs and scalpels. Your decider is not a stakeholder. He is with the student only briefly. He will miss most of the students journey. He cannot love the student as the parent would. His motivation is uncertain. Your good intentions are not licensed to meddle with the well-being of others. It is dangerous to keep secrets from parents and likely a ver a violation of FURPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Please resend your bizarre gender policy. By the way, because you must
032accept enter gender any gender identity asserted by a student, you cannot assess or diagnose the student. Your counselors seem to be nothing more than enablers of a problematic gender doctrine. On another note, I'd like to say how much I enjoyed the uh mountain range commencement on last week. Uh appreciate the superintendent arranging perfect weather before the ceremony. Uh ceremony went well. Uh I quite enjoyed the lack of decorum of the family and uh friends calling out their uh graduate. Uh and of course the price we had to pay for that was a wee bit of dampness afterwards. Thank you. Our next speaker is Katrina Whitehead. Katrina Whitehead Thornton. I came here to speak today because I want to express my gratitude to the staff and and teachers of Tarver Elementary and the members of Adams
03312 School District for their acceptance of my transdaughter. My daughter came out in the middle of the school year, which made me afraid for her safety because I was worried that she would not be accepted or understood by her classmates and teachers. Luckily, that was not the case. The school accepted her for who she is and allowed her to the space to feel safe at school just like every child. It is a relief to me every single day to see the love and care that comes from the staff and teachers of Tarbor. There are a lot of people that struggle to understand why schools play an important role in the lives of trans children. From my experience, supportive schools are one of the most important parts of a ch trans child's journey. Before my daughter
034fully came out as a trans um came out as trans, sorry, she would not use the bathroom all day and got a UTI. She also started acting out more at school because she was not able to be her full her true self. It was hard as a parent to watch my child struggle to the point that she was not acting like herself. Once she was able to feel safe and use the bathroom she felt comfortable using, she became herself again and and has excelled in school ever since. The school has not only been supportive to her, but also to me. I do not have family that supports me and that I can talk to. But I have this space at within the school that is very oh in the school. It is very isolating when
035you have a trans child because you do not know who will judge you and who will not. That fear of being judged is intense because I know that they are not only judging me but also my daughter. It was a relief to know that the school not only accepted my child but they also accepted me. I am truly grateful for the school and the school district for allowing my child to have the space to learn instead of constantly being jud jud constantly being in fear of judgment. I have I hope you all know that you do what you do has made an important impact not only in mine and my daughter's life but also ma'am your time has expired. I'm almost in the life of all the trans kids kids in the district. Thank you
036for allowing my daughter to feel safe. Thank you Miss Whitehead. Our next speaker is John Brown. Thank you. Hi, my name is John Brown and I'm a proud Thornton resident. Today in America, transgender youth face unprecedented hardships. For some trans and non-gender conforming kids, our schools are the only place where they can truly be themselves. Trans youth thrive when their gender identity is affirmed and they are treated with dignity and respect. I appreciate the forwardthinking transgender student policies within within the Adams 12 school district. They help protect and care for so for such a vulnerable group, especially when so many other states and communities across our country have been passing laws that restrict the rights of LGBTQ plus minorities to express themselves. On March 13th, 2024, the Washington Post published an analysis of FBI data
037on hate crimes against trans and career K through 12 students. I found the preval it found the prevalence of these crimes quadrupled in states that had passed laws restricting LGBTQ plus student rights. The publication of the analysis was partially inspired by Nex Benedict. Nex was a 16-year-old non-binary student in AASA, Oklahoma. They were brutally assaulted by three students in a bathroom and lost consciousness during the beating that day. Next school failed them. The school did not call an ambulance for help, nor the police to report the assault, but the school did place NEX on a two-week suspension. The next day, Nex committed suicide. In 2022, Oklahoma became the first state to prohibit the use of non-binary gender markers on birth certificates. That same year, it passed a state law prohibiting the use of bathrooms that
038does not correspond with the person's sex assigned from birth. In 2024, the state passed a law that defines gender as the sex assigned at birth. They have essentially used legal means in the attempt to erase the identity of Oklahoma trans, non-binary, and interex individuals. What happened in AASA is a cautionary tale about a school, a school district, and a state government that does not care for the LGBTQ children. At the May 7th Adams 12 school board meeting, I heard general comments from others within the community condemning the district's policy of restroom usage matching the students gender identity. I feel that acting upon those comments would damage the mental health of a highly vulnerable group. So please do not let Adams 12 turn into another AASO Oklahoma. Thank you all for your time. [Applause] Thank you
039Mr. Brown. Our next speaker is James Marsh Holen. Thank you. Good evening. My name is James Marsh Holshion. I am a proud Broomfield resident um father of five Broomfield or Adams 12 uh graduates and current students and also a member of the Broomfield City Council. Um I am here tonight just as a note on my own personal behalf and not as in my official capacity as a council member. I want to thank the board of education for it tireless effort for standing up for all students. Every student in Adams 12 has the right to come to school and be accepted and be loved and be cared for and be educated for who they are, not for who special interests think they should be. Um, you all have done an amazing job keeping our kids safe
040and I applaud you for that. And that goes for the board of education, for uh, Superintendent Gowski as well as the rest of your staff. You know, we all hear a lot of things in the news. We all know that fear-mongering unfortunately wins elections too often, and that's what this is. the misinformation and the outright lies that get spread around our LGBT uh plus students and trans students is fear-mongering and it's it's cynical for the sake of winning elections and I encourage encourage that this board of education has stood up to that and passed uh policies that um protect our students because that is their right as students to be able to be themselves and not be in fear of anything else. Um, and just as a note, um, Broomfield will be raising the pride
041flag on June 2nd outside of our city and county building. Um, so at I believe 10 a.m. So if anyone wants to be part of that, they can. Thank you, Mr. Marsh. Our next speaker is B. Gonzalez. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Be Gonzalez and I'm the mom to an incredible non-binary kiddo that's been fortunate to be able to experience the incredible benefits of being seen and appreciated by their school staff and peers. As a mom watching schoolboard meetings across our state, it's become painfully clear that sometimes we're losing sight of what truly matters. We get bogged down in the inflammatory comments that distract from the fundamental responsibility that we all share to ensure that every child in our school feels safe, accepted, and truly supported in their learning environment. Tonight, I'm here
042to talk about getting back to that core responsibility, especially for our queer youth. Consider this. When a child walks into a school, they don't leave their anxieties at the door. Imagine a student already navigating the immense pressures of adolescence, struggling with algebra, nervous about a presentation. Now layer on top of that the constant fear of judgment, admonition, and bullying from their friends. It's the child who hesitates to use the restroom, terrified of being verbally attacked or made to feel like an outsider. Studies show time and time again that LGBTQ youth face significantly higher rates of anxiety, depression, and self harm when they don't feel accepted. This isn't just a statistic. It's the bright, creative child silencing their own personality. If their very identity is a topic of public debate and ridicule, that's not a safe
043learning environment. We should be building bridges, not barriers. When we focus on what divides us, on narrow, often fear-driven arguments, we miss the chance to offer a lifeline to a child drowning in silent despair. All because we're focusing on perceived differences instead of their fundamental humanity. As a parent who's been deeply involved in my child's schooling since preschool, I've seen firsthand the dedication of our educators. These teachers, staff, and administrators partner with us every single day to raise our children. It's become concerning to hear claims lobbed at our public school systems that seem driven more by buzzwords and media hype than by the real tangible opportunities to connect with our children and the very schools that pour so much time, energy, compassion, and love into these kids. Our focus should be on nurturing resilience, fostering
044empathy, and creating a community where every student, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation, knows that they are a valued member of their school district. We simply cannot stand by while any child faces this kind of silent battle in our schools. So tonight, as the school year comes to an end and we head into summer and we have time to reflect on the year before us next year, let's look past the noise. Let's refuse to let fear dictate our compassion for queer youth. Our responsibility as a community is to cultivate a space where every single child can learn, can thrive, and can simply be themselves without fear. Ma'am, your time has expired. Let's remember that a child who feels safe and trafully truly belongs isn't just a happier child. They're a child ready to
045learn, ready to contribute, and ready to become the thriving members of our community that we all want them to be. Ask you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Gonzalez. Our final speaker for the night is Jason Parllet. [Music] Thank you. What's up? What's up, Adams County? My name is Jason. I'm a resident of Brighton, Colorado. Good evening, board members. Uh though most people know me on social media as punks and for most of my life I've trusted the professionals when it comes to our kids and our schools I've always left it to the experts the teachers and the administrators and the folks who dedicated their entire lives to the education. I've always shown up for the important stuff for the concerts and for the dads with donuts and of course skate night. My kids always know
046I support them no matter what. But I leave the work of educating them to the experts. Lately, I've got to say, I've been struggling to understand something. When did parents working their jobs, focusing on their things that they do day in and day out, suddenly become the experts to teaching our kids to the point where it feels like some parents are trying to bully school districts and educators across the state. We've been hearing a lot of noise lately of and talk about who's can use which bathroom. Look, I get it. Change can be uncomfortable, but let's just be real. As a dad, when I hear adults arguing about bas basic bathroom access while kids are struggling just to be themselves, I ask, "What are we even doing here?" My whole life, I've worked with my
047hands, built things, fix things. And when you're building something that's supposed to last, you focus on the foundation. You focus on making sure that it's strong, stable, and going to withstand anything that comes its way. The foundation for a kid is feeling safe. It's feeling seen. It's knowing that they belong. When when as a kid walks into any of our schools, they should feel like that school is their place, a place where they can learn, make mistakes, and grow constantly. go without constantly looking over their shoulder or wondering where's going to be if they're going to be treated differently just for being who they are. We're talking about kids here. You know, the stats don't lie. Kids who feel accepted, kids who feel safe in their environments, they do better. Grades go up. Their mental
048health goes up. Their chances of thriving, of becoming a contributing member to our society go way up. That's the way things should be. We should want that for every single kid in our district. Instead of being hung up on stalls and stink sinks, let's focus on the human beings using [Music] them. Let's put the energy where it counts, on meeting our kids with their mental and emotional needs. Let's make Adams 12 a place where every kid knows without a shadow of doubt they are accepted, they are loved, and they belong unconditionally. Thank you for your time. [Applause] Thank you, Mr. [Music] Parlot. All right, on to board business. District accountability committee presentation. See Tara, Raju, and I see Claudia, a couple other of their friends. [Music] Hello. Okay. Good evening. Um, thanks for having us.
049We appreciate the time on the agenda today. Uh, my name is Tara Raju. the president of the Adams 12 district accountability committee and I'm here with my colleagues Claudia Anderson DAC vice president Jessica Greco DAC secretary and DAC member ID Sun to present our work from this past year um and suggestions for future work for the next year. Um before I start I just want to thanks really to all DAC members that um participated this year. They were all so engaged with tons of questions and curiosity um because really what we're presenting tonight is all of their work. Some of them are in the audience today. So I appreciate them being here um because it was really their work with district leadership, principles, educators across the district. So um thank you to all of them
050clicking the thing. Here we go. Okay. Um, as the board knows, DAX's responsibilities are defined by state statute, which are stated here. I'm not going to read this slide. Um, but the areas in which we spend all of our time um is with the district UIP, charter school applications and renewals, spending priorities, and parent engagement. A few years ago, um these guiding principles were created and passed on to our current DAC leadership and to inform how we approach our DAC work. Um they are are and have been evergreen for our work. Um and continue to inform our approach to all those areas that were mentioned before. We had a good year um had some successes in building a good relationship with new district leadership team. We've so appreciated working with Bo Fert, Kim Brady, Dave
051Bayana, Director Batistelli. Um they have been very helpful in many ways. Communications, attendance at almost every meeting. Dave Bay gets the prize. Um expertise in lots of things. DAC and engagement in all of our efforts. Um, thanks also to other district teams, charter finance team, many members of the district staff that came and presented at all of our meetings. Um, really without them, we would have not known what was happening. Um, and also to all the district staff members that are voting members that are a part of the DAC. And last but not least, I will be remiss if I don't send a special thank you out to Stephanie Hicks because truly without her, nobody would get information that we were trying to use. You were get it. Food, copies, brooms, all of the many
052things. So Stephanie is heroine uh for the DACK for sure. Um we had a largest group. I feel like we've said that the last couple of years, which is exciting. We had 36 voting members. That's district staff, parent, and community members. Um, and we're excited to say that about half of those parent committee members will be coming back. Um, at least that's what they say now. Um, that's their intention for the next school year. So, we appreciate that. And, um, our meetings were always full. Members were always engaged in-person meetings and online meetings. Um so just to name a few of our successes which you'll hear more detail from colleagues. Um we had far more engagement. We had more engagement with Sachs across the district particularly south of 120th which was a goal and we're
053excited about that. Um we updated our bylaws which always takes effort um and time and energy and detail. So thanks to Phil Spare also for his help in doing that. We had excellent participation in other district opportunities whether it was blueprint policy committee calendar committee all the variety of ways parents can get engaged and we had some success with a second year trying to conduct a spending survey. So those are kind of the highlevel um successes which you'll hear more about now. Thank you. As you may remember from January, our charter subcommittee was actively engaged in the charter renew application process. We had a really productive experience working with the charter partnership team and we really appreciate being part of that process. Like in previous years, our group focused on three main areas. The mission
054and the vision, the culture and climate, and the overall organizational performance. The main suggestion we have for next year is we'd love to see more opportunities to build relationship with charter schools throughout the year, not just during renewals. Their strong interest in stay connected and engaging more regularly with current charter schools. Oops. like me. The next thing we want to talk about is our work dealing with the unified improvement plan progress monitoring. For a third year, we were allowed to attend allowed invited, welcomed to attend um district's monitoring of UIP major improvement strategies. We identified opportunities to monitor the UIP um specifically with regard to the major improvement strategies of the UIP this year which are implementing implementing instruction for each student to ensure access to rigorous and relevant grade level learning. And the second
055one is engaging students in learning partnerships that foster a sense of academic and social belonging. And you're going to see these a couple times throughout this presentation, which is why I wanted to spell them out specifically. We attended a instructional leadership team meeting. We had attended high school and elementary level ones in previous years. So we hit a middle school level one this year. This allows us to observe how the district is educating the educators. and we attend, we circulate, we ask questions of both the attendees and also of the district personnel that are there. And afterwards, we have a discussion with district people to sort of talk about our observations. We also attended three on-site academic team meetings this year. One at a K8, one at an elementary, and one at a high school.
056again there we attend these meetings um with district personnel. We observe how district personnel are interacting with school personnel. We tour. We ask questions. We record our observations, listen to the district's quick wins and opportunities that they present to the school. And then we provide our real- time observations to the district leader about how we think it's working. We would like to thank the district again. This is our third year of access to this these behind the scenes activities. Thank you for their access. Thank you for their transparency. Thank you for their generosity of time. We do believe that the ILT and the AT meetings are an effective way for the district to be monitoring the schools. We also think attending these is an effective way for the DAC to be able to watch what
057the district is doing. I've attended most of these meetings for the last three years. Again, this year we saw exceptional relationships between the district and the schools that they are working with. One thing that we did observe during these meetings were there were some schools that seem to be struggling to keep up with a lot of new initiatives this year. We've had conversations with the district about a lot of new things that happened this year and um some administrators were working to keep up with that. On the plus side, we saw super positive results at schools that had implemented the capturing kids hearts initiative. This is an init an initiative for um educators in schools to really build relationships with the kids that are at the schools and we saw the positive results of that
058time and time again while we were touring these schools. We plan to continue these monitoring efforts next year. We want to take a deep dive into school performance data, look for trends and areas to focus on that are going to support us making recommendations for the unified improvement plan in the future. I'm not okay. So, I'm going to talk about the connections that we made with the Sachs across the district. Um, our goal has been to build these relationships and we've been doing this now for I think this was the third year. Um, and this year we had an increase of um, let's see, nine meetings with observations. We increased by nine meetings and we increased our relationships with three schools. But what's most important is we went from three schools south of 120th last
059year to 12 schools with connections south of 120th this year. That is a massive improvement considering this is a marathon and not a sprint. But we are making those connections. And um you can see from the map there all of the black pins are where we had a sack liazison or a DAC liaison. Somebody from the DAC going and making those connections at the sacks. There we go. Um, and so you can see there's lots of black pins uh south of 120th this year that weren't there last year. Um, you can see that we've had many schools throughout the past two years, but some of them have changed. Some of them have been there both years. We've had connections both years. Some we've dropped off. We've gotten new ones. Um but we are making connections
060across the entire district which is the goal. Um we also had six of our liaison attending more than one schools sack meetings this year which is pretty impressive because it's a huge commitment and um that helped allow us to get those schools south of 120th. Um, we built strong connections and um, one thing that keeps coming up is it's critical to have the school websites, the sack web pages on those school websites and the calendars updated consistently. Um, when people don't know about the meetings, they can attend them. And when they do know, they can. You said um, six sack leaison attended more than one school sack meeting. When did they go to just one sack meeting or did they go to every sack meeting from that school? They went to several. It depends on
061the person. Um we asked the sack leaison to attend two meetings for each school that they were uh connected with. Some people attended more. You can see um there's some really big lines on there. Um and some uh only attended the two. I mean it's a it's a big ask that they attend the DAC meetings and also attend these SAC meetings. Um and some schools only have four SAC meetings a year and some have them every month. So it just depends on the school basically. Can I ask sorry can I ask one more question? How did you get that data? Did you just ask the members how many meetings they attended or how did you get that? We had a Google form that they filled out after they attended meetings um for them to put
062their observations and that's how we got it. I will say that these numbers might be actually a little bit low because I know I attended all of Horizon's SAC meetings this year, but I didn't fill out the form every time. Um, so those aren't counted in here. And I know that some of the meetings happened after these slides were made. Um, so like I know for example that Thornton High School, uh, Scott attended two of those meetings and it only shows one on here just because, um, I think he attended more than two. That's why I'm asking because Yeah. at Thornton High School. I think he said only two, but Oh, maybe it was. Okay. I know. Yeah, because he was there quite a bit. Yeah, I think that some of the uh observations don't
063necessarily get put in there. Um I know that Ike and Kevin were also attending Horizons in for example. So, uh I stopped putting mine in um out of overwhelm and I'm sure some other people did too. So, these numbers might be a little bit low, but they're still pretty impressive. So, Well, that makes them even more impressive. Yeah, exactly. Sorry. Apparently, we have a lot of questions on this one. I just wanted to know on um for so looking between 2000 or 23 and 25. Um do we have any idea of how many of these people are going to stay, especially the ones that did multiple schools like next year, will they stay with those? Most of the people who did multiple schools are coming back next year. Presumably, they will continue to do multiple
064schools. It seems to be um something that they enjoy. Okay. Thanks. Anything else? Okay. Um what we learned um this year for next year is that early launch of the SAC work really makes a big difference. Um those sack meetings start in September and we've got to have our liaison out there um ready to go and connect with those schools at the beginning of the school year. Um the schools are really willing to engage with the SAC leaison. Um, so that's been really wonderful and it's been really great to have B and Kim kind of paving the way for uh our liaison to connect with the principles across the district. We've found that having email templates and sample scripts are really valuable for the liaison to connect because sometimes it's really hard to know what
065to say and having it just laid out for you makes it a lot easier and a lot more comfortable. Next year we're hoping to have more DAC input um for the spending survey. Um that was a big not pain point but a big talking point shall we say in our DAC meetings giving that spending survey as a sack leaison was uh a little bit difficult. It was in um ed you speak so to speak um a little bit and some of the parents across the district were struggling with answering the questions um for that survey and we're going to try to look at collecting more highle year-end observations. We tried this year we need to refine the the form that we send out a little bit more. We're going to keep increasing our representation from
066different schools. Keep focusing on the south half just because they've traditionally not been represented. um in that connection space uh keep building the relationships promoting the district created SAC handbook and really focusing on collecting the SAC best practices and uh year-end overall observational data rather than every single meeting observational data per se and guiding the discussions at our DAC meetings. Those got a little hairy at times or a little meandering I suppose. So hoping to guide those a little bit more so we can get what we're looking for and just keep working with the district leadership to build on these successes and encourage schools without regular sack engagement to have sack engagement. All right. Thank you. I have a quick question. Sorry. Um first I want to say you guys have come so far. the
067work that you guys have done. You know, I served on deck my first two years on the board and a lot of these things were ideas and to see them come to fruition and how much work you guys have put into it is just truly amazing. Um, so thank you for all of your guys' time and work. I know it's a lot. Um, one of the things I saw in here about the um like the sack like district created handbook and kind of like that idea of what maybe a sack page should look like. Have you guys tracked how many of those schools, like how many of our schools have a good SAC website? How many of them have clear data? Um, and how many of them still need to kind of transition maybe to
068be easier to find? We've done some work um in looking at every school's SAC page. Um, unfortunately, there are still a lot of uh there's still a lot of room for improvement there. Um, I think we've heard from district staff that it can be difficult to get things on the school's web pages. Um, there's a lot of things that they need to do and put on there and it doesn't always get on there. Um, we're hoping that it'll become maybe more of a priority at some of these schools um, in the future because I do think if you don't know about the meeting, you can attend, but when you do know, you might attend. Um, but yes, it's it's a a area for improvement. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions for Jessica because this
069is a big foundational part of the work for sure. Okay. Okay. Um it has taken a long time way before my time even um many years to determine the best way for DAC to engage with the district to spend about spending priorities. Um, so as just as a quick review, just a couple of years ago, the DAC was asked by the board of education to provide feedback to get feedback from the community about alignment of district spending with the elevate plan. And so um in the spring of 2022, that 2022 2023 school year, um Dak created a survey, sent it out to SAC members and didn't really obtain enough data. So the following year we sent out the same we decided to send out the same survey but improved the implementation of that survey. Um
070and we used our SAC partnerships um sending out the survey only to Sachs um school sachs that had a liaison from the DAC um district staff made great and helpful connections to school principles to let them know that the survey was coming. Um and DAC leadership provided tools as you've heard and SAC liaison presented in person to SAC members um and collected data that we had far more success about 48 49 surveys returned not great but we got more than the year before so that's what we were looking for and then this school year again from the direction from the board we a new survey was created to get feedback from the community about the alignment of district spending to the UIP right so different kind of questions that were rel related to the UIP
071and so used some of that language um for the survey similar structure um inperson presentations by liaison um with a lot of help um by Bo and Kim to set up principles so they knew that we were coming knew what the survey looked like and could also assist our DAC members in those presentations right so it's a a co-presented survey. Um, just wanted to give you a little bit of that background of how we're doing this again and the likelihood that this will inform us for a shift next year. So, but that's where we are in regards to how this um process has gone. that extra effort definitely helps um similar to what Jessica had mentioned around some of the issues some with some of the language but by far this kind of implement implementation
072process and structure helps. Um so thank you to Kim and Bo uh and Dave really for all of that work to help us get this out. We received 48 responses. Some were in Spanish as well um which is a similar number to what we received last year. Um, thank you to district staff. As you see the breakdown, elementary, middle, and high school. We had a more even split last year of where we got responses from. So, we'll work on middle school next year um getting more responses. Big thanks to um the district staff for a second year really for their translation services of making sure um this survey was translated in all the necessary asked for requested um languages. um and had again about 15 participants similar to sort of similar couple uh I think
073we had 17 last year so in the same range of schools that participated from the district. I'm going to talk a little about the data from the spending survey. Anybody who knows me knows this is my favorite topic. Just give me a graph and some data. We asked a few questions on this um survey. Tried to keep it pretty short. The first one we wanted to know was were our respondents who are SAC members familiar with their school improvement plan and familiar with the district unified improvement plan. The numbers were actually really good. About 70% of people said they agreed or strongly agreed that they knew what the plans were. They were familiar with them. uh what about 70% were familiar with their school plans, about 60% were familiar with the district's plan. Um this
074was pretty outstanding and shows that the word is really getting out that there is a school plan, there is a district plan for these things. The next question that we asked was focused, as I mentioned, on the district's major improvement strategies. This one was about strategy number one which is about rigorous and relevant grade level learning. Um again we saw that 72% of people agreed or strongly agreed that they could see the results of spending on this major improvement strategy in their school which uh is a pretty resoundingly good response. We then followed that up with," do you think that amount of spending is the right amount? What you're seeing, does it seem to be right? Does it seem to be too little? Does it seem to be too much? For major improvement strategy number
075one, 64% of people said it was just right. About 20% thought it was too little. And then the other one we kind of want to look at is the 12 and a half% that said they don't know. there's some room for improvement regarding education there. We then asked the respondents, "Why did you answer the way that you did?" Because we kind of like to know, "What were you thinking when you said it was too little, it was too much, I see it, I don't see it." And as we looked through and summarized it, we generally saw that they were expressing a big interest for equity and individualized learning. Um there was also a lot of talk about teachers, how they really feel like a lot of times, yeah, there's spending, but it's the teachers who
076are really making things happen. And they wanted to make sure that teachers had enough planning time. There was general agreement across the board that resources are being used wisely. People understand that there are budget limitations. They understand that those might be hurdles that have to be overcome, but they're generally happy with how the money is being spent. Sorry, can I ask um you may have mentioned what time what month was this survey or was it over a course of months that you guys We started presenting this survey to Sachs literally the week that the email came out from the district about budget cuts, staffing cuts, etc. And I know Jessica had mentioned a little bit of um hurdles talking with Sachs of us needing to provide scripts for people going to the Sachs to talk
077about these things. The one thing that we really did emphasize um and we worked with administrators at the schools to emphasize as well was that this survey is not about what is to come. It is about what you have seen in your school for the past year. So try to put your fears about future budgets aside and just look around and see you know right now this year what did I see in my schools? Any other questions? Okay. Major improvement strategy number two talking about fostering a sense of academic and social belonging. This is sort of tied a little bit to previous major improvement strategies that talk about social emotional learning and things like that, but this one is a little bit more focused on allowing students to feel like they belong specifically so that
078it's going to improve their academic performance. same three questions were asked. And on this one, about 68% of people agreed or strongly agreed that they could see the results of spending that fosters a sense of academic and social belonging. We asked the same question again. Do you think it was enough money, not enough money, too much money? The split is about the same. We've got about 60% of people saying it was just right, about 20% saying it was not enough money, and again about 12% saying they they just don't know. We again looked at the comments that went along with these answers and we could tell from people's comments that they really is a lot of value placed on social emotional learning and on mental health efforts. What we thought was interesting this year was
079it was not so much like I want to send my kid to a counselor or I want to be taught social emotional learning. It really was talking about a desire for more extracurricular activities and more kind of enrichment opportunities so that their kids can, you know, join a club and feel like they belong. They can have a, you know, certain activity that they're interested in. Basically, it just seemed to be talking about ways for their kids to make friends, ways for their kids to feel like they belong. There were some equity concerns talking about resource distribution across schools. We do know that with this district, needs are different, resource allocations are different, and I think we're just seeing because we do have responses this year from the north half half of the district and from
080the south half of the district, some concerns about equity did come up. Overall, the respondents really appreciated the efforts of the district um but recognized that there there are needs that are going to exceed the resources that are available. Um they weren't particularly negative about it, but just recognized the realities of what the finances are. One last question that we'd like to ask the respondents is where do you get your information from? When you are talking to people about what's going on in school when you are filling out these surveys, where do you get your information? Last year's uh results are in red. And you'll notice that friends and neighbors was huge. 29 of the respondents last year said, "I get my information by, you know, talking with my friends, talking with the other parents."
081This year, we saw a significant shift. Lots of people said they're getting their information from their school newsletters, from the district website, and from district mailers. Uh to the deck, this seemed to be very positive. They are getting information from official outlets. The district seems to be doing a really good job communicating information that the respondents think is relevant to them and think is important to them. I am sorry board of education. Apparently last year you were a big source of information but this year not so much. Our guess is it had something to do with like election year versus not election year. We're not sure. We were super happy to see a high level of familiarity with the school improvement plans, the district improvement plans. A majority of people are seeing the implementation of
082the district's strategies. I will say 20% still don't see it. So, there's still a little work that can be done there. The other thing I really liked is we did have like the 12 and a half% I don't know responses, but that's half of the I don't know responses that we got last year. So again, I think that's indic indicative of people having access to information both at the school level and at the district level. For next year, we are going to continue to use our SAC relationships to be able to connect with people around the district and to be able to get information from them like we did for this spending survey. We are going to work on the spending survey um to make sure that it is as understandable and userfriendly as it
083can be. And we also want to interface with district finance and budget staff early on in the year in addition to the interfacing that we do with Dave Bayana on the UIP to make sure that we are really aligning um what the district is hoping to achieve academically with um what is being done with the budget. I think that's the end of spending. Are there any questions before I pass this on to Tara? Thanks. Okay, the last slide with a few last comments. Um, when Claudia and I took on DAC leadership, we decided we wanted feedback from DAC members at the end of the year. So, we gave them a survey the last couple of years, and this information is from that survey. um mostly really to inform us as we were new a few
084years a couple years ago and wanted to get sort of immediate um feedback and help us inform us for the next year. So you can see here um the results the big sort of takeaways from the results of that we had about 36% of our membership provided feedback lots of great comments and 92% um agreed or strongly agreed that they had opportunities to learn about Adams 12 and contribute to DAC work and all of them we great results at the end there like strongly agreed that they were able to participate and observe all of our work areas and particularly think that we're moving mostly in the right direction. Um, which is very nice to see and um, the feedback in the comments which were very helpful will absolutely inform us for next year. I also
085want to just take this opportunity before we take if you have any other additional questions is to really thank Jessica and Claudia because they will not be returning to their roles next year. Um Jessica has been on the DACK for many years and has been a voice and advocate not only for her own kids um but really for parents and students across the district. Some of you have seen her here multiple times or at policy committee meetings or all over the district. Um but her determination created the sack leaison work um that has grown and expanded and is to be honest now the foundation of our DAC work. So, thank you for your work, your commitment to making the committee and the district stronger. You will be missed, even though I know you think that's
086not true. Okay. Um, Claudia has been on the DACK for a few years, but she absolutely dove into leadership roles immediately with the Adams 14 reorganization work and then took on this uh vice president role almost immediately. Her love for data has provided many of us, me particularly, a great insight um the ability to ask better questions and has shaped our conversations about DAX's UIP work. Um and she has been the key to find our footing in that area particularly and it will continue expand and grow. So thank you for your work and partnership as we um went on this journey together to figure out what we were doing. So thank you and making our committee and district stronger. I appreciate it very much. Um, lastly, I'm thankful for all the active engaged DACK members,
087a number of them that were interested in taking on these roles. And I say congratulations to Kevin Tang who is our new DAC vice president um and Ike Aayang Kuibbo who is was not able to be here tonight um as our new DAC secretary. So I look forward to working with both of them next year. Now do you have any thank you for the time and if you have any other additional questions? I have um comments that I'd like to get out of the way. I think you did a phenomenal job on this presentation and again I apologize I haven't been able to be there. I was at a graduation last time around. I can't remember what happened the previous time around but I do think uh I I feel so much gratitude towards Tara
088for her work. Um and Claudia I tend to think of Jessica kept us organized, Claudia kept us analytical and Tara kept us united. So, I think it was a really powerful leadershipship team we had there. Um, I'm so happy to hear that Kevin is coming on board. Kevin is being very modest, but he's one of those fellows who attended more than one school uh sack meeting and he really leaned in and embraced that and I apprec I appreciate that uh dedication. So, overall, I think the district accountability committee was phenomenal this year. We had parents who would come in and ask tough questions and Bo and Dave and Kim handled it so well and they were so welcoming of that sort of um those sort of questions and I think that made for a dynamic
089environment. And for those of you who may be thinking about participating on the DAC, talk to those folks before they go. Thank you again. Thank you for your leadership. Um yeah, this has you've grown back and has just helped us as a board make decisions or guide us and um we really appreciate all that you guys do. And um I just want to brag on Karen for just a minute. Um Thorne Elementary is one of the schools that he attends and uh and not only has he attended just the sack meetings, but he's been to some of the the school uh events as well and being present and being involved and um so thank you Kevin because that really does matter. it builds those relationships and strengthens those communities. Um, and Scott as well for
090Thornton High, he has engaged in different ways besides just his role on the sack for the school and um, that's really meaningful for the schools and so and I know they're not the only two. So the DAC members who take so much of their own time and um the commitment that you give is greatly appreciated and thank you for helping make the district stronger because of it. Can I ask a question at one point? Is this a good time? Go ahead. All right. So, it's such a quick transition and passing baton between Claudia and Jessica that I was going to ask a question while Claudia was still up and perhaps you're the right person or any of you who have uh input on it. It relates to slide seven and the last bullet on there
091talked about in in terms of the concept of suggested future UIP work. Explore ways to expand beyond monitoring and be more forward thinking to support making UIP recommendations. Just wanted to pick your brain a little bit about if there are any specific ideas floating around about ways to be more forward thinking and um just help that recommendation process get stronger. I want to get back to you on that. No, I'm kidding. We we do have some thoughts about it that are preliminary. [Music] Um, I cannot give you specifics, but I can say that you've you've seen my giant spreadsheet of school performance from 2012 to present. We've spent a lot of time looking at that. We spent a lot of time looking at trends for various schools, both um, upward, downward, and even trends. We
092are trying to pick schools from that list that we think might be good examples of what's working and maybe some examples of places where there are um needs for improvement. Um I had another thought, Kevin, what else have we talked about? ask your question again, then maybe it'll come back to me. That last bullet just talked about uh exploring ways to expand beyond monitoring and be more forward thinking to support making UIP recommendations. Oh yeah. So then the idea is to find some trends, pick some schools, um continue our work with the at uh attending academic team meetings, maybe finding ways to go to those schools, ask some questions at those schools to see if there are things that are being done locally that maybe could be expanded to be done more globally throughout the
093district. So that that is the general idea and it's really tied into the work that we do with Sachs. Um we've gotten amazing insight into schools just from attending SAC meetings and hearing um the comments that the deck members come back with. It's kind of hard to describe because it is a very sort of holistic thing where we are going out we are gathering both the sort of people information by interfacing directly with the schools marrying that up with the data that we see from those schools and then just seeing what we see and where we think we can go from it. One of the reasons that this has sort of come to fruition is because Jessica is a quality engineer. I mean, her job is looking at trends over time. Ike, our new secretary,
094is a quality engineer. He also is huge at looking at trends over time. So, we are definitely going to be looking to Ike for guidance um in the future for what he sees uh and where he thinks it it will take us. So, if I can just finish up, I'll just give a few quick comments. First, Jessica and Claudia, thanks so much for the work you've invested in DACK for many years. As you know, I that's one of the groups that I'm not attending firsthand, but I hear a lot about your contributions from Bo, and before that, Priscilla and Tracy, and just appreciate very much how earnestly you lean into that work. The second thing I just wanted to reemphasize is Tara talked about Claudia's work on that Adams 14 reorg committee and I think
095I emailed you after that or during the midst of it and I thought Claudia's work in terms of looking really objectively critically at a lot of data for Adams 14 for us for neighboring districts and comparable schools was really impressive and it just reaffirmed that having some people who came without bias or beliefs or a horse in the race and just wanted to objectively look at data and make the best recommendations possible was a critically important part of that process and I thought you were an outstanding member of that committee bringing that lens to the work. So thanks so much for that. And then the third thing I would say is there's lots of uh hoopla around AI and one of my best hopes is that AI can help us more efficiently analyze all this
096massive data that you have. It's not going to get us all the way down the path, but sometimes just even sorting through all those trends, uh, especially when you're looking at trends not just inside our district, but regionally and statewide and nationally. I hope that very soon in the next couple of years, AI gives us better insights about go check out this school and give it a closer look because we see lots of trend data that looks just like school X in Adams County or in Adams 12 and they're obviously consistently doing something right there. So, go learn more. It just feels like data analysis and trend analysis is so time inensive. Um I guess I'm just geeking out along with you about liking the data and I think it can give us lots of
097insights about how to get better and thanks for bringing that lens to the work for you all and all of your colleagues involved. We appreciate you Claudia. Aren't you an engineer as well? I am an engineer as well. So we had three engineers in that group. So I think it Kevin's an engineer as well. Oh Kevin, I am so sorry. four engineers. He claims he's not anymore, but once an engineer always Thank you for your kind words. I appreciate it. I will have to admit I went through the survey comments and I came up with uh what I thought were my summary bits and then I threw all the comments into J chat GT GPT to see what chat GPT said. Thank goodness we got the same answers. Was very happy about that. But I
098agree with you. I think the use of AI um when used smartly um and carefully is an excellent way to do a lot of this stuff. My turn. I just want to say just because going back before any of these folks were on the board and I was I went to the DACK and Tara was there and I know we had some struggles that we needed to figure out but you did it. I mean, and Erin and Jack did a great job of sending you guys down that road. Claudia, Tara, Jessica, you guys did an awesome job of the three of you filling in pair two pairs of shoes very well and to carry on that work and to expand on it and to have a plan going forward that's sustainable because I'm sorry that
099Jessica and Claudia won't be with us anymore. Tara, I'm glad you're sticking around. Kevin, welcome. and just to do this part partner with the district. It's just one more facet of how I feel this district is awesome and having community um join in and helping us with that work. And Claudia, I also too want to thank you for the work in Adams 14. I might be a little more biased than someone that does come to Adams 14, but it was um you were definitely the right person from Adams 12 to be representative on that committee. So, we'll miss you guys. Thank you. All right, that's it. All right. Well, thank you. Okay. On to the Thunder Vista utility repairs. I will entertain a motion to approve the Thunder Vista P8 School necessary and corrective and
100preventative repair work as presented. So moved. Second. I see Peter and Margie. It's your turn. There we go. Um, good evening. um my first board meeting so um please bear with me. Um no presentation this evening. Um simply narrating to the board this evening uh continued action for Thunder Vista P8 utility repairs. Uh board action is requested to approve necessary corrective and preventative repair work. This expenditure is anticipated at $3,98,252. Uh this work falls within board policy 2.5 specifically 2.5.3. This action is necessary to maintain a district facility that is necessary for student instruction. And item 2.5.8 Eight. Board approval is required for asset acquisition greater than $500,000 when the expenditure is outside of bond implementation or not otherwise approved previously by the board in a bond override plan or a specifically identified budget item.
101Excuse me. Benefits of action for the district. There have been ongoing repairs at Thunder Vista to sewer lines, fire suppression, water lines, geothermal piping, and electrical pathways. Due to the serious and continuing problems, it is imperative that corrective measures are taken during times while school is out. The work will address deficiencies due in part from the heaving soil conditions found throughout the area where the school is located. The work encompassed within this request serves to provide functional underground utility systems performing as intended, reducing risk of further damage to systems that could result from heaving soils that exist in the area of the school. Um, and to reduce impact to the staff and students heightened sensitivity to what is going on around them. Um the risk the potential risk if no action is taken is ongoing
102disruptions to school operations and further damage to the building systems. Funding for this work is identified to source from the building and capital reserve fund using the building services reserve and plant contingency reserve. As of April 30th, 2025, these projects within capital reserve have a balance of 4.29 million. Please also note it is possible the district will receive additional funds related to this project such as reimbursements, insurance proceeds, and or settlement payments in the future. I'll just add on that last part, uh, a few things. One is I've made the point before that often when it comes to school sites, we get land that's often the most complicated to use for school construction purposes. That's certainly true up in the Anthem area where the highest quality places that have uh all the advantages tend to
103be places that builders want to build homes on and maximize their profits. And so it's a suboptimal site, but beyond that, we believe that there were shortcomings in design and engineering and some in construction. And so we're moving forward with some mediation processes this fall with hopes that we'll recover substantial amounts of this outlay of funds. So that's I think a more explicit description of some of the code language that probably uh is in this report, but we feel like we're in a good spot to demand um some compensation from the design team and the contractor for this project. Go ahead. I don't have any questions other than to say it makes logical sense to me because if we don't do it now, it becomes more expensive in the future and we have the money
104in reserves. So, and probably worse. Okay. Okay. Director Assad Lucas, I Director Batistelli. Hi, Director Goldstein. Hi, Director Marsh Holen. Hi, Director Potter. Hi. Thank you, Peter. Okay. On to proposed financial plan and budget for fiscal year 2025 2026. I see Gina running to the podium. Good evening board. Gina Laneir, CFO. Good to see you all. So, we're here tonight to talk a little bit about the fiscical year 26 proposed budget. So, as you all know, the board is required to receive our proposed budget at least 30 days before the beginning of the next fiscal year. So that's why we're here tonight. Um, just a side note, ramifications of not adopting a budget is our budget will automatically be 90% of the prior year. So adopting the budget is incredibly important. In the board docs,
105you received a lot of attachments this year. We wanted you to have some items a little bit sooner than you've had them in the past. So, we included the typical resolutions. Obviously, you're not taking any action tonight. We wanted you to have the ability to review them. You also received the e easy general asurances. And so, in the past, that's been um some changes have been made. In the past, it was a statement in our budget book and now it's a longer document that last year the board was required to um to sign. And in it, it's saying that the district is basically following all of the rules required through in order to receive title funds. And so that's the asurances. We will ask that you all um sign that at the next board meeting.
106And then you also have the idea funding eligibility certification. And that is us saying that yes, we are meeting our required maintenance of effort obligations in order to receive these federal funds for special education. Oh, I also should mention um you also have the actual proposed budget book uh couple hundred probably. I don't know how many pages it is. I didn't look at the total page count, but for you all, the focus really is the actual fund summaries. And so those those are the piece I would encourage you to review and ask questions on should you have them. All right, we've talked a lot about budget assumptions over the last few months. And so a recap, we um are projecting our school finance funding with the implementation of 15% of the new school finance act
107on top of the 1994 school finance act. So that is the bulk of our our re revenues. So our general fund revenues, 98.7% are from the the total program funding. That's the makeup of the state share plus our local property taxes, MLO, vehicle registration, and then state categorical funding. So those are the bulk of what we receive. Um, quick note from adopted budget to adopted budget year-over-year, we are projecting our revenue will grow by 3.4 million for a total of 505.7 million. So, some of our other general fund revenue assumptions, our mill levies are all fixed except for one that will grow by 2.3% um inflation. And that's the 2018 fixed 2018 mill levy. Um just a reminder, these are projections. There are risks in in our projections. Market and tariff volatility um may impact
108our revenues that we receive for vehicle registrations if people aren't buying cars. And um absolutely could have an impact on our investment earnings. And as always, our pupil count is critical because that is the basis of most of our funding. So we're also projecting that our categorical revenues will grow to 2.3%. And there may be some potential fluctuations depending on what happens with um population and state allocations. This is a a p a slide you have seen before, but something we just feel like is important to draw attention to because we've done these fixed dollar mills. Our purchasing power from when the mills were passed to what what they can do today. You can see that gap. And so just something to keep in mind that when we said we would do something when we
109passed our first mill, the cost to do those things is significantly more than the millie dollars that we're getting today. All right. On the general fund expenditure side, we've talked um a pretty good bit with the board about the the reductions that were made. So, one of the big ones was reducing the transfer for the curriculum reserve by $4.4 million because we believe the balance in that fund is appropriate to handle the upcoming curriculum um purchases. We are forecasting to the cost of the one-time salary increase and cost of living and then the many budget reductions that that the board has been made aware of. So with all that said, we are forecasting that our total expenditures from adopted budget to adopted budget are actually down 14.7 million in total compared to the last adopt
110to the adopted budget for a total of 511.4 million. In those numbers, we do have some one-time expenditures budgeted. So I mentioned the um compensation increase one time. that's forecasted at 4.3 million and then 2.1 for the hard to fill one 2.1 million for the hard to fill pilot and then 1.1 um various allocations for the newcomer center and um a whole bunch of things. So small amounts for individual programs that total to about 1.1. As always, as part of the process, the cabinet team will review all of the one-time expenditures to determine if they are truly one-time or if we will ask to bring them back next year. Just some um highlevel notes on our other funds. Something to be aware of for the nutrition services program, the um House Bill 251274, healthy school
111meals for all program. It refers two ballot issues to the voters concerning funding for the healthy school meals for all program. And um that will determine the outcome of that that will have an impact on the future of that program. And so there's different assumptions that the state how the state will handle it if this doesn't pass. We may get funding for to continue healthy meals for all for the full fiscal year or it may end at in January. So more to come on that piece and something to watch for both food service and base and people not both base food service and people activity those are self- sustaining funds as well as our other um special revenue funds are are grants and and whatnot. Those are self sustaining meaning that their revenues cover the
112cost of their programs currently. And then we have our athletic fund which is primarily funded from both fees and then a transfer from the general fund. Our debt service fund we are we are planning that there will be no increase to the tax levy 18.665 to pay the debt for our bond program. As you all know, we did our issuance January of 2025, and the amount of funds in that fund, the fund balance, as well as our projected property tax revenues is sufficient to continue repayment of those bonds. And then for the capital projects fund, our building fund, that's where the um funds get deposited basically for from the bond that we issued and where we will where where we are spending the money to for Thornton High School and those other projects that you've
113heard about. So uh once again the um fiscal year 2526 proposed budget needs to be adopted by June 30th. We will come back to the board in January once we have our updated pupil counts and any information that's relevant to our budget as far as free and reduced lunch um other counts as well as the um updates from the from the certification of mills. Of course, as you know, that doesn't change our revenue. The whether our property taxes go up. If our property tax revenue goes up, the state share goes down. If our state share goes up, our property tax revenue goes down. So, no swing in the total revenue based on that. But, as a reminder, that that will happen December 15th. And in the amended budget, we'll also update what what we know
114based on federal and state grant allocations. and what happens with the healthy school meals for all referendum. What questions do you have? Anybody? I don't not a question that I expect you to answer tonight, but um I know the uh CBO, the Congressional Budget Office just released um based off the bill that's being negotiated right now. Um and they're talking about 500 billion in Medicaid cuts that could start as soon as 2026. Um, do you guys have a way to factor that piece in of of cuts of that of spending that we get in that piece? And then they're also um talking about the different tax sharing shifting to the state for SNAP. I just wonder if um those are just kind of on a surface level what you guys are watching. Yes. So, our
115Medicaid team is most certainly watching and evaluating that piece. I don't know that we could give a forecast at this time on on what we think will happen, but it is something that we continue to monitor. I'll just jump in on that and Gina can tell me if I'm on track or not, but we already know that we're going to see a significant reduction in Medicaid funding even if all the other parts of how it's been funded in the past were to stay constant because the number or percentage of kids who qualify for Medicaid have gone from about 38% to 31% is my rough recollection. I know Gina is going to say, don't quote me on numbers. Um, but I think that's true. So, it's about a 20% reduction just because of how the eligibility
116requirements for Medicaid eligible kids and families have changed now that the pandemic's done. So, we'll see a reduction. We use those funds, as you know, to pay for a variety of speech, language, occupational therapy, physical therapy, other special education services. So, we'll get hit there. The hit could be worse depending on what happens with Medicaid and how that affects school-based services. And then there's other parts of the federal budget that we know are going to cause some reductions. There's some um changes in how you can use -ate funding for hotspot devices at homes. That's a pretty small change reduction, 35,000 bucks or so a year. But then there are some other changes around some other non-title one funding that we often use for things like supporting multilingual multilingual learners and having coordinators and others who
117support that work. and it's about a half million dollar hit that I'm expecting in that space. So, I do expect there's going to be meaningful and significant reductions through some of these federal programs that we're going to have to factor into our budget plan for next year. And the only thing I can really contribute to that is that Gina can correct me if I'm wrong. Um, we already pay more than this state provides for special education purposes, right? So we have to fill that gap ourselves. Yes. Thank you, Gina. You're welcome. And I um forgot to give a shout out to the finance team. They worked incredibly hard to provide all of the materials to you. And so great work by that team. Yeah, I'll just emphasize that one of the attachments that you have
118in there is a 177page financial plan and budget. And I think historically that document's not been done until summerish, like uh July, August. I'm looking at Gina, she has recollection budget book, usually July, August, maybe even later. Later. Yes. So to have it in in May to look at, uh that's a herculean effort and I just appreciate Gina and team uh making that happen. Yes, we we really think it's important in order for you to adopt the budget to have the full document and so that was a huge goal Aaron and I had last year for this year. So really proud of the team for making that happen and just for the sake of sharing out that budget document is available an annual budget will be available on the district website. It will. It's actually
119already available on board docs though and so it it is there and I'm looking at Aaron because I can't remember if we'll have the propo we'll have the proposed on the website under financial transparency tomorrow. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. And I hope somewhere down the line shortly you guys get some time off. You've worked very hard this year. Thank you. All right. Public comment on the proposed financial plan and budget for fiscal year 2025 2026. Uh, no one has signed up to address the board for the proposed financial plan and budget. Thank you. On to classified negotiations update. Um, Mila and Paul. [Music] Good evening board. Paul Williams, uh, president of a classified association. Hi there. Mila Shepard, chief of human resources. And we're sharing some information tonight that summarizes the uh recently concluded
120negotiations between the district and the classified employees association. And um as in years past, this has been a really collaborative, really mutually respectful process from start to finish. Um we just have a a a really solid relationship I think uh between the district and the association and and uh we enjoy I think a pretty smooth process as a result. So um we have some some changes uh many of them uh summarized in the document that you have shared are clerical in nature. They're re refining uh maybe an overlooked uh numerical change that better matches our practice. Um, so when you see notes around clarified language to match current practice or um we didn't change the spirit of the article but uh maybe was less than clear for one or more people and so we adjust
121to be as clear as we can and really uh reflect what's happening uh as as we do work to support our classified employees. A few of the things on the on the top part of the list that are changes um have to do in article 9, we have a concept called working out of classification. And this happens with some frequency in times when um we are short staffed and having trouble filling a vacancy. Uh we have to ask someone to take over the duties. And when when the complete scope of duty is taken over by a colleague, not just pitching in to help out with a few things, but when somebody's working out of their classification doing somebody else's job, we have historically started to pay them a higher wage um after the sixth day.
122Um and we talked about what's fair and what seems the right approach. And we dropped that back to five days. So solid week, somebody's gone, you're doing the work. And more importantly, we changed the practice to a retroactive payment of the higher amount to the first day you were doing that job. It's never been that way before, but we just felt like um you've heard me saying in the past several years how how tight we are with staffing and how much we appreciate the the willingness of colleagues to just pitch in, roll up their sleeves, cover vacancies. And we've had to do some things over time to to try and uh recognize that and reward that. And so this is just a little something in that direction. One of the other big changes in article
12312 has to do with the um Veterans Day paid holiday. You are familiar with the fact that our policy council's calendar subcommittee uh removed the Veterans Day off from our school calendar for for next year. And that has historically been a paid holiday for our classified employees group. So, we had some conversation about what should the appropriate replacement be and agreed upon the uh last business day before New Year's Eve. So, New Year's Eve Eve that happens during a week when the district is closed. Our classified folks have to take uh a template time or a vacation day to have that day off during a time when the district is closed anyway. So, that just made good sense. Let's add a a paid holiday in that period of time when the work days are already
124short. I will uh say Paul shared with me in the in the uh uh ratification voting and the comments received that he had quite a few about that Veterans Day. And I'll let him describe the the tone and tenor of those, but I think that was the most commented upon change in our negotiations. Um we've added a little bit of clarity to some 110 110 practices. Uh what what is what is promised to somebody who says I will stay and work for one more year. Uh this year we discovered with all the necessary uh reductions and cuts that we had some um some need to be a little more flexible as a district and promising to bring you back, but it might not be the assignment the very assignment you left. If we're reducing, we
125want to honor that, but we might need to move you around. So we just adjusted some language to make that flexibility possible, cleared up some language around bereavement leave. And then in the salary lane, that article 19 language, um I think one of the uh things we adjusted was leadership pay. Our classified employees have been limited to uh one leadership paid opportunity each semester. We've doubled that to to um up to two per semester. uh we want to honor those that want to be involved. We also don't want to burn them out. So um but allowing more opportunity when folks want to get involved in that way. Um we did a little reduction in the uh area of competitive uh recruiting as we're attracting people to the organization. We took a look at the number
126of hours we require to count it as a year of experience credit and we aligned that a little more closely to what our nine-month employees actually work. It was a a a much higher number and a very aggressive sort of number of hours to equal one year of experience credit. we dropped it to more closely match what our nine-month employees really do and that therefore be able to give people a little more advantageous placement as they enter the system in hopes of keeping them for a little bit longer. So, you want to talk about the rest of it? Thanks, Mila. So, just um some comments on the on the Veterans Day. Um we have, you know, a lot of veterans that are uh employed as classified employees. So that was not a popular um decision
127as we knew when we were kind of in calendar committee and uh and and making that new calendar. Um however, I think that uh Chris has made some commitments to to do some uh discussions around education around veterans and and uh when we explained that to our folks that seem to uh kind of help them uh get through that. So um again not happy about it but but they understand the the why and and uh encouraged by the by the future movement there. So um so on the salary uh we did um and this is kind of aligns with the other two two groups um certified and and admin but it was um so classified employees will receive a cost of living adjustment of of.5% ongoing um additionally a one-time cola payment of82% um shall
128be paid out in the o October 31st paycheck um and then those eligible for a for a step increase will um we we'll get that step increase which our average step increase is about 1.67. So when you add all those together it' be the 3%. And if you're not getting a step increase then you'll get that um balance of the uh 1.67 um in the one-time payment um in the October 31st paycheck. Um then we changed the the dates for negotiation the re reopener dates um from 2025 to 2026 for next year. Um couple things in the MOAS we did um on the pilot school um salary schedule we uh formed a committee as you guys remember last year we formed a committee to look at whether that was feasible for classified staff and the
129committee at this point in time said that they believed it wasn't feasible right now but we committed that we're going to continue to research that. We'll look at the trend data for um turnover rates um and our ability to recruit and retain in those in those buildings. So um so we'll continue to do some work in that area. Um previous work experience, this is something um a lot of Mila talked about earlier about the hours. This is also how we recognize previous work experience when you're coming to the district. Um, and we see sometimes that uh we we honor seven years of previous work experience and sometimes to ask somebody who's been later in their career more experienced to come in for a lower uh starting salary is difficult for them. So, we um decided
130to put a committee together to study whether what we're currently doing is appropriate or whether we need to adjust there. One of the things we're cautious about is honoring current employees and and not having new employees come in there and past current employees. So, we just felt like that needed some some really in-depth discussion to to to make sure that we're we're honoring uh current employees. Um premium pay continue to explore the expansion of uh additional languages. Um we think we found um an avenue where we can uh expand that language premium pay. Currently we're doing Spanish and we believe now that we found a kind of a area we're able to test for um for additional languages. Um and then uh temporary coverage just uh removed just we updated that that language in there
131and what we did was just remove um the study committee uh language in that and just moved it to a more permanent MOA. So um the ratification passed it was 80 86% yes 14% no. Um, again, the no comments were around Veterans Day was was kind of one of the strong pieces there. Um, and then, um, so the other thing I just wanted to say real quick while I still have the the opportunity is thanks district for being collaborative with us, um, and and and, uh, entertaining us through the negotiating process. One of the other things I want to say is just thanks to Mila. I know this is her last negotiations. We're really going to miss her. That's been fantastic to be able to partner with her and get this work done. Um she's
132been really great. We were nervous when we were lo losing her um mark uh before before Mila. And Mila had stepped in there and just done an amazing job and and really um was just a champion in the work to help us get done not only in negotiations but also in the day-to-day operations um for us with employee relations and and all those. So just thank you to Milin and thank you district for uh being a partner with us. I have a quick question. Um, around Veterans Day, was there any discussion looking at when we shifted that paid time off? We're shifting it from right before the holidays to right after the holidays. Was there any kind of discussion around that piece? So, one of the things that um, as you as you know, the
133largest gap that we have for employees um, especially in that nine-month piece is in that Christmas kind of holiday area. And so we felt like that this was a gain because we were able to now they'll be working on Veterans Day. So they have an opportunity to get paid for that work and then now the um they'll be have another paid day or opportunity for another paid day in that in that kind of big gap of Christmas break. So we felt like that's going to we're kind of getting the biggest traction out of that by not having such a gap there for employees to you know especially in that 9 10 11month folks to be able to go that long gap without a paycheck. That's wonderful. Thank you. Also, um knowing that this is kind
134of a painoint Veterans Day, is there a way or I hope that we can find a collaborative way to partner with some of our employed veterans in our efforts to um celebrate Veterans Day in the district. Yeah, absolutely. It's a great idea. And um the main comment I would add around Veterans Day, there's been lots of hesitation for a long time about looking at whether we continue to recognize Veterans Day. I think most districts are not um we do have an interest in having continuity of instruction. For me, one of the things that's been powerful and persuading me that it's an appropriate change is hearing from veterans that we don't care. So, this is some of the ones I've heard speak at Mountain Range, which does an exemplary job each year of having an assembly
135and having kids throughout the school gather and listen to veterans and celebrate them as they parade through the halls. And the veterans who spoke there have consistently said, "It's not so much about whether you have a holiday or not, but it really offends us that when people do have a holiday, it's all about buying mattresses and going to the mall and shopping." And that there's not any real understanding or recognition of the why behind the holiday. And so we've done really good work in a number of our schools before, even on the days preceding the holiday about the why. I think we can take it the next level, do it more places, and use some of our staff who are veterans to help communicate the message about their service and why this is a worthy
136holiday for us to recognize even if it's not a day off. Thank you so much. I think it's been a great Did you want to say? I was just gonna say thank you for both your work and teens and everyone who participated with um uh the classified negotiations. So Milo, again, you're going to be very missed. I think it's been a nice change to see the classified negotiations at the same time as the certified negotiations. And I also want to make sure that people understand how much we appreciate our employee groups because they're all educators and they all and the old cliche the staff's working conditions are the children's learning conditions and that goes for both employee groups and the administrators too. And yes, Mila, thank you. Um it's really been a honor to be
137a part of your career. I just want to say some final nice things about Mila too because this really is the grand finale. So last time was the penultimate uh board meeting for Milo and Dave and her presented and this is the grand finale and I won't belabor it but one of my favorite memories is meeting often with Paul and Rob Keaney his former coordinator as Mark Hinson had announced his retirement after 20 years of service. I think a lot of folks in this organization were really deeply concerned and there's lots of times uh heading into that hiring process that Paul and Rob are saying we're really worried. We don't know that we see anyone in this in this field of candidates who's going to hold us steady or take us forward and within a
138few months they're saying Markinson who we don't need that Markinson Milo's been amazing and we just see uh really positive things happening already and Miley being a tremendous asset for all of your time here. where you won people over quickly because of how competent you are, thoughtful you are. You hold ground when go ground should be held and uh when people rebut things effectively and say um I think there's more to the story or that you're reaching the wrong conclusion too hastily, you're willing to listen to that and I think that's what won over Paul and Rob and frankly everyone in the system who's worked with you. So thanks for a job well done and thank you both for doing a great job on negotiations this year. and the board will vote on both contracts
139next time. Okay. Proclamation LGBTQ plus pride month. I will entertain a motion to adopt the proclamation declaring June 2025 pride month in Adams 12 fivestar schools as presented. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? I'm just always happy to see uh resolutions like this come before the board. Um I think in terms of the Trevor Project which reports on uh lots of studies, lots of surveys of kids who are LGBTQ plus who um and how they respond to different environments. And when you have a welcoming environment that embraces them, it saves lives. So, um I will vote for any sort of proposal that or resolution that does that all day, every day. To echo that and just say um you know the national rhetoric, it's scary and to our LGBTQ plus kids, this will always
140be a safe place for you to be. Um, and I think there's a commitment on our administrative side to make sure that that is uh true. And um, I should have said in the public comments, but um, next month will be both Adams and Broomfield Pride. So, we hope to see you there. Um, I really appreciate people coming out to support all kids. Um, I think what's been really heavy on on my heart is the lack of empathy shown to many kids and people um that just are not like them. Um, one of the biggest things we can do to build a strong community and um is relationships. building relationships and developing relationships with people that we might not um necessarily like or but these are kids. Somebody just said in public comment tonight, these
141are kids. It is as simple as that. They are kids. They just want to show up in school, have friends, go to recess, go to gym, you know, they just are kids and so let's just treat them as kids um and give them the support that kids need. I think um what I hope to see with proclamations like this is awareness of um vulnerable populations that are possibly being attacked. Um offending behavior comes out in many ways um including verbal and Um, and you've heard even physical and all of our kids deserve to feel a part of their community, their school community, and proclamations like this um demonstrate that. And we also heard from parents tonight who are so appreciative of the support their kids get in schools. Um, and let's continue that. Again, let's
142continue building our community. Let's continue building our relationships. Um, because strong relationships equal strong communities and a sense of belonging. And that is what we need more now than ever um to build uh healthy kids. So, yeah. I just want to say the parents that showed up tonight to talk to us about why it's important to support kids who are LGBTQ plus. I'm sorry they left. Maybe they're at home listening. Um I appreciate them coming forward and and sharing their thoughts with us, sharing their stories and sharing examples of what can happen if we aren't supporting our kids. We need to support all our kids because all our kids are fragile some way and you know the outcome isn't always pretty when they aren't supported. So thank you. Okay. Director Assad Lucas. Hi. Director Batistelli.
143Hi. Director Goldstein. Hi. Director Marsh Holen. I. Director Potter. I. Okay. Monitoring report. Internal monitoring report. Operating limitations policy 1.1 K12 core content curriculum articulation with school specific examples. Dave Bana I will entertain a motion to acknowledge that the board has received a monitoring report as of May 21st, 2025. Finds the superintendent's interpretations are reasonable and supported by data that is relevant, justified, and complete. So moved. Second. Hi Dave. So Dave, before you get going, I may just do a brief intro. Um, so I know Paula po posed some questions and gave some feedback uh earlier this week about this report and it it prompted me to to reflect on that it could be helpful to give a little bit of perspective about this policy for the board since there's a number of folks who
144are newer to it. My belief about this bifurcation of 1.1 and this more qualitative uh reporting that we do in the spring compared to the quantitative reporting that we do at other times of the year. The genesis behind that from my perspective with the past board was twofold. Number one, they just uh were in the spot of feeling like there's too much of public education accountability that's all quantitative based on test scores and there's a lot of other things that matter that measure what we're doing for kids and their growth that doesn't get captured in CMAS and SAT and things like that. So, there was a strong interest in having some qualitative things brought forward. There's also a strong interest in making sure that a lot of the program programs that we celebrate whether it's
145STEM or um international bakalora programming you could go on and on and on but there was a desire that a lot of these learning modalities whether it's problem based learning or other uh learning opportunities aren't just concentrated in a few schools and so through this report there's a desire to just get more evidence about how were providing similar opportunities outside of magnets to kids throughout the system. So I think those were the two core motivations behind this policy and it's also something that if you feel like either the report is too long uh in its current format or there might be ways to summarize more effectively and meet your current interest or if you want to develop different policy language. All those things are fair game but I think that background could be helpful about
146explaining why we've done some of the work the way we have. And at least speaking for the staff, I know we're very happy uh to adjust in whatever ways meet the desires of the current board. Dave, your show. Thank you, Superintendent Gdowski. Board members, Mr. Gdowski, you stole a lot of my thunder to introduce the uh this monitoring report, but thank you so much. That was an excellent synopsis. The other thing we also did with the earlier portion that was delivered in November was still fold in some of the data that would come after the end of the calendar year with dropouts, grad rate. So all of that outcome data was given to you more at the beginning of the year when it's fresh and you know you would likely have the greatest interest in
147it and that this report fell at the end of the year when we couldn't report exactly what's been transpiring for the year. So that seemed to be a very logical uh way to structure this but again very very much open to looking at a different structure for the report if that would be beneficial for the board. Um, first before we begin, I just want to give a lot of u thanks to our learning services content team who did a lot of the work around the curriculum articulation work. They really did a heavy lift to show you what do these curricula look like as you go from K through 12 in our system. So, I want to give them a shout out. I also want to thank our principles for taking a look at all the
148programming they provide at their schools and updating what they're providing over time. Um, I can tell you 51% of the schools had modifications from what they've done in the past. So, they're continuously looking at the programming they provide students and opportunities they provide students. So, I just wanted to be sure to thank those groups who really do the lion share of putting this information together. Um, in the report in the monitoring report related to the curriculum, you'll see that we're looking at four different strands. We change this every year to provide a really holistic picture of what's going on in the curriculum realm. So, in terms of uh ELA, you're looking atformational uh text and argumentative writing. In math, we're looking at sense of problems and and perseverance. We know that's a struggle we hear
149for students, particularly as they get to advanced math. Um in terms of science, it was life science structure and function. And then lastly, social studies was geography with an emphasis on Colorado geography. Um and so ultimately that's what we provided in this report for you um for your edification. and I would be open to any questions you might have or comments that you might have. I giggle, but I can't help but to laugh about the Colorado geography because I still don't know Colorado geography today, but the data looks great. There's a lot of work that's gone into that. Um, spent some time digging through it and I think there there's room to grow. There always is. But I'm incredibly impressed with our team across the board um for all the solutions that they've creatively come
150up with and we continue to see the data improve. So thank you. So um since I was referenced I will quote Taylor Swift and say it's me. Hi I'm the problem. It's me again. Um so I first of all I felt sorry for you when I saw the report because it was monstrously long. Um and so my thing was how do we co coales all of that information into something more doable um that specifically addresses how is this meeting the policy right so um my personal opinion is but this is my personal opinion is how do we make this job easier for Dave Bayana's team and more concise in the approach. Uh me personally I'm a learning designer. I could sit and look at assignments all day every day and I'd be thrilled throughout the
151entire process. Um, but I think the point was really more like how can we connect this assignment to the policy language, right? So that's why I was thinking if we could just in the future somehow pull out some selective pieces. I think the policy language is fine, my personal opinion, but pull out some selective pieces that sort of encapsulate what you're doing because I love the qualitative piece to go, you know, with the quantitative. It's perfect. Um, but how do we connect that these selective pieces to that policy language again? So, how does this demonstrate that students are writing for a variety of purposes? And I could infer that, but I was like, they've had to capture like 50 million different assignment examples. So, um, let's make this easier. So, that was really where that
152came from. And it's clear to me that we're meeting those policy standards. um looking at the assignments and I can sort of make those connections. But that's where that was coming from and I kind of see it as you know you see all the different creativity and the different schools and how they deliver and yeah it is a lot of work. Yeah, I like that part too. Yeah, let's make an appendix. [Music] I'll just say before uh Steph gets her trigger figure finger going on uh call and roll, but oftentimes we've had these kinds of situations where a board member has some ideas about ways for us uh to have a tighter a more logical linkage between policy language and data reported or to find ways uh to be more efficient so that you're not
153going through an 80page report which used to be almost all of our monitoring reports. 25 years ago were like voluminous like this. So if it works for the group, I'd be inclined uh to invite Paula to have a meeting with like Dave, myself, maybe someone from learning services and just explore further some of the ideas and opportunities for maybe streamlining parts of this report in ways I think are still going to honor what Lori shared and what I've heard others remark upon and not take away the essence of what I think people like in this report, but see if there's some efficiencies we can gain and maybe some more explicit connections about things like this data and how it proves up that we're teaching kids to write for different audiences or different types of purposes.
154So, I'm not seeing any objections to that. Paula, if you're not objecting, we will huddle up with you probably in June if you're so willing and um dig into this more. Director Assad Lucas, hi. Director Batistelli, hi. Director Goldstein, hi. Director Marsh Holman, hi. Director Potter, hi. Okay. Thank you, Dave. Thank you. Internal monitoring report operating limitations policies 2.3 financial planning and budgeting. I will entertain a motion to acknowledge that the board has received a monitoring report as of May 21st, 2025 for fiscal years 2025 2026, 2026, 2027, and 2027 2028 and finds the superintendent's interpretations are reasonable and supported by data that is relevant, justified, and complete. So moved. Second. Dina. Good evening board. Um I didn't put a presentation together specifically for 2.3 because we did the budget presentation throughout all of 2.3
155monitoring report. We do the district does show compliance and um mostly wanted to see if you have any questions on any of that content. Any questions? Gotta wait for Stephanie to get back to call the vote. I exhausted all my problem causing comments with the previous internal report. Sorry, Dave. Okay. Director Assad Lucas. Hi. Director Batistelli. Hi. Director Goldstein. Hi. Director Marsh Holen. Hi. Director Potter. Hi. Okay. And then on to internal monitoring operating limitations policy 2.4 financial conditions and activities. I will entertain a motion to acknowledge the board has received a monitoring report as of May 21st, 2025 for the period July 1st, 2024 through March 31st, 2025 and finds the superintendent's interpretations are reasonable and supported by data that is relevant, justified, and complete. So move second. Okay. [Music] All right. Good evening
156again board. This is um internal monitoring report 2.4 for the period ended March 31st, 2025. And so um this is a PDF and so I'm going to try to scroll through it correctly. Apologize. I I think I forgot to give Stephanie the actual presentation. So, she has the power the um PDF version of it here. All right. So, as you know, we've we've been through some of these monitoring reports and you're looking at the the reviewing fiscal compliance that we've put together. So, the first piece, we monitor the fund balance and reserves. And so on page two of the report, we show that we're forecasting year end that our Taber reserve will be 15.7 million and our contract reserve will be $16.4 million. As a reminder, the contract reserve is the um future payments of
157certified and classified longevity stipens. And on in the budget and in 2.3 we actually show over the next several years that obligation is going to go down because of the PE people are grandfathered into it. No one new is being added to that. So we'll see that obligation go down which will be good news for the um overall funding of the district. All right, on this next slide, we're looking at the um fund balance compared to our um general fund revenues. And so board policy, as you um probably remember, is it can be unassigned fund balance can be no less than 4% and no more than 8%. And so what we are when we were building next year's budget, we were intentionally forecasting the available funds based on having that reserve of 4%. So um
158that totals 18.5 million in our forecast for the end of the year. All right. And the next piece is monitoring our cash position and liquidity. As you've heard um myself and Aaron share on multiple occasions, a a change that the state made in the way they fund us, the timing of our payments for total program has really improved our cash forecasting. And so we are receiving nearly uh nearly $50 million faster than we would in prior years because we're getting those that state share um in equal payments over about nine months and then our property taxes. So our funding is more level which has allowed our interest earnings to be substantially higher this year than prior years and even what we forecasted. And so on this um graph the lower blue portion those are our
159restricted funds we non-spendable and then we have the purple which is spendable and then that green line is our average monthly operating expenditures in prior years in the month of December, January and even February that purple bar would be getting dangerously close to the green line and because of this change we have seen you know significantly better cash flow. All right. Um also happy to report in our monitoring the accounts payable and receivable that we um have compliance with with uh meeting our timely payments. So that's also good news. Helps with our liquidity as well um with the revenue the receivables. All right. Um, we added a section with the new bond, so monitoring the bonds and borrowing. So, page eight is a summary of the bond issuance. And as of March 31st, the district
160had allocated $12.4 million to our charter schools and had only spent about $17,000 um on the approved projects. We've encumbered nearly $3 million. And that can be seen on pages 9 and 10. Our monitor monitoring audit compliance and internal controls. As you know, we will soon be starting the work for our annual audit with Clifton Larson Allen. And we will um be going out for RFP for a new auditor in the fall. So after the audit is complete, we will go out for RFP for audit services. And then finally, you have our quarterly financial statements. And so looking at those quarterly financial statements in the general fund, we're projecting that our yearend revenue will be approximately $2.5 million higher than our amended budget. And that is because of interest earnings. So we have with the
161higher interest rates as well as the improved cash flow, our interest earnings are greater than we expected and our expenditures are trending as expected and actually the exact same percentage as last year at this time which is a little interesting. Any questions? I don't have questions. I was just happy to see the interest rate. I'm like okay. So, I am paying more for eggs, but on the other hand, hey, eggs have gone down in price. That's that's a big old get Chris gets to say I told you so because Erin and I were um a bit more conservative when budgeting last year because you don't we don't know what's going to happen with those rates. And so Chris gets a a big old I told you so to uh Erin and I. Better than to
162be in the opposite direction. Yes, that is that's Thank you. So I'm happy to report um compliance compliance throughout 2.4. Director Assad Lucas I. Director Batistelli I. Director Goldstein I. Director Marsh Holen I. Director Potter I. Thank you Gina. Thank you Aaron. All right. Consent agenda. I will entertain a motion to approve the personal actions as presented. Resignations and terminations, transfers and reassignments, employment and leaves of absence. So moved. Second. Director Assad Lucas. I. Director Batistelli. I. Director Goldstein. Hi. Director Marsh Holen. I. Director Potter. I. All right. You guys have been sitting there all night. It's time to entertain a motion to recess for an executive session to discuss real estate matters regarding the potential sale of 13.5 acres south of the ESC at the East Lake Station pursuant to board policies 2.0 general
163operating limitations and 2.5 asset protection and Colorado revised statute 24-6-424A. So moved. Second. Director Assad Lucas. Hi. Director Batistelli. Hi. Director Goldstein. Hi. Director Marsh Holen. Hi. Director Potter. Hi. Um, okay. But we're going to take a 10-minute break before that. And then just if anybody's listening online, we will have to come back after the session to um just do some clean up and adjourn. But all the business has been taken care of except for this Oh, it might have Cassie session at 9:17. We're reconvening. Uh Okay, we are back from Oh, can I go? Okay, we're back from executive session and we are just going to go over the calendar and future events. Um, see, we have one more graduation next Thursday, I think. Thursday. Yeah. And, uh, New America invited us to their
164graduation. And I don't know if anybody was be is going to be able to attend and you um oh I I can see the future agenda items. We have um some we have new America charter contract renewal. We have some internal monitoring reports and we will have oh CASBY resolutions. The timeline for CASBY resolutions has been uh moved back up because of the change in the CASBY delegate assembly. Um I know Alexis has expressed a interest in a resolution possibly not from Madam. Okay. But we have an interest in re um submitting the resolution on the um local control and the the one that we did last year that was approved very quickly and rapidly that we need to up because the need is still there. Is there any language change that you envision there
165or would it just be having stuff dig up what was dig up what was done before and we can look at it and resubmit it. Do we do should we also talk about delegates? Yeah, we should also talk about delegates. Um the delegate assembly is in um it's right after Labor Day I believe and it's in Loveland. Um, I go because I'm on the Casby board and well and I have interest in being a delegate. Well, and you were last year, but you couldn't go, right? So, yeah. Okay. And you can Anybody else interested? Even if you're not a delegate, there is um like um training and stuff that happens. Okay. All right. Anything else that we want to talk about tonight? All right. We're journed.