Adams 12 Board of Education Meeting 5/7/2025

001Okay. All right. I'm going to call the meeting to order for Wednesday, May 7th, 2029, regular board meeting. Director Assad Lucas here. Director Batiselli here. Director Goldstein here. Director Marsh Holshen here. Director Potter. I will entertain a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. Director Assad Lucas. I director Bastelli. I. Director Goldstein. I. Director Marsh Holen. I. Director Potter. I I will 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 East Lake Station pursuant to board policies 2.0 general operating limitations and 2.5 asset protection and Colorado revised statute 24-6-424A. So moved. Second. Director Assad Lucas. I Director Bastelli. I Director Goldstein. I Director Marsh Holen. I Director Potter. Bye. ready. Okay. All right. We are going to

002reconvene from our executive session. We'll start with the pledge of allegiance. Rise if you are able. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, on to superintendent update. So, I gave you all an update as you know in work study. I'm also mindful that we got out here late compared to what we had projected. So, I'll just simply state that we're in the finishing stage of the school year. Excited about that. that have high school graduations that commence on Monday of next week and look forward to finishing in strong fashion, doing some hard work this summer and then just gearing up for an outstanding 2526 school year. That's it from me.

003Thank you. All right, on to board of education comments, recognition, awards, and vision. Start with Director Potter. Thank you, President Goldstein. It has definitely been a busy time of the year, but I want to take a special moment to acknowledge all of our um educators and students that are going through all of their testing. Testing is overtaken. I feel like the whole district and there's kids testing everywhere I look. It can be extremely stressful. I think one of our fellow board members shared her daughter has like a dozen something tests and I'm fortunate to not be in that phase of my life yet. But you know, my heart goes out to both the students and parents that deal with the stressed out kiddos and also the educators that are dealing with all those emotions. And

004as we wrap up the year, um I hope everyone enjoys the last couple months of being a senior. I know they're done. I think today was their last day. Um which is just hard to believe. Every time we hit this hem, I'm like, I cannot believe it went by this fast. Um, and I'm excited. I've been hearing all the all the amazing things that these kids are off to do. And it doesn't m it doesn't seem to matter how challenging their life was. They're still finding a way to achieve greatness. And I couldn't be more proud of them all. Thank you. Thank you, Director Marsh Holen. Thank you. Um, well, happy um, teacher appreciation week, everyone. And um a big thank you of course to all of our teachers and to uh the staffs and

005the PTO's who put together um a lot of the celebrations of teachers. I know that that's a lot of work that um our parents and communities put in and it is um very welld deserved for the teachers that they are honoring. Um we had the five-star 5K and I'm sure everyone else will talk about it. Congratulations to our board president for winning in her age bracket. Um, and for director Batistelli for getting my son to walk the whole thing. That was a big accomplishment. Um, I was excited to be there and see the Cricut team had a booth set up. Um, and we're practicing even though the fields were super wet. And I'm excited that this um, upcoming Saturday is the uh, ribbon cutting um, for that. And I'm sure I have a bunch, but

006I can't remember. It is also the last day of session. So, um, happy side day for everybody who celebrates that and thank you to, um, especially our finance team this year. That's was an incredibly hard budget year. Um, and just amazing job for somebody that was down there for other reasons. Um, it was I was continually um, talked to about what a great job our team did. And um I know it's it's really frustrating in these financial times um and the choices that Colorado has made, but um I really appreciate all the work they did. So, thanks. Thank you, Director Badestelli. I have a big long uh list of events that I attended. I apologize, but it's all good news. Um and I do also thank Gina and Aaron, our finance team, for the work

007they've done this past year. It's been pretty monumental and Gina always does it so elegantly. I was going to say also um no worries I'm fluent in 5-year-old. So um I was happy to assist with getting him around that that loop. So the first thing I want to do is congratulate uh our classified employee of the year. Uh Lynn Kelly, she's a registar secretary at Riverdale Elementary School. I think she's dedicated what 26 years to her work there. I'm looking over there because Lori and Chris have all the numbers. Um then Britney Wallace, I wanted to recognize her. Certified employee uh recognition this year. She's an English teacher who's served at Horizon High School for over 30 years. Um I also attended a few different events. I attended Sherry. Is it Sherry or Sheree? Sherry.

008Sherry. Thank you. I'm terrible with empasses. Um Sherry Blunt, the principal at Northland High School who's retiring. Um, I attended her baseball cere the baseball team had a little ceremony for her at the beginning and we were able to sign her jersey and I thanked her for her years of service because she's also served 26 years something like that 12 of them as the athletic director at North Glenn and she's made a wonderful impact there and we can see part of that she facilitated she helped in the creation of the STEM program there which is a pretty well um well perceived program for our district. I attended the art awards ceremonies with Amamira and Lori and we were able to uh award the elementary, middle, and high school kids um for their work and it

009was so wonderful to see them get recognition for that work. The little boy who found out he was actually getting money um that was hilarious. Um I attended the STEM appreciation breakfast at North Glenn High School. the community partners were being honored for uh taking part in panels and I think offering resources and so on and so forth. Sherry was recognized there too for her work. Um we had some wonderful presentations from the STEM launch fourth grade class. I believe they talked about their um their uh windmill project, wind energy project. I think they were awarded uh the CSU Spurs recognized them as one of the top projects I think at least for their grade. Is that I think that's correct. Um and then uh I attended the Thornon High School cultural fair and performances.

010There was some fantastic food particularly from Tajikistan. Um and there were great cultural dances and performances. Um and I also wanted to note future forward is collaborating with the city to create metal artwork um to beautify roadsides. So, uh, over the next few months, keep an eye out for it. Uh, it's wonderful to see that partnership taking place between the district and the city. I like those kinds of partnerships. So, that's all the news I have. Thanks to all the teachers. Again, teacher appreciation month. Um, it's not enough, but you know, it's one of the ways we can thank teachers for those decades of service they've been offering us. So, thank you. Thank you. All right. Director Assad Lucas. Good evening everyone. Thank you for being here. I also kind of have a little bit

011of a longer um list. Just want to make sure all things get recognized. First off, want to give my unequivocal gratitude to all of our educators. Um because of you, because of our educators, our students, our families, and our communities are stronger. I talk a lot about the importance of relationships and how relationships matter and our educators are building relationships every day with kids that matter and that help them prosper. Um, I happened to be back in my hometown from Sunday to Monday and Monday morning went for a run throughout my town that is incredibly small and happened to run by all my schools that I attended because it's an incredibly small town and the school was in session. So by the one elementary schools, kids were out playing the high school kids were just

012getting there. Um, and what I as I'm running by all these memories and sort of kind of flashing back of many, many years ago, a few decades, and the first thought that that came to my mind was an educator at each of those buildings that made an impact that um, you know, made a difference for me in some way. And so again, our educators have such long-term effects and um impact on kids and families in the community. So, thank you for all that you do. Uh I wanted to address the new order of uh mental health cut for or uh the cut for mental health funding for K12 education. But I am going to wait during um later in the meeting when we discuss the proclamation for National Gun Violence Awareness Day. So, President Goldstein

013and I along with Deputy Superintendent Fert um had the privilege of attending the Westminster annual education board dinner last evening. It was a lovely event hosted by the city to recognize the partnership between them and the school districts that are within their city uh boundaries. Um because again relationships matter and when we can work together we can build stronger communities. This past Friday, I also had the honor of attending the Six Siblings Foundation Scholarship Ceremony um where outstanding students from Thornton High School are recognized for their achievements. Last year's recipient, Catalina Alcarez, was a speaker at the event, and I've known her since for probably about well, four years now. um she was a year older than my daughter and they were on the volleyball team together and developed a relationship and she is an

014outstanding young woman um at CSU studying cyber security stuff and the honors program um very very welld deserved. The recipient this year did not want me to share her name, but she very welld deserved for it and will go on to do amazing things. Uh, as mentioned, attended the five-star 5K and as always, an amazing event. Uh, President Goldstein and Director Marsh Holen and Secretary Bastelli and I got to um help celebrate the uh students who received the Aim for the Stars scholarship and it was a really exciting event for them. Again, hard work that these students have done to make these achievements and they definitely needed to be celebrated and recognized. So that was really exciting and again a huge thank you to Lisa Reed, the whole child initi initiative team and all the

015volunteers that were part of making another successful event. And next year's date I think has already been announced for May 9th or something. Yeah, early May. So keep it on. Don't be like me and register too late and not get a shirt. So, um, and then lastly for the evening is just want to congratulate all the graduating seniors. Uh, today was their last official day of their K12 education. And so, it's like reflecting back, I'm a little sentimental about it right now because I have a senior who will be graduating Monday night and um, she's my first. So, uh, it's pretty it's an exciting time. She's the first on for the whole family, so it's a really exciting time for everybody. But, um, just reflecting back of the years of hard work and dedication. And

016again when going back to teachers and the relationships they build when handing out or when she thinking of who she wanted to invite all she of her teachers thought of all the teachers that made a significant impact which happened to be all of them. Um and so relationships matter and because of that it gets our kids to the end and helps them be successful. So thank you everyone. Thank you. All right. Um I've been busy, too. I went to uh Congressman Gabe Evans's office on April 22nd. I had a meeting with his chief of staff and his um education folks and we had a great conversation about um how federal funds affect us for schools. So, that was a real um rewarding experience. some I felt like they really listened to me. Um then I

017went to the elementary and secondary art show awards that night and uh yeah the kids are so cute and and it's great because you get to see their art on the big screen. On the 23rd of April I paid a visit to the North Metro Fire Training Center. It's um just north of Highway 7 and it's um a training facility for firemen. And the reason I went was because the U future forward wash square their kids and their fire classes were doing their um tests and these tests involve a lot of heat and it was really cool. So if you've never been there, there's a building that's kind of a it's a house, I guess, but it's kind of set up to be like a gas grill. So they have um propane is the fuel

018that they use to make the fires when they're training on how to put them out. So there's one room with this couch that's really a metal grill that you can ignite with propane. And um the person in charge just happened to be um Chad Telinger who's the husband of Tracy Telinger who happens to be a former student of mine and he's a lot older than he was when I had him in class. Uh, but he's kind of one of the head dudes there and he he directs the traffic of of the whole thing. And you watched all the kids, they're in their gear and it's very heavy. And so I saw that room and then they had a room next to it that was actually walled off that was wood. So they don't want that

019to burn because they use this place over and over. And this was a it was a dark room that was kind of a maze. And these kids dress up and they actually asked me if I wanted to do this, but I said no. And you go in, they go in and they have to navigate through this area that has like sinking floors and whatnot. They had a ceiling that they showed uh they lit it up and it had this flame roll down the ceiling and then they practiced on putting that out. And they also have a car that they can light up over and over again. Uh and they have a tower. They have all kinds of fun stuff there to train and it's north metros but um our kids use it. Um, the city

020of Westminster uses it too because they don't have their own facility. Uh, so that was really neat. The one thing they do have a lot out there are bullsnakes and the bullsnakes were starting to wake up for the season and that was kind of causing a little tension in some of our folks out there. But bullsnakes are not poisonous. Um I I went to the Adams County Mayors and Commissioners Awards at the Westminster um City Park Rec Center and that's where kids a lot of our a lot of the kids were our kids that were honored. Uh it was kind of a culmination of there had been one at Thornon. had bid that each city had done their own and then we had finalists and the um keynote speaker was Lorie Poland and for those

021of you that might remember the story some most of you probably aren't old enough to remember it but um she was kidnapped in front of her house at the age of three she was assaulted and left for dead in an outhouse in the mountains and somebody found her and she's you know older now obviously it's been 40 years and she tells that story and she also talks about how it impacted her throughout her life. And so we got to listen to her story and you know some of the kids that were there that night getting awards have some stories to tell also. And um it was pretty it was pretty impactful. Um I also went to the North Glenn High School baseball game to watch Sherry put out the first pitch. Um and one thing

022that you might also want to not is that Sherry's a Northland Glenn High grad, too. So, um, she's had a wonderful career in Adams 12 and she is retiring at the end of this school year and I wish her the best. Um, we're going to miss her. Um, at the Kasala Hope lunch the next day, Lori Poland was the master of ceremonies for that and that was um, honoring uh, courtappointed special advocates. And um if you don't know about that, those are people who are volunteers that are assigned to kids who are in the court system, whether their parents are caught up in the court system or they're caught up in the court system. And they're totally volunteer organization. And so um it's a great opportunity for people uh retired educators to pursue um this

023activity because they always need new ones and um they're they're very rewarding. I do know several folks who have done this and they that it's such a reward for them. Um, as you heard the 5K, five star 5K and yes, I won my age bracket. I don't think there was anybody else in it. Um, well, but I I felt good about it. I mean, I walked really fast. Um, I don't run anymore. I have a knee replacement, so I'm not supposed to. Um, then I also went to the Westminster annual education dinner and it was fun talking to some of our counterparts in the other school districts that we uh share Westminster with to listen to what's going on in the city of Westminster, Front Range Community College, all these um governmental agencies that work

024together to do great things for our students and to uh produce citizens who are productive members of Westminster. There's a lot of pride in Westminster. Um, on May 3rd, that was last Saturday, I went to the Scouts membership summit, and you'll hear probably from somebody a little bit later, but I was on a panel with another board me school board member who's serves on the board in Littleton and then a person who was formerly the mayor of Cherry Village, and we just talked about the partnerships that scouts can have with school districts and and whatnot. Sunday, I went to the Lions Club relay races. I don't know if any of you have ever gone to this. I didn't even know they existed, but it's been going on for years. I thought, "Oh, I'll just pop

025over and see what's going on at the stadium." We had over 20 of our elementary schools there. I don't know, somehow or another, I missed out on that when my kids were in elementary school. It was a really big deal and there were um it was a beautiful day and the it was just it was a big track meet for elementary kids and it was really special and thanks to the Lions Club, thanks to the city of Thornton for doing that. um May 6th signing night. That was last night. Uh yeah, we had a couple of our students signed to enlist in the armed services and then we had a lot of students signed to work um for various um construction. Uh Adolfson and Peterson, Hel Phelps, JHL uh and they all signed their intent

026and it was a ceremony and it was it was fun to watch it from above. I was on the second floor of the of Wash Square. The other thing that happened too was that we cut a ribbon. They cut a ribbon for a tiny home. And it's not exactly the tiniest, but it is a tiny home. And the kids build it. And this is the fourth one they've built. They um Forge Wash Square got enough of a a donation from a a person in the community to build five of them. So they do one a year and then they cut the ribbon, then they find a place for it. And I believe they said this one was going to Salida. And if you look inside of it, it really is a nice little hab place

027to habitate. It's got a loft for the bedroom. It's got a kitchen. It's got a bathroom. And you know, we talk a lot about affordable housing. And you know, especially for professionals or for this one particular is for kids who um age out of the foster care system because once they turn 18, they don't get any services anymore. And a lot of kids don't graduate before they're 18, so they're still in high school. So, this is also a really um great community thing. And then I would be remiss if I did not mention happy teacher appreciation day. Um and it's every day should be teacher appreciation day and the things that you do every day. You get recognized one day out of the year. Um I wish it was more and I wish we could

028do more than just say it and send you a card. um we were able to do that this year. So anyway, that's my update. So it looks like now we are on board committee layers on reports. We'll start. Is there a DAC report? No. No. Uh fact. Uh the fact met on the 17th, so yeah, we haven't had a board meeting. um whatever the uh bond spending and ML MLO uh spending and um were to the monitoring report. I think they're presenting at to us at the next meeting. No, two meeting tonight. Totally tonight. Okay. Okay. Uh just a summary of the long range planning committee meeting on uh was on the 17th. It was the day after our last meeting. We um got an update on the uh kind of a post-mortem for the

029mill levy override and um just talked about some of the um there was some polling as to what were some of the concerns of the voters as far as the mill levy override was concerned and um we also talked about current technical education engagement and how there's a lot of demand for some of our programs to the point where we have to turn kids away. We're also talking about implementing current technical education exploration in the middle school. And we talked about uh work-based learning versus school-based learning. And um the work-based learning includes things like internships, apprenticeships, hands-on fieldwork. Um we also um talked about some of our programs of how they could be public facing such as auto mechanics, welding, construction which as I said we know we built they built a tiny home and

030some of the challenges um that were concerns. We have an EMT program however you have to be 21 to be an EMT. So there's always a gap between the time a kid graduates with EMT training and goes on to becoming an EMT. Um sometimes there's a limit of industry partners and something um capacity. So we have weight lists on a lot of our classes such as welding, construction, the um certified nurse assistant. There are they're full and they also have weight lists. Um the the thing about CTE also is that it's a opportunity for kids to find a passion. You know, if they're in their regular classes and it's just not something that's of interest to them and they start thinking about what they want to do with their future, um these are opportunities to

031pave the way for them to land on something that they're going to want to pursue as um after they graduate. Um they also mentioned a school-based enterprise. We had a little discussion about that. That's something that um actually generates money to fund the program. Um real world experience. Um there are concerns about implementing it like where and how. Um but some of the things that came up as a possible ideas for school-based um enterprise would be a barber shop, car maintenance and detail, a restaurant cafe, a cosmetology, um a small business incubator, healthcare related. Um and then just um you know there's all kinds of considerations in terms of regulations. um they talked about possibilities for um where some of these things might be located like at Bulman or Wash Square. And so it's just

032a good conversation about how we can move forward um with our current technical. So that's my LRPAC report. 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 Koka here to my right. A threeminut timer will be set for each speaker. Please keep an eye on that timer. Speakers will be informed when the time has expired and we ask that you end your comments at that time. Our first speaker is Keith Mains. Good evening board and citizens. I'm speaking on the uh board

033policy to allow boys to use girls bathrooms and uh to compete with them in sports. One of the school board members in support of the this radical gender policy of Adams Square school district referenced a Harvard School of Public Health study which concluded that transgenders are two and a half times more likely to be sexually assaulted if they're required to use the bathroom of their own gender. The rebal re reliability of this study's data is suspect on its face. So listen to what they're saying and it's implausible. Note that the male transgender teen would be forced to use his own bathroom, right? And so they're saying that he's been sexually assaulted in his own bathroom. That implies that there's homosexual assaults going on in the in the school's bathroom. According to this study that you

034uh referenced, I agree with the previous testimony presented by some here that facts matter. As John Adams said during his defense of the British soldiers charged for murder in the revolutionary era's boston massacre, he said, "Facts are stubborn things and whenever whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, our dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. Wishes, inclinations and passion are very like the central to this unwise policy. Indeed, if the facts are clearly on the side of they are on the side of opposition to this radical gender policy which stands against millennia of cultural, religious, and scientific truth and wisdom. If a 6,000-year-old standard is to be abolished, the burden of proof is upon those who would disregard thousands of years of common sense, science, and uh religion. I

035asked the board members who favored this policy if I could show you the opposite study and uh and give it would would that change your mind? If I could give you five studies, would that change your 10 studies that would change your mind? And I suspect unfortunately the answer is no on that because unfortunately dogmatic belief doesn't uh bend to uh truth. Um, I think of the the man who uh who believed pigs could fly and they proved conclusively that they'd had no wings. And his response was, "How about that? Pigs can pigs can fly without wings." So, um, don't be tied to a philosophy that is certainly not backed up by facts. The other more significant thing about this is the presumption that children are going to be sexually active and the encouragement to

036do so. to label a child as uh LGB or T um as a a child is is is uh is heinous. I'm trying to conclude all my remarks. I actually have about uh three more paragraphs and I would like to finish that. But um in any case um it's it's very clearly sexual activity is a is is an adult uh activity because it has adult consequences and adult responsibilities as we know and so uh the implication of the board to time has expired that that they should encourage that is is is heinous and there's really so much more. Our next speaker is Susan Stack. Thank you. I won't need three minutes. Um Susan Stack, Brighton. Um just I was listening to everything you guys said and I appreciate uh your comment about mental health. Um,

037I just wanted to kind of put something out there for some for you to think about over the summer because I know you've got a break that I'm sure is much earned. First time at one of these. Sorry. But um, my nephew is on the autism spectrum and uh, I have two kids of my own, but honestly, my nephew is my most favorite person in the world. Um, with the policy that's been suggested by recently by the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, um, I just want to know if the school board has been able to make any plans to keep him and other children like him safe or um, if there's something that you can kind of maybe think about for the future. And I know you got plenty on your plate and

038get through the graduations and but uh, just something I just kind of wanted to put out there to kind of get the wheels spinning a little bit. So, I just want to throw that out there. Thank you. Thank you. So, I'll just say on that piece, we have no plans uh to be tracking information about students with autism and sharing it with the federal government. I think it would require a change in law just given privacy and confidentiality rights of students. So, for us, we don't plan to change our current practices of maintaining that privacy. Our next speaker is Rose Ediger. Thank you. Hi. Uh, I was here last meeting and I want to start again by saying thank you to our board of directors for the time you spend volunteering on behalf of our

039community and the families that live here and all the kids that live here. This is a big job. You're doing it as volunteers. And you know, as a parent and someone who works, which I probably is all of you, how do you do it? Um, I'm going to look into it because I think it's important and I appreciate that. Um, last time I spoke also and just wanted to share again today that uh as a so I'm a parent. I have five kids. Um, and I have kids currently in the grade school, middle school, and high school in Adams 12 and a recent college grad. Um, and so, uh, I think I know children a little bit. I'm one of a large family as well. And, um, I just appreciate everything in the decisions made,

040um, across our community to to get to know each other and to get to know our kids. Uh because each one is special and each one has strengths and take away those labels, take away those fears that bring you here to share. Um we don't need to share what's making us scared and fight back against what's making us scared that hurts our children. Instead, we want to learn to to understand each other and to show our care um and to really show up for each other. I wanted to share a quick story about a little town in upstate New York. Um upstate New York is not blue or Democrat. Um and I think when we talk about community, those things don't matter. It's not about ideology, it's about care. Um, this town is um, Sackets

041Harbor and on March 27th, a mother and her three children who were all in the school system were deported by ICE or were grabbed by ICE and sent to a deportation facility in Texas. This town of 1,351 people, they knew each other. um and 1,000 people showed up at a rally calling for their community members to come home. You know, the first person that one of those students called when from the facility where they were being held was their teacher. So, thank you. Yes, to our teachers. Um absolutely, they make such a difference and I I am here to be your time has expired. Thanks. That's it. Thank you. Our next speaker is Michael Fifth House. Good evening. Mike Fhouse. I currently live in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. I want to introduce myself to you. I'm

042the interim executive director for Scouting Colorado and we are the local council for Scouting America serving the greater metro area as well as the western slope. Uh we provide programs to over 11,500 youth in our communities and we serve kids from kindergarten through age 20 in our various programs. In case you're not aware, 7 years ago now we invited girls to join all of our programs. So, we have girls as that opportunity to be in every program we have in scouting, which is exciting for me as a father of three daughters. Uh, we have a foundation of leadership, character, citizenship, community service, and much more. And we did bring some materials to share with you this evening that I believe are being passed around. Our goal is to build relationships with our schools to provide

043programs to uh help our families and our students as we can. We want to understand the community needs and to see where we can provide support through those programs. I do want to acknowledge Charlie Botnik here with me this evening. Charlie is our local executive serving all of the communities for your schools. And in closing, just thank you for your time. Thank you what you do for educators and the education world in general and appreciate all of you. Thank you. It's good to see you. Our next speaker is Thomas Scoville. Thomas Scoville, Thornton, Colorado. God save Taber and God bless the tax assessor for the county of Adams. I spoke last on your bizarre gender policy where you mandate putting boys in beds with girls. You claim to care for the gender dys you came

044to you claim to care for our gender dysphoric youth. They merit respect as do we all. But your good intentions are not licensed to meddle with the safety and mental and emotional health of others. You say the school shall accept the gender identity that each student asserts. You also say students shall have access to the restrooms consistent with their gender identity. However, your piece on locker rooms is garbled by an impossible secrecy requirement. You say gender identity is fluid. It's determined by the individual and can change at any time. noted. But you say the terms of gender doctrine are evolving and lack consensus of meaning. This is policy dril. Yet one thing is clear. You say any boy at any time can say he identifies as female and without questioning you give him an instant

045pass to the private spaces you once reserved for girls. You have no requirement for the boy to share this with your staff or for your staff to monitor or assess the situation. Some boys may be sincere when they assert a non-male identity, but others may be into mischief and shenanigans as youth are want to be. Because you provide no means for sorting this, male and female signs for restrooms are now superolous. You are ins you are insulting the dignity of girls. You are trashing the privacy they once expected and still deserve. You are creating chaos by wrecking the long st a longtime cultural norm of segregating private spaces by sex. This norm has served us well. It is a threat to no one except those with bad intentions. Please do not let your moral preining

046get in the way of rescending this absurd policy. I called out the uh Adams County tax assessor because I got just got my notice in the mail that my assessment's gone down uh almost 7%. Please don't get in the way of me enjoying this tax break. Thank you. Our next speaker is Kathy Kelly. Thank you. I'm Kathy Kelly from Westminster, Colorado, and just wanted to address the board to talk to you about We're Orange. This is an event that we celebrate actually with the Adams 12 school board for probably the last 7 to eight years. Um, but since 2013, Moms Demand Action and where um and Every Town for Gun Safety has uh called to the community's attention um the uh gun violence that is taking place and how it is impacting particularly students and

047kids. Um, so I want to just draw to your attention that 4.6 million children live in homes with guns that are unlocked and loaded. Uh, in Colorado, however, it is the law that homes with children in them are required to have guns that are stored safely and properly so that kids kids are protected. Um, guns are affect students in a number of different ways, but in particular in Colorado, 46% of the gun deaths of students are due to suicides and 50% are homicides. And so, I just want you to keep those numbers in mind. Um, we know that all school districts are impacted by gun violence. We just want to draw to your attention the importance of that. Nationwide, 43 children are killed by guns each year and 17,000 are shot and wounded. So, gun

048violence is real and it's particularly important to students. and I thank you for celebrating or acknowledging We're orange, which is a national gun violence awareness uh proclamation and day that we celebrate on June 6. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. And we'll be discussing that resolution down the road on our agenda. Our next speaker is Laura Garcia Pasco. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Laura West Minister and I'm here tonight as a deeply concerned community member and parent. I'm alarmed by the increasingly political direction this board is taking. Our school board should be focused on student outcomes, not federal elections. But lately, we've heard rhetoric from the DAS that sounds more like campaign speeches than conversations about kids. Some members have gone so far as to publicly complain about the federal administration simply because their candidate didn't

049win. That is not the job you were elected to do. Let's all talk about the elephant in the room. One board member is actively running for political office and another is a paid lobbyist. That's not inherently wrong, but it raises questions, serious questions about where their priorities lie. Are they here to serve the students or to score political points? School boards are supposed to be nonpartisan. You are supposed to rise above personal agendas and focus on things that actually impact students. Improving test scores, supporting teachers, and making our schools safe and welcoming for every child. When this board becomes a platform for political messaging, our kids lose. We need to demand better because our students, teachers, and community deserves leaders who put education, not ideology, first. Thank you. Our final speaker is Vicky Quintto. Okay.

050Hi, my name is Vicki and thank you for letting me speak. I have 30 years experience working with children and people with disabilities. I have an amazing adult son and an angel of a niece. Uh we are role models. We are we are who the people look to who the children look to to make decisions. We should be teaching children to love themselves and love their community. We need to be listening to each other whether we agree or disagree. I have always and will always come from a place of love and respect for every human being. Every person in this room took time out of their day to come here because they believe that the children are important and they care. Every person has unique skills, opinions, and experiences. We can all learn from each

051other and teach the children to do the same. As adults, we can choose to teach children to respect each other if we do the same. We can choose to teach children to love and be kind, or we can teach them to hate and divide and commit crimes when they disagree with someone. Sadly, in Colorado, we have chosen to teach children how to hate themselves and each other. The people we put in charge choose not to listen to us and not to listen to the children. There was a bill in the Senate of Colorado where 80% of the 700 people testifying objected to it. It passed anyway because they're not listening. It seems the school board is doing the same. When you make rules based on the 6% of the population that are transgender, do you

052ask the other 99.4% how that makes them feel? When you insult straight white males, do you ask the little boys how that makes them feel? Have you asked the little girls how they feel when they go into a bathroom and there is a biological boy watching them or listening to them? I believe we need to respect and love all children and not just a select few that further our political agenda. There's an epidemic of overdoses among our youth and an epidemic of violent crimes as the last person spoke about the gun violence committed by our youth. Guns don't kill people, people do. We do not have to wonder why this is happening. We can look to ourselves. What are we teaching these children? We are teaching them to hate themselves and to hate each other.

053We are teaching them that they are not okay the way they are. We are teaching them that crime pays. The criminals have more rights than victims. I watched a video the other day where a little girl was giving the finger to a camera on a Tesla as the mother vandalized the car. This is what we are teaching our children. Division and hate. Every person in this room has a chance to make a decision from this day forward to spread love or to spread hate. I will choose love and I will choose to not stop fighting for our children. And I hope that you choose the same. Thank you. All right. Um, for this next item, I'm going to actually come down there, Elena Zuniga. [Applause] Hi, nice to meet you. I want to share with

054everybody here today why I'm doing this. So, I'm going to kind of read something that was written, but on April 17th, 2025 at around 11:00 a.m., campus security officer Elena Zuniga was working in the cafeteria with kindergarten at Thunder Vista K8. Elena noticed a kindergarten student's face was turning red and appeared panicked. Elena walked over to the student and saw he was grabbing at his throat and his face was changing from red to blue. Was that you? You want to come up here, [Applause] too? And what's your name? Max. Max Cso Elena quickly reacted to the choking cues and began performing the Heimlick maneuver on the student Max dislodging the food. However, the kindergarter continued to swallow the piece of food so he was escorted to the nurse where Elena and the school nurse were

055able to remove all food items from the students mouth completely. The students parents, Max's parents were contacted and no medical attention was needed due to Elena's quick and life-saving actions and followup. Max, I see you have a friend with you. Can you show everybody what Elena did for you when you were choking on your on your friend there? Uh she uh she did two big puffs on me to stop me from choking and it actually [Applause] worked. So we want to recognize that. That is very much an act of heroism and it's something that none of us ever want to have to do, but we're so glad that you were there that day. Thank you. Thank you Max's parents for bringing him here tonight, too. Okay. And thank you, Elena. Okay. Mill levy oversight presentation

0565C expenditures. I see Gina with a few friends. Okay, Erin. [Music] Good evening members of the board. My name is Aaron Oberg, director of finance and we're here to share this mill levby override presentation just quickly with you. This is the presentation that gets shared with our fact team and our fact team will um take right over uh after I just do a quick brief introduction of this presentation that we provide to them. You've all seen this presentation before. It is how the 5C monies were originally intended to be spent and then every budget year we reaffirm how we spend these funds. So it is done and then as part of the annual budgeting process, we then appropriate funds for specific purposes. And each one of these next slides, I'll touch on the spending that

057is allocated to each of the components. But the members of the committee who listened to the presentation and listened to the reports from learning services from and from IT as well as from finance want to address a couple of very specific items with you tonight and so I'm going to turn it over to them. You didn't want to hear from finance, you want to hear from your committee. So I'm going to turn it over to them first. Hello board members. This is she Kelly Bergstrom as well. So we um we talk about these six areas during our fact meetings. 21st century learners in diverse learning outside the classroom. Let me go through this quickly. Okay. This is first uh 21st century learners and it's about update technology devices and Kelly will share more later and

058this one is diverse learning. I just I would like to share some highlights in this area as a parent. So when my son first started selecting courses in middle school, he didn't know what to do. So I told him, you just pick what interests you most and explore as much as provided. and he did it and when it was time for him to apply for college it was easy for him to make the decision on the major so I'm glad the funding supports can make this happen just want to build a little bit on what um Xi has shared with you as well um we can see the expansion of the career and technical education as well um the programs offered at the future forward campus are inspiring ing and exciting to see. You can

059read the stories and highlights from the participants and see how they've benefited from those programs. So, it's it's um evidence of where the 5C money is going. And then, additionally, um just to talk a little bit about the implementation of technology and programs in the classroom. I personally have watched my middle schooler use more software, whether it be math tools, video editing software, podcasts, science projects. It's been absolutely amazing to see that money being used in the classrooms as well and I've seen it as a parent. So, um the fact has found that the 5C funds were being used as intended and expected and we appreciate um all that the board has done to further that and and prepare our students for the future. Any questions from both members? Thank you. Oh, thank you. Okay.

060All right. Next. Safety and security and risk assessment update. We have B. I see Erin Marquez. And I see Sarah. Do we have Anthony? And we do. And Olivia. Olivia. All right, guys. Perhaps as Bo is pulling this up, I'll just uh do a brief intro and noting that there are occasions, as you know, that we sometimes talk about specific students of concern in our system. um usually on the threat side and then on occasion I'll give you updates about students uh who have considered suicide or taking steps um to complete suicide. I'll just note that the data that we're going to present tonight is more aggregate and high level because of privacy interest. We won't get into any individual cases or groups of cases tonight, but if you had that kind of interest, we

061could always set an executive session for a later date to dig into those things deeper. Thank you, Superintendent. Uh my comments just became briefer because I was going to include that. So, I appreciate that. Uh board members, we're really appreciative of the time uh with you tonight to give you an update on uh what you've heard us refer to before as a web of safety. And that's when we think about safety in Adams 12, we think about it through a number of interconnected parts. So, you're going to hear this evening from folks from our crisis and prevention team. You'll hear an update from threat assessment and then uh some overall safety and security. And our purpose tonight is to give you kind of a current state uh picture as Chris mentioned at a at a

062high aggregate level and to talk about work that we've done to continue to iterate and get better. I think in the safety and security space that's a mantra and an axiom that we live by is as much as we uh think about and are proud of as a system, there is always room to get better, always new data to respond to and always new things for us to improve on to ensure uh we're doing everything we can to keep our school and our district safe and secure. So, you're going to hear uh first from our uh crisis prevention uh team. They're going to give you some uh information around our suicide risk assessment data. Then you'll hear uh some information around threat assessment and then we'll give you kind of an overall picture about work

063we're doing in the safety security space across the district. I'll let each of my colleagues introduce themselves to you as they work through this. And I want you to know because all of this is interconnected, we've kind of saved the questions for the end uh because we'll sure you'll see the connections as well. Thank you, Bo. Good evening. Thank you for having us. We're excited to um share some of the work that we're doing. Um my name is Sarah Hunter. This will be my 24th year in the district. Was a longtime social worker in our schools and then have been in this current role of as prevention and crisis recovery coordinator for nine years. Um alongside Aaron Marquez, who will speak after me. Um oh, I guess I need to put our slide deck up.

064That's the deck. Oh, it is the deck. Oh gosh, I'm so nervous. I'm like confusing myself. Okay, sorry. So, this is um a comprehensive uh suicide prevention approach through the suicide prevention and resource uh resource center that was developed um to uh sorry, I'm going to take my glasses off to recognize the vital role that schools play in supporting students mental health and well-being. Here in Adams 12, Aaron and I have worked hard to implement and strengthen the systems, supports, and partnerships aligned with these nine strategies. We collaborate closely with students, families, and community partners. This framework has been um developed from the SPRC, the Jed Foundation, and inspired by our US Air Force uh suicide prevention program. When we think about our current reality, what we know is staff and schools are working hard

065to make connections with students and staff um students in crisis, excuse me. We train and support our schools um to support students in need. As we we review these statistics in the next few slides, I want to take a moment to honor not only the um the lives that we've lost and those who are but those who are struggling or at risk that beyond every number is a real person, a story, and a life that matters. When you take a look at this slide, take a moment to reflect on the key point. When individuals are connected to help, their chances of recovery increase significantly. Our goal is to reach and support as many students as possible by fostering a culture of reporting and a strong sense of belonging. When students feel seen, heard, and valued,

066they are more likely to seek help and more likely to thrive. This next slide is the latest or the most up-to-date statistics on fatalities in Colorado to suicide in from 2023. And it is important to keep in mind that not only do we h see an impact from student loss, but we also see a impact from parents and caregiver loss in our community. What we know is suicide um rates among youth have um stabilized since 2014 with a slight decrease. Some would say it's not sign uh stat statistically significant but we believe it is significant because any life saved is a is is important and we will honor that. Um, this is a a year-over-year over overview of all of our suicide risk assessments. From 2014 to 2019, we experienced a 120% increase in risk

067assessments. this effort. Um the reason for this uh increase we believe is because we imple implemented a gatekeeper training for all staff. So all staff was learning the signs and um and and and what to look for in both staff and youth and to get them how to get them to help. We enhanced our mental health and counseling training and we expanded access to mental health services. During the those pandemic years, we observed a decrease in school assessments. This was largely due to being physically at home and having less direct access to school-based supports. However, we saw an increase in hospitalizations and community mental health responses. And this is the time where children's hospital um declared a state of emergency due to uh the youth crisis of mental health. As we've returned post pandemic and

068been return to in-person learning, we've seen these numbers um stabilize and get back to preandemic numbers. The total number of SRAs that our providers have um done are 1,07. And then you see the 94 is a third-party referral. That's done by an outside therapist or a hospitalization. Those numbers might be a little low just due to self-reporting and um sometimes people want their privacy and that's okay. And so we don't know all of those numbers. This next slide talks about our numbers um SRRA by school type, by school level, and type. So as you can see in elementary, we have the highest number of screeners. Young students are still developing their emotion regulation skills at this age. Without language or tools to express their distress, they sometimes use statements like, "I want to die." as

069a way to communicate their overwhelming feelings. We take every statement seriously and use these moments as opportunities to teach healthy coping strategies and emotional expression. Although it is still low, we do see kids at a young age with suicidal ideiation. And the sooner we can get to them and get them to the support, the better. Uh, middle school, we see the highest number overall. Um, it tends to be developmentally appropriate to engage with their peers and talk with their peers about their problems and what's happening in their lives and they tend to be a little bit more open. And so then there's a lot more culture of reporting to get support from staff. we start to see um a growing culture of students helping connect their friends and so um we tend to see an

070increase in that age group. And then at the high school we see the highest level of full assessments where uh we tend to see the most severe cases where um the highest rates of suicidality. This includes high high expressed uh highly expressed intent um ideiation in a plan and this reflects both increased acuity and the need for more intensive intervention and support. I'm going to pass it to Aaron and she's going to talk about more of what we do to support our schools. Thank you. Good evening. So I wanted to paint a picture of what we mean when we talk about suicide prevention. And so here in Adams 12, we provide a robust um suicide prevention uh approach that spans a continuum from upstream prevention to intervention to post vvention. Um when we talk about

071upstream prevention, we're really talking about um building resiliency and fostering protective factors. And one way we do that is through the implementation of sources of strength, which is a program that it's peer-led wellness program um where students are strengthening their um protective factors such as connectedness, um a sense of belonging, fostering hope, um helpseeking behaviors. And so all of those in turn reduce the risk for suicide and promote mental health. We also offer riding the waves, which is a fifth grade curriculum that is designed to build coping strategies, emotional awareness, and resiliency in our students as they transition to middle school. And as Sarah had just um reviewed the previous data data um specifically demonstrates and also research would back this up as well is that um middle school is a critical period and students

072in in middle school often report the highest um levels of suicidal ideiation. And so our oh no not quite yet sorry. Um and so the hope for the implementation of riding the waves is to uh proactively help build students skills to um navigate stress to recognize when a friend might be in need and connect themselves or others to help. And then also um we provide um social emotional skill instruction in a comprehensive um universal approach and that's really to designed to foster students um competencies in the areas of um self-awareness and self-management um relationship skills and um responsible decision making. And then when we think about intervention um we're we are focused on providing system um awareness around how do I recognize when somebody might be um at risk right or experiencing um a psychological

073distress and how do I intervene and support them? And so signs of suicide is offered in the middle school and high schools um and really is premised on building students skills to be able to act which is to acknowledge when someone might be experiencing suicidal suicidal ideiation. um demonstrate care and concern and then connect them to help. And so um that's one of the programs we use to foster that as well. Um and then when we're concerned about a student, we have a a robust and comprehensive risk assessment process which I'll I'll go into depth on the next slide. And then in our post vvention efforts, this is intended to be responsive when we've experienced a loss. Um to really ensure that we're providing supportive help so that our community can heal. Um to reduce

074risk of additional loss and then to make sure that our students and staff are connected to um the mental health resources they need so that they can recover. And we have a really robust um crisis team that supports this process in this intervention effort when needed. All right. So, what is a suicide risk assessment? Um, again, it's very comprehensive approach that is designed to support students when we suspect that they might be experiencing um suicidal despair. And so, uh, we it's a team approach. And so, we have trained mental health providers and counselors, um, who work together to provide a comprehensive intervention to determine what is the need, right? what level of intervention does that student need and then what is the support that we should put in place to help them with that recovery

075process. Um we always partner with our caregivers to ensure that we're working together to um identify like I said those needs, think about ways to support them and then um make sure that we're working in collaboration to do that. And we also work with outside stakeholders or well there's some internal stakeholders. So maybe it's the administration or other um educators that are supporting that student and then also maybe outside stakeholders such as counselors or other people that are supporting the student in this recovery process so that we can support that care coordination and um make sure that they have the support that they need. And then it's important to acknowledge that a a suicide risk assessment is a snapshot in time. And so suicidality is episodic and it can fluctuate in over the days and

076and weeks after that initial assessment. And so it's essential that our teams are aware and connecting with those students and making sure that we're providing the ongoing support and and resources so that they can recover. And the recovery is which is highlighted up there, the recovery plan and support plan. That's really the the catalyst or the tool that's driving those interventions, right? We're making sure that we're using that um to to uh document that ongoing monitoring, to communicate um what's going on, and then to divide uh develop interventions or adjust those interventions based on where that kiddo is at in the assessment process. And then this last slide, we're talking about um protective factors. And so the healthy kids survey, this is pulled from the 2023 healthy kids survey, um is one way that we

077are able to center student voice in addition to our panorama student survey. um which helps us really assess where the students are at or what their current experience is and then helps us then decide you know what's going well. What do we want to keep doing in the in sense of intervention and support? Where are things that we might want to um think about refining and what might we want to add to continue to support our students. All right, I'm going to pass it to Olivia and then I'll be back in a moment to talk about some of our trends together. All right, good evening everyone. Uh, my name is Olivia. I'm the behavioral threat assessment coordinator for the district. Um, I am grateful for the opportunity to talk a little bit more about the

078world of threat assessment, which can seem like an ominous and intimidating place. Um, I'm going to start with reviewing some of the foundations and just our process around threat assessment. then we'll get into some of the data and the trends that we're seeing across the district. So, I want to start off with just saying that threat assessment is really grounded in the idea that a concerning behavior is an opportunity for connection and support. So, a concerning behavior does not immediately label someone as a threat. It's really an opportunity to see where are the gaps in supporting these students and how can we do better in getting those interventions to them. Um, so threat assessment in general is a proactive and evidence-based process that's geared towards identifying and assessing situations in which an individual might pose

079um a risk of harm to another person. So we really look at this as an investigative process. Um, we want a holistic understanding of our student um to really create an individualized plan of support to meet them where they're at, meet their needs, um, to ensure the safety and support of the students that are impacted and also the student that may have made the threat. Something that we are really proud of is that last year we introduced a new reporting platform um, called RAP Raptor Student Safe. Um this platform has really helped with improving the efficiency around reporting. Um it's helped with consistency across the district and um really improved our monitoring and followup. Um the system just really helps with ease of reporting and I think has has been beneficial for the schools for

080sure. So as I mentioned the goal of threat assessment is to create a safe and supportive learning environment for all. The best way to do this is with a multid-disciplinary approach that is best practice in the world of threat assessment. Um as you can see up here we have several stakeholders that we work with and I work with many of them on a daily basis. Um the multid-disciplinary approach helps us with decreasing bias, really bringing diverse perspectives to the room. Um and helps with creating that comprehensive support plan. We want to have the experts in the room. So if we have a kiddo that has an IEP, I am not the expert on IEPs. So, we need to have school personnel or district personnel who are the experts in that area to make sure that

081we're following those guidelines and supporting those students in that way. We're also pretty proud we are working really hard on developing relationships with our community partners. Um, this has really helped increase our resource pool for our students. um reduced barriers in accessing those resources and it just helps meeting with people in the field to see what they're seeing across the state, see what's working for them, what's not and really kind of aligning those practices. So before we get into the data, um I just want to start with how do we identify what a threat is, right? What what kind of starts this process? So a threat is just an expression of the potential to cause harm. So that can be verbal, that can be written, or that can be behavioral. When we when an alleged

082threat is made, that doesn't necessarily mean that someone poses a threat. There's a difference between making and posing. So our first step is conducting a screen. A screen is really used to make that determination of does this individual pose a threat? um when we feel that that individual may pose a threat or we have high concern for risk or we just feel like we need more information to really determine that level of risk, we'll move into a full threat assessment. So, this is more of a comprehensive um deep dive into the students history. um that can be mental health, IEP, academic history, um all of those different pieces that will give us a better understanding of that student as a whole. Um so that we can uh better look at that alleged threat and then

083it helps us with really creating that comprehensive support plan. Whether you are doing a full or doing a screen, there's always going to be a support and management plan. Um they'll look different. screens might be a little lower level and then the FOS will be more intensive but there is always that support plan. I also want to note that moving to a full threat assessment does not just mean the student is violent right we really look at it as that deeper investigation um to better support the student the other students and the whole community. So, moving into our data, first we're going to look at screens and FOs by school year. Um, as you can see, the 2023 2024 school year, it looks a bit different than our other years. Um, I can't really speak

084to exactly what that is from, but I can say that that is when we are making the transition from our old reporting platform to our new one. Um, and as you can see, we jumped back up this year with more. Um, but the the numbers are pretty consistent with our 2022 2023 school year um with less FOs this school year. Um, I think that having this new reporting platform has really helped with um increasing our numbers. Just because we see an increase doesn't mean there's an increase in violent behaviors in our schools. Uh we're really working on promoting a positive culture of reporting uh because if we can notice this early and have earlier interventions, then this will help down the line before things maybe escalate to those violent behaviors. Next, we have it broken

085out by school level for this school year. And as you can see, our elementary schools have the highest number. And that might seem a bit shocking. Um it it was for me when I first saw it. So I did reach out to some other districts. Um and it seems that that trend is consistent across other districts. So it's not just within ours. Um we're seeing that with middle school following closely behind. Um as you can see, elementary schools are mostly screens. And kind of to what Sarah and Erin were saying earlier, that's when kiddos are learning how to manage their feelings. are having really big feelings and so there might be some impulsive frustrations that are that are expressed. Um, but again, I think it shows that that positive culture of reporting that our elementary

086schools are really focused on early intervention, making sure we're serving our students. So, as you see, we get down to high school and it's it's dropping. So, hopefully that's around those earlier interventions and support. Um, as you will see, the middle school and high school have most of the FOs. Going back to what I was just saying, when we're in middle and high school, we have a longer history of students behaviors. And so that deep dive is really important because we have all of this data to look at. It is a the threat is a snapshot in time, but their entire history of support and behaviors is important context when determining risk. And here it's broken out by school level. Again, just comparing to 2023 2024 school year. Um, as already mentioned, there was an

087increase in our numbers this year. Um, but the trend remains pretty consistent. And so just to give you some percentage increases um along with those graphs, we saw 54% in increase in threat assessments for elementary schools, 53% increase for middle schools, and 62% increase for high schools. Um something when I began this role that I really made a priority was building relationships with our schools. Um, I think the more that they see me as a support in this process, the more that we build that trust, the more that they know I'm available for consultation, that our teams are available for consultation. I think the more comfortable they feel with reporting, with creating these plans, um, and with the assessment in general. I think it increases our communication and again our consistency across the district. We

088really want our schools to feel like the district has their back. And so that's been a big priority for me. And while we see these large increases in numbers, um, another priority for us is really ensuring that we have ongoing comprehensive training for our school-based teams and for our district personnel. Um, we want to make sure that they do feel confident in making these decisions and doing these assessments and for carrying out these management plans because in reality the schools are the ones who are following up, who are enforcing these things and making sure that the supports are reaching our students this one together. So, as we look through our data, what we um realized is there's a lot of crossover. And so just to stamp some of um what we've learned as we we

089did that data dig and review is that student well-being is a core priority, right? And so we aim to always respond um in a swift manner and quick manner, but also with care and concern. Um fostering systems and structures that are proactive is always going to be our goal, right? So, we're going to want to um create systems in a culture where students um are able to report and feel connected so that we can respond um in a responsible way. And then collaboration is key. So, strong partnerships allow for us to respond more effectively. And as we think about the work that we're doing, what we want to continue, and what we want to um enhance or grow our our um work in, we've highlighted this on the uh the slide here. Um specific to

090suicide risk assessments, we want to continue to think about how are we supporting our students who have that pervasive and chronic suicidality and may need um higher level of care or more intervention. And so how can we provide our system with guidance to effectively support that? um implementing a tier training plan which would go along with that first goal in um ensuring that our system has the skills, the current data and um knowledge to be able to effectively support our students um when they're experiencing suicidal despair. And then um we often hear from our students specifically in the high school level around we want to talk more about mental health. We want to understand mental health more and we want to have a say, right? It's our current re it's our reality. You're you're designing

091things for us and we want to be part of that work and so um to center their voice and allow them to be part of the work. We are going to create a mental health advisory committee with our high school students and we're really looking forward to to uh working alongside them to develop some great um interventions and support and then a revitalization and strengthening of our community partners. Um, we've had lots of community partners come and go in the sense of how can we support you all? How can we partner with you today? We had the opportunity meet to meet with our co-responders for North Glenn, Westminster, and Thornton um to talk about, you know, what what are ways that you're supporting the community and our students and families and how can we um

092partner with you in that space and hope to do that with our behavioral health departments um some of our our um Adams County and Broomfield County health departments. And so that is um our next steps for the 2526 school year. And then in terms of threat assessment, like I mentioned, um comprehensive threat assessment and management training for school and district personnel. Um I'm relatively new to the role and so have really been learning what is being provided and what are our gaps. I've while building those relationships with our schools, asking them what what do you need that you're not getting and really putting that into this comprehensive training for them and then supporting our charter schools with aligning our protocols and our processes. Um we I've spoken of this new reporting platform a million times

093and spoken of uh consistency across the district. And so that's that's a big goal and making sure that the charter schools are also feeling supported. Hello everybody. Uh my name is Anthony Muck, the director of safety and security. So these guys um definitely talked a lot more about data. I'm going to talk about some more of the uh trainings and all that that we've brought into the district and hopefully uh not only for the internal team uh our superintendent crisis response group uh which I'll talk about more but also the security team and then our campus uh security officers. Starting off with the superintendent crisis response group. Uh so this was originally formed back in 2022. Um it was with cabinet level members and other members uh throughout the district and the purpose behind it

094was to review uh previous incidents. Uh are we providing the best for our schools um our students, staff and community? Um is our response adequate? Are we are we really are we just doing enough to to help everybody out? We've since evolved um and that group um has shifted a little bit as far as individuals in involved but uh we have members from our mental health team, communications team, some executive directors and then uh individuals from safety and security. Um just continuing on with this group uh we've started to do um trainings once in the first semester, once in the second semester. First semester, we were able to get members from the cabinet level as well as members uh of this group together and really work through a tabletop exercise uh focusing on just everybody

095in a group or in one room talking through how we would work through this if this were to happen in Adams 12. uh who would expect what roles, how we would uh progress through and how we can continue to evolve and better ourselves as a system. Uh second semester, we were able to move into a uh a little bit of a larger um tabletop scenario where we broke out into multiple rooms. Uh we limited communication to cell phones um just by texting radios and uh Google meets just really trying to add some simulated stressors into there um and really work through it. Our goal again is to try and push ourselves to uh find where we uh have weaknesses, where we also have some really good strengths and how we can build upon those. real

096quick uh lesson that myself and deputy superintendent uh Fobbert learned immediately following this um tabletop scenario was when you have multiple people all working a tabletop exercise, you should let the superintendent know um because when he's off site and freaks out um and starts calling everybody, we don't know that he's um was not aware. So we apologize but definitely a quick lesson learned on that one. So um also from this group as we continue to grow and expand, we had found that um though we were doing a good job, we needed to as a whole bring in an afteraction summary. um get the group together, those who were directly involved in the incident, sit everybody down in a room and again work through what has worked well, what has not worked well, how can we

097better our response and improve ourselves as well as how can we provide for uh the staff and students. Um so this has definitely been a huge learning for us. um everything's documented so we can go back uh review each one of these and again just continue to to grow and um provide a better response for our schools. Um throughout the learning we've also realized that we need to get into the schools more and start having more tabletop lessons with our school staff. Really starting from uh something very minimal and working up through larger events. you know, each one of these schools uh has an incident and it's the first for them sometimes. Sometimes it's just unique and different. So, how can we get into the schools and how can we continue to provide training to

098them? Another learning was is how can we just get words out and get communication out to them? So, we created a safety and security newsletter with just little how-tos, need to knows, and any reminders and updates that goes out to all staff, uh not just administrators or office staff. We really wanted to get to the teachers as well and just say, "Hey, during events, here's what you can expect. Here's how we're doing stuff. Here's how we're working through." Just so that they have an understanding. Uh, as a team, um, as a security department team, we have realized through a lot of these trainings that, um, we just need to attend more trainings and be getting out there, learning more, hearing more. What can we bring back to Adams 12 that is being um done across

099the the country? How can we continue to advance um ourselves? Um we are continuing uh with meetings with the learning services department. We meet monthly with them just to go over any trends uh that they're seeing uh any uh guidance that they have from their side. Um and then we also bring ours. So those meetings have been uh very successful and have led to a lot of of future work that I'll talk about here in a few minutes. Um but then as we were going through uh as well we had noticed that um through a lot of this our emergency operations plan uh was a bit outdated and so we have taken that because of of our findings and our continuous training um and we're going to revise that to get that drafted um hopefully

100have a draft version to you guys by the fall uh to review. Um but again, this is just as we continue to do these tabletop exercises, we're finding that um we have this need and we're going to continue to develop and advance from there. Again, as a security team, um we have SEC uh school security liaison um or you'll hear them called SSLs out in the schools. uh these individuals, it's three individuals that are responsible for uh basically working with our elementary schools to help um provide any type of trainings uh help provide a safe and secure environment just be visible out there. Uh this year alone, we were able to get them combined 96 hours of training. Uh this training was successful and and made um successful for us uh through partnerships with the

101D'Angelus Center. If you guys haven't heard of the D'Angelus Center, it's definitely a great center. They offer a ton of trainings, um, school related trainings. So, we were able to get our our team through a crisis intervention training, which is a 40hour, uh, training, um, working through uh, any type of scenario from a um, disregulated student or parent all the way through the basics of just speaking with somebody. Uh, great training. Uh they went through deescalation uh active shooter response training and everybody on the team is uh certified by the National Association of School Resource Officers training which is uh the same equivalent or the same training that our our school SRO's um have received. Um and then lastly um we do uh train with our campus security officers. um we get to train with

102them four times a year and we really focused on bringing training from outside um speakers and outside trainings again with the D'Angelus Center. Uh about a month and a half ago, we were able to have uh Mr. D'Angelus and some first responders that responded to Coline come over and speak about that uh and give a a debrief. We opened that up also to school admin um teachers, office staff that could join on that day. Um we had a really good turnout and people left with really good remarks just saying that they they felt that it was a really good training. So it was it was nice to have them. Um we also received training from our local uh law enforcement. Westminster PD was able to provide some individuals for uh gangs and graffiti training. Uh

103we've provided deescalation training um as well as working with our internal special education department just trying to get these uh individuals um training that is useful and that would help um when they're addressing students at the school and know what to look for and how to help them the best. And then moving forward uh 25 26 school year um about three weeks ago we started a a working group with all of our charter schools. Um the goal of that is to enhance um not only our collaboration and communication with our charter schools but also uh see what else we can do to help them. How can we provide for them? How can we uh assist them during a crisis they may have? Uh and really just revamping that relationship. Um, as I spoke earlier, we're

104working on our emergency operation plans, but we're also going to branch that out into the schools. The school ones are also a bit outdated. So, we want to, you know, each school has its own uniqueness to it. Um, whether it's based on the community, the layout, or whatever else is going on. So, we really want to focus on getting into the schools and working with the leadership over there to uh provide them with a a solid emergency operating plan. Um, biggest ask we've heard from the schools when we've uh been out and spoke to them is reunification training. They want to know what it looks like, how does it work, what is their responsibility during this. Um, so we're really going to focus uh next year on getting that out and opening that up to

105schools so that they can see what it looks like and and how it works and understand or at least have a understanding of what might be coming. And then again, just continuing to um grow and learn and bring as much as we can back to Adams 12 and uh just continue to provide a great service to to everybody. Are we asking questions? Questions question. Well, I always have questions. I guess my first question is um um and I also have some comments. I I really like that we're being proactive about potential threat assessments. Um, and I'm looking at Mr. Griffin over there because he used to be my son's principal and so he's very familiar with him and I'm sure that my son has said and done some things that may have warranted let's have

106a quick conversation. Um, but that's kind of one of the questions I wanted to ask is what's the nature of a an elementary level threat assessment? So just walk me through how a conversation like that might go. Might go with the student, parents, all of the above. All of the above. Okay. Talked myself into that one. Um so I I mean it's relatively difficult to say because you know the school-based threat assessment teams are the ones there in the moment. They're speaking with the student. Um but they really do come from a place of curiosity and compassion. They want to know why did you say uh what you said? What were you feeling when you said what you said? What did you mean by that? Really asking those questions to better see where they're at

107emotionally in that moment. Maybe they need to take a break, come back to it, have some time to really regulate more. Um and then they can reflect better on it. And then um just based on whatever they learn in that they will the school will do um sometimes like a a re-entry meeting or just a meeting with parents and student to go over the plan that they created for them um to make sure parents think this is meeting their needs um or maybe they have feedback on they're seeing different things and um just provide that feedback to the school. Typically there will be almost always there will be an interview with the student and with parents. So the interview with parents kind of helps us see is this behavior happening at home too? Is it

108just at school? What are the factors that are influencing this behavior? And is this the student's baseline? Do we need to kind of track this and see if this behavior is continuing, escalating or getting better? That also helps us know what interventions are working for that student. I don't know if that kind of answers that helps. Thank you. Okay. Um the next uh kind of observation I have is could you remind me again what the suicide percentage is in Colorado among the two different youth populations and of where we are in Adams 12 with that same percentage. I'd probably have to get back to where we are. Okay. Um but we have sorry so youth 10 to 18 make up 4.7% and youth 19 to 24 is 8.2%. Okay. And if if I remember correct,

109we did have a chart somewhere talking about that and our level um is the the chart that I recall seeing towards the very beginning was a little on on par with that. Um I I believe but yeah, if I could get that would be good data. Yeah. So I did not share any student loss. Okay. In our data, but we can get that too. But suicide attempts you you shared. Nope. Just risk assessments. Okay. Risk assessments. So how we've assessed students with suicidality. Yeah. So an ounce of prevention, right? Um so I the the next um I guess I just want to make a comment that it's very difficult to seek and receive mental health resources right now. So, I'm greatly appreciative of Adams 12 for doing these things to be proactive and work with

110students from the get-go because it's not necessarily a situation where they can easily go out and get those resources elsewhere. We have a lot of nonprofit groups that try to fill that gap, but nobody's really able to fill that gap right now. I know even at CU Boulder where I work, we have a six-month waiting list for uh psychiatric or psychological or counselor services. Um and that is with insurance. Um so you can only imagine how that situation might be if you have a child who and you do not have reliable insurance um or you know work provided insurance how that might be trying to get that out of pocket. So the schools, my my point is that districts are sort of being forced to to step in here and be that that level of

111of um prevention. Um and it just seems like a a great it's another burden kind of placed on the the backs of public schools, but I appreciate everything we do to handle that burden in order to protect our kids. Thank you. I want to start by saying thank you for all the amazing work that you do and continue to do. Um you have a lot of proact um proactive ideas and things to keep keep moving that progress. Um however, I have a couple questions to um director Badestelli's point. Um when you do that threat assessment with a child, oftent times it's another child or adult that has reported that. What supports do we offer for those children? That is a great question and that is part of that response um and support planning. Um I

112like to look at that support planning as you know impact versus intent. And so the intent of that is more the student who made that threat. We're focused on their intent for their support plan. The impact that's going to kind of come over to the impacted parties. um you know school uh personnel will will meet with both families. If there is a direct threat to another student, um district policy says that the school is required to notify the parent of that student. That can be a really difficult conversation. Um but they are always included in that. While we can't always but while we can't say what interventions we're doing with the student who made that threat, we can give examples and we can ask what do you feel like your student needs to feel supported

113in school? What do you feel is missing or you know your kid best? How are they feeling about this and how can they feel better supported by us to maybe come back to school or to be around this other student? So if I'm just understanding correctly, so if the student makes say a credible threat, then you have that conversation with that student, their family, and let's say like the victim's family. If it was not a credible threat, is there also a conversation with that other student? Yes. Okay. If there is a threat directed to a specific student, their family is notified. Wonderful. Thank you for clarifying that. interject just on the threat assessment piece here if we can. So earlier the data was shared about how much we've seen an increase in especially screening pieces

114and although there is a piece there that we're unpacking as a district around what's that telling us about what we need to invest in in terms of what our classrooms and schools are like as far as predictable inviting connected more of those preventative pieces. It's also a celebration that we're digging in and forming relationships very early on. And so even though the threat assessment process has this pure piece around credible or not, posing or not, the conversations that's had with the victim, the alleged threat, u it always is about what kind of of safety measures, preventative measures, supportive measures can we put in place? What kind of conversations and relationships do we need to start to develop with families? So, it's not necessarily a bad thing that we formalize conversations around understanding students and building

115relationships with family early on in meaningful ways and starting to get data that helps guide and inform the work we do with kids each and every day, both academically and behaviorally. But in every case, whether you are the accuser or the accused, there's information we have there and things we want to and must follow up on to ensure that school is a place where students feel safe, seen, connected, and have the supports they need. So, it's a lot more than just this pose or not. It's all about developing relationships, developing plans of support for all students. I think that's really fantastic. Thank you for sharing that additional context. Uh my next question is really around um well actually I I should start by sharing um I met with a group of students at one of

116the local high schools with one of their project presentations and they specifically focused on mental health and one of the things that they had shared was there's a lot of things that are out there for support. It's not what we want. It's not what we need. We want walks. We want journaling. We want music time. All of those things. And so it was really exciting to me to hear that you're going to start that um advisory committee because they are so excited to help and kind of break that stigma around mental health and I think you know they are a school that's definitely been impacted a lot this this year. Um so thank you for leaning in and making their voices heard. I mean you guys are paving the way by example and it's fantastic.

117Um, one of the things that I took away though from that meeting with students was it is an incredibly heavy burden to place on children to identify and report other students mental health struggles. And I am concerned because I have seen it time and time again where the student that is reporting it is not a student that is being supported appropriately because they don't feel like they are the ones struggling. their focus is on my friend is commit has is having these tendencies. They're the ones that need help. I don't want to take away from that and we're leaving that other person behind. And I am increasingly worried as we have more of these initiatives and programs and you know things of training them on what to be on the lookout for. I mean there

118was a a recent article um published locally around a workplace where employees were saying it is not my job to identify that. So I am concerned that we are now putting that burden on students as young as elementary school. So can we talk a little bit about maybe some of the supports for the reporting student? Yes, that's a really good point. And so anytime we in our training we talk a lot with our providers around how to support the person who shared the information with you. Um I think a c like what we know is when we train kids on like suicide prevention in any way whether it's a culture of how to help a friend when they're having a hard time. We know that they're four times more likely to talk with youth than

119they are adults. So we want to continue to teach them how to talk to other people and get the support whether it's parents and then teaching parents how to access the school to get them to support. Safe to tell is also a really great way which we follow up um on those on those safety tells. when it comes to a suicide prevention or suicide um any sort of depression or self harm, Aaron and I are following up with the school within 24 or 48 hours to make sure that those kids are talked to and connected with. Um but I absolutely agree with you. I think that is a space that we could get even better at is how to talk with kids who are reporting and connecting their friends to help um and you know

120just gaining a better understanding. That would be amazing because I know like there's a social media trend, you know, I have a high school student, a middle school student, um, and almost kindergartener, but my middle schooler and high schooler, um, they share with me there's this trend, you know, on social media of she may not be my best friend anymore, but at least she's alive. And it's such a heavy thing. And when you read through a lot of that, they'll say, I may be getting bullied at school every day, but at least they're alive. And so when we look at some of the patterns within safe to tell within the schools where the um where the threats are being reported usually the reporter is then going to turn around and get bullied and have self

121harm inflicting thoughts themselves and it's like this slippery slope and that's where I would really love to see more support around that. Um, in talking with some of our SRO, like they will tell you every time if there's a a safety report that comes in on this end, you're going to have five more on this end that's retaliatory that are not accurate. It's duplicate. It's a copy and pasted message a dozen times, which is a waste of resources. I'm happy that people want to report it. But it's also, you know, again, like you want to report me, I'm going to report you back. And that's when we see those kids kind of fall by the wayside. So, thanks for um looking into that space. Um the last thing I want to point out, I'm really

122sorry. Um I'm a little bit concerned that when we look at the data, the rates of suicide for 10 to 18 have stayed the same despite the increase in efforts and funding around mental health. Um specifically, you know, we look at all the programs and um work that you guys are doing and those numbers are are staying consistent. And so we p I think you guys pulled data like to uh director Badiselli's point of like the larger area. If we look at our data are we seeing any improvements? I know that you had said that there was um the 24 25 numbers are pre- pandemic but that was only when looking at 17 through 19. Prior to that the numbers were half of what they are today. So we have a short like right now

123we are matching our best year prior pandemic but we are still significantly above where we were from 14 to 17 right and in 14 to 17 we were like really developing our suicide risk assessment and our protocols and everything into this more robust system and so that's where I would see the ramping up going from. Um and those are risk assessments. Uh what I will say is um we can get you the actual loss data and you can see what that is compared to the state. Um but we have I can say that we have mirrored the state data um that whole time. So okay, we're seeing similar numbers to the rest of our Denver metro area. We sit on a metro uh crisis team um with Jeffco, um Doug Co, Cherry Creek, Denver, um

124and Littleton and there we when we meet we talk about students and and all the things that are happening and we're right in line with what's happening in those schools. Well, I think that's so hard and I, you know, I I want to thank you guys for all your work because it's I I see how much work goes into this and for, you know, other districts that spend less on those resources and have smaller teams than you to have this similar comparable data can be discouraging. So, thank you, Director S. Lucas. I'm going to need you in your free time to figure out why what we what what we're what we can do better to uh lower these numbers with all the amazing things that mental health is not my my area. That's you know

125yours. Um but something has to give because we can't you know it's hard to just dump a lot of resources into something and not see results when like I said other districts aren't spending that money and have the same results. So something has to give and please don't take away resources for mental health, but um it's something's something's wrong. So I I condone you guys for I appreciate you guys and applaud you for continuing to push at it and work at it and trying to get better and finding finding that unknown solution. On that piece, I'll just jump in. I've been reflecting on some of the suicides that have occurred over the last 5 years and I'll say u in a number of those cases there were absolutely no warning signs, no referrals for a

126suicide risk assessment. Parents were shocked, staff was shocked, friends, friend groups were shocked. Many of them occurred after a parent child conflict where the child immediately took impulsive behavior to take their life. Um there are other cases where there definitely were red flags. Multiple suicide risk assessments, lots of support and help and even through those best efforts, a child took their life. But in between those two polarities, and we're not going to change either of those polarities perfectly no matter how much investment we make, but in between, even though it doesn't show up as a reduction, just given the amount of turmoil that young people are showing and that people like Children's Hospital say exist in much greater numbers than it did 5 to 10 years ago, I'm absolutely certain that stability in terms of

127overall numbers reflects that we're identifying more kids intervening appropriately and saving kids. So I think just looking at static data doesn't tell the right story. I think the majority of um kids who've taken their lives over the last 5 years oftentimes are very young kids 12year-old kids which shocked me. So in terms of taking every threat seriously it matters but a lot of them had made no threats. it was parent child conflict or parent caregiver conflict that within minutes or hours resulted in a suicide. And to hold us responsible for that or to suggest mental health interventions are failing because we can't prevent those situations would be uh horribly inaccurate. Well, and I want to clarify I was not trying to say that we are failing by any means. Um so I apologize if that

128is what was taken from that. um you know it just again you provided a lot of great context that puts that in a different perspective because like I said when you're looking at the data that doesn't tell the same story as what you have shared. So thank you for that context. The other piece to remember I think is we can talk about what Adams 12 is doing when kids are in Adams 12 from 8 to three nine months out of the year. But the other factor that we off of often talk about in education is what what do we have control over? Um and we have control over the curriculum and the support they receive when they're coming to school during our hours. We don't know what's going on with them when they leave. Um

129and so that's another factor we need to keep into account is we don't know if during the summer are they receiving mental health supports. Um, and it's important it it's this this is the other half of their lives that we can't ensure that they're receiving the assistance they require. I I've well most of my questions have been answered, but um to stay on this topic, um, how supported are you guys feeling by the county mental health? Um, you know, my my husband has a JD and I have a degree and to find a mental health uh professional that my kid can see on a regular basis is not accessible um because of time because of you know and and we got a great one with my daughter and they move and and that's not um

130anything against our providers. Um, so I think that again we put a lot on the schools and and that's obviously the best touchstone for the students um to begin but are we getting the support at the county level or the um private practice level? I mean I know that we have the IMAT but again to be seen through that is to get a provider um is is really really difficult. So I wonder if you could speak to that. Yes, we most certainly can. But I just wanted to stamp one additional thing on our previous conversation in that um when we're talking about supporting students, what we know is incredibly protective and keeps them out of a state of crisis is having a trusted adult that they're connected to is having a sense of belonging and

131being affirmed by the community that they live in is having social skills so that they know how to navigate relationships. And so I just want to name that those are a lot of areas that can be incredibly protective and keep them out of a state of crisis. and and um support them when ch when life is challenging and and they are navigating life's ups and downs because that's just inevitable. Um and then I'll just touch a little bit on your question um in the sense of we do have a school-based therapist. So we're working with our community based partners in that sense. Um Second Wind is another great resource that we've partnered with um to support students who may uh potentially be suicidal or be impacted by suicide. Um, and yes, we continue to hear

132the narrative of it's really challenging to find a good fit or somebody that um can meet my my needs um in specifically my my kiddo and what they need right now. And so we continue to expose explore those partnerships, meet with our behavioral health departments, um continue to to think through what are different ways that we can support and then how are we supporting our kiddos in in the school setting to to meet those needs. Do you have anything to add? One thing we're really excited about is that we have a grant through Regis. Um we're partnering with them next year and they're going to have 10 therapists in our elementary school doing play therapy. Pretty intensive work with some of our students. And so we're really excited to have that partnership for at least

133next year and then see where that goes. And then real quick, um the the advocacy the high school is that going to be in all high schools the group? Yep. We are hoping to have representatives from all high schools. Yeah. Oh, so they won't meet in the high school. There'll be a representative from the high school meeting. Thank you. I just want to say thank you for that. a very thorough overview of what's going on with you guys. And it just our kids have stuff going on. And it's just important that we honor that we have the ability to even if it's just one life um to save that we do what we can and you guys definitely know how to use your tools. So, thank you. Yeah, this is hard work. And it's so

134impactful and it's so meaningful and I appreciate you all so much for what you do and you know and I think I I mean I wanted to speak a little bit to and what you were talking about with the protective factors because resiliency and that is one of the strongest things that is going or factors that is going to protect and not even just from escalating to this far of um suicidal ideation, but depression, anxiety, um I mean so many substance uh abuse, I mean so many other factors that are also very serious. Um and so like the the curriculum used for a lot of that, especially at the elementary level, targets that resiliency and and building pro-social relationships. And so and I know you guys had a lot of help with all that. So

135thank you. Um I agree like yeah the majority not the majority but yes very many people adult who take their lives there are no signs um that we see outward. Um, and so it it can be hard. What I will say though is I think kids have this really uncanny ability to protect people that they are afraid might be hurt or sad. Um, and that's why they don't show a lot of the things that are going on with them. And um and so and I as a mental health therapist and as a mom sometimes we don't want to see things as you know parents and family members and not unintentionally but it's just it's hard to identify things and it's hard to understand and that's why when looking at the data I was not at

136all surprised there was that that dip. Well, mainly because of COVID and all that, but because I think people who tend to notice something is off the most, unfortunately, are the peers um because they're the with them the most. And then our educators and our staff because they're also with them so much. Um, I know I again as a mental health therapist, I've gotten a call from the kids social worker at at their school saying, "Hey, we need to have a conversation about something." Um, and I mean, we had to do a lot of reflection of like, wow, like we saw this, but we didn't see it at the same time. and I I really appreciate the school intervention and um support with that. Um you do a lot of great work and so thank

137you and you know I know especially Erin and Sarah you've met with me um different times and um that's really exciting to partner with Regis and because of that you're going to probably be seeing a lot more of Kyle because he just started full faculty there and so we'll be doing yeah play therapy and practicum and all that fun jazz but um uh yeah thanks again I this is hard work and it is draining and there's a lot of vicarious trauma through it and so thank you so I know this has been a long discussion I don't want to belver it too much but there's just a few things I want to add in here one is on threat assessment. Just to emphasize how seriously we take threat assessment as a district. I've been in

138one uh meeting since Olivia joined us where there are probably 20 people online. Um trying to address a single student and find the best path forward. It often involves having we'll often have three or four police officers in some of the settings I've been in. There's at least three situations I can think of in the last five to six years where we've had 20 or so people assembled including multiple police officers, mental health professionals from our team, principal, staff members that are close to the student. Um, so the investment we make is significant and sometimes it extends to consulting with national experts like Dr. Nicolleti who's an expert in school violence and signs of school violence. So I just want to reemphasize the commitment is big. Number two, um, our measures, whether it's in threat

139assessment, suicide risk assessment, or just general safety response are acknowledged by our law enforcement partners. I meet periodically with police chiefs from Broomfield, Thornton, Northland, Federal Heights, Westminster, and Adams County, as well as on occasion some of their uh, delegated um, folks who oversee SRO programs and support schools. And I've heard on multiple occasions from many of those chiefs and leaders who support multiple school systems that Adams 12 is the best in terms of what we invest in school safety, the procedures we have in place, the professionalism that we bring, the cooperation, collaboration, and communication we do with them. And um it's because of the folks that you see here and many uh who you don't see here that we get those accolades. It is something we take very seriously. And I guess the final

140part of this and sometimes we compartmentalize uh things differently than the broader public may have interest uh or differently than the public at large may. But I'm mindful about some districts uh neighboring and nearby where superintendents of large systems have said we didn't expel any kids this year or we don't expel kids in the system. There have been some situations where students have been charged with significant crimes like attempted murder and they've remained in school. And I just want to reaffirm that that's not been the stance that I've taken or we have taken as a district. And we do uh expel a large number of kids each year, many fewer than we did when I started 15 years ago, but many more than I'd like. But there are times that it's absolutely the right thing

141to do to maintain safety of other students in the school setting. And even if it may not uh receive the same positive press in some communities to say that you are expelling students, I firmly believe it's the right thing for us to do. We don't take it lightly, but there are times that it's the necessary next step. So, thanks for letting me round out the conversation. Thank you all for being here and thanks for the work you do every day. Thanks, guys. All right, next up is certified negotiations update. We have Dave Lley and Mila Shepard. See Steve Lash back [Music] there. Good evening members of the board. Superintendent Gdowski. I'm Milo Shepard, chief of human resources. Uh here to report on our um recently concluded or our tenative agreement anyway on on uh negotiations

142with our teachers association. And I'll let these gentlemen introduce themselves. Hi, I'm uh Dave Lley. I am the president of the district 12 educators association. And Steve Lash, coordinator, District 12 Educator Association. So I believe that um Stephanie has shared a summary sheet with you. This is a traditionally a document that lives in the back of the uh master agreement summarizing uh at a quick look the the work that went on all year long. As you know, we engaged in the interestbased strategies process uh a positive super collaborative um and yearround endeavor that we've uh engaged in for a number of years. I know Lori and Amamira as members of that team are deeply familiar with that and we really appreciate their service uh in this group as well. Uh and um so we want

143to just share with you some some highlights and some areas of of general interest we believe and um uh lots of housekeeping went on improving and just tweaking and fine-tuning the agreement to match current practice more a accurately. Uh but the the things we're going to detail here are changes or or bigger we're subject to bigger conversation. So maybe we'll go in order and do you want to start with the first couple? Sure. All right. The first thing I'd like to highlight is our changes that we made to article 19 which is our protection of educators article which really lays out how the district works collaboratively to support our educators um when you know not great things happen. Uh and so this year we really uh in listening to the field and listening to folks,

144we really wanted to um strengthen and really talk about inclusion of all persons into uh the Adams 12 fivestar community and wanting everyone to feel inclusive. And so we added a good chunk of text which will be included in next time's uh full board packet when you guys get the language. But I just pulled out a specific quote out of there that I wanted to share that really captures the spirit of the changes that we made. Uh we included a phrase that talked about employees are encouraged to fully participate in the Adams 12 five-star community as their true authentic selves in alignment with district expectations. The district and the association are dedicated to maintaining a supportive and welcoming working and learning environment for all employees feeling safe and respected by all stakeholders. And so, you

145know, I think in uh in this environment where folks are not feeling safe to be who they are, uh it's an important to send a strong message around uh that we are a place where people can be who they are. Uh and then uh a a large subject of conversation this year was our work in article 22. Um and I would characterize the vast m when you look at the document next time in your board of packets, it will look like a brand new article with a whole bunch of changes. uh because it basically is uh because we rewrote the whole thing uh you know over the course of the 50 60 years of the master agreement. Uh there hadn't really been a real rewrite of the uh section and so over the course of

146that time you know different sections were changed. Um different practices were put in place and we didn't really take the time to align the entire article with uh just making sure it actually worked together and made sense together. And so we spent a lot of time aligning the article not only with our current practice but really uh doing the work to making sure that there was kind of a level set of definitions and understandings around the system. Uh there were many phrases in the old article that in our 60 school system had a variety of different interpretations uh which caused conflicts. Uh and so in the new article, we really uh focused on clarity uh and consistency so that uh everyone understood what was going on and really focused on that professional collaborative conversation between

147educators and their supervisors in supporting the educational work environment. Uh so that when educators need to be out for medical reasons, taking care of kids, religious holidays, whatever it is, that the educational environment continues and and and maintains regardless of that that absence. and just kind of continuing that supportive conversation. Mine's next. Oh, go ahead. We're just going in order. Um yeah, and and industrywide around the country and the world indeed, uh employers all report, you know, increasing and different use of temporary leave or leave time. And so we were tackling an enormous societal issue and not one that was simply uh resolved, but we we took a good stab at clarity of language and intention and we think that's a great first step. So, um, and we think that'll get us some better conversations

148and some some better understandings about how to keep the work going when people do need to be absent and they and they should be able to be absent uh and be taken care of in that space. Um, so speaking of absences, the sick leaf bank is a an a self-funded insurance policy. Our teachers contribute a day of their temple leave each year to provide a bank of days so that in the event of a a catastrophic prolonged illness they're able to maintain their pay. Um we have monitored for a number of years now the usage the balance trying to make make sure that this is a healthy uh balance and and uh can stay solvent. We have had a variable buyin rate, a co-pay so to speak. Uh educators would give no less than 10

149days of temp leave time and if they had it up to 15 days of their own temp leave time to to or more in past times we've re reduced it to 15 in recent years. Um that variable rate doesn't feel really equitable or fair uh in all circumstances. is we we did a lot of thinking about different stories and different situations. Given the health of the bank, given the recent patterns of usage, we feel confident in saying that we can make it a consistent 10day buy in or co-pay um to access this this benefit that teachers um fund with their donations. And so uh we feel good about making that a level playing field for folks and we will continue to monitor the balance and the health of that account. Uh then the next article

150article 27 I would highlight for you all uh is planning periods p uh for the past almost five six years we have been working with our special ed department to really uh determine what is the amount of additional protected time that our special educators need uh in order to perform those IDEA compliance tasks IEP writing testing all the things that go in above and beyond their teaching responsibilities uh that they have and uh slowly over the course of the last five years we've been working with different groups and different levels and really uh assessing that additional time. Uh and this year was our last group. We made it we started all the way at the bottom and now we we finished up at high school this year uh and we were able to complete that

151project and now we've rolled all of that into the master agreement. And so we're now one of the only districts that really defines that additional um protected uh com IDA compliance time and task to really carve out that extra time that our special educators need uh to complete the very demanding task. And so I'm really excited about that long uh project kind of coming coming to an end. Uh so for for all of our educators, compensation is a big part of any negotiations process. And so uh there are several items that fall into the appendix A which which touches on compensation. One of the other study committees that had been meeting is a high school counselors study committee. We've uh had a practice for many years of counselors working 10 extra days to do the

152necessary preparation and school end closure activities that that need to happen. And um there's been some ambiguity about whether that's required. It causes trouble with uh educators planning their vacations and their work schedules. Uh resentment among colleagues who don't show up and those who do show up regularly. And so clarity and expectation, clarity and need uh and and then a determination about when and how those days would be implemented was the work of the study committee. We were able to roll language and a 195day contract into appendix A as a result of that work. And then the other things to do with compensation in appendix A are uh the uh the the financial package which amounts to an average of 3% of the certified payroll uh being given to increases. This comes in a couple

153different forms. The um step increase, so moving every teacher forward on their uh years of service as this salary schedule is designed to do. uh is the equivalent of about 1.68% of their over their total payroll. That's certifi that's classified. Sorry, you guys are the you're the poor siblings. 1.29% uh is your step size on average. Yeah. Really? Um and so for paying for the 1.29 29 step size providing an ongoing 0.5 cost of living adjustment and then the remaining uh 1.2% is a one-time only cost of living adjustment uh which will be made in a single payment in um I'm trying to think the month of December. So a little mid-year bump for folks. Um it's a tough financial year and that is not a gener you know a it's as generous as we

154could make it and it's not as much as we'd like to give. Um but that is the uh that is the financial package as it was negotiated. Uh also included in there is an increase to health insurance premiums. 7.09% was the overall increase. District will continue to absorb 95% of the employeeonly premiums. Uh educators will absorb their 5%. That's just a little over $2 a person a month for the DHMO coverage. just to give you a sense of how much that is. Oh, I have one more. I'm Yep. Okay. Sorry. Um, another work group that we have had for many, many years has to do with elementary specials staffing. Um, determining how we staff those positions and we've used various models over the years. This year with our declines in enrollment and the sudden changes

155in um school size, we realized that we were in a position and with the funding cuts that we needed to make, we realized that we were in a a position to need to go back to a model we used some years previously where we pair small elementary schools and split the uh educators, the specials educators between two buildings. It's not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but this work group um which is comprised of specials coordinators and and teachers and principles from elementary level conferred and and agreed to some modeling that will allow us to do that. So, we've got some language changes in that MOA which outline how we're going to do that. And we also have a a temporary MOA that we had signed this year that that um provided for the

156riff, the unfortunate reduction in force of 12 specials teaching positions because of the the reductions in enrollment and the need to to u reduce funding. So that's um specials staffing and uh was it your turn? Goodness. All right. The only other thing I would add to that particular thing is uh one of the other issues that we that team had identified over the years is really having less than full-time assignments in the specials area was almost impossible to staff. Uh even if we were able to hire folks in that position, they never stayed. And so the next best thing was this split um the split assignment was really the next best thing to be able to provide the services to our students um but also provide a staffing model that could be consistent for them

157as well. Uh and then the the last thing I'm going to share and then Mila has one more um is we uh did some work this year in um redefining the the work year. uh there's been uh a 185th day that's kind of been like riding out there in the ether for a while in our contract and we've we've rolled that into the contract this year into a permanent basis. Um in addition to that, we also um have had this outside of the duty time uh outside of the duty day activities uh that have had variable amounts over the years. Uh and so this year we agreed to our current calendar which is a set number of report days and then a set number of outside of the duty days professional responsibilities. And really uh

158we have an MOA that really talks about how are we going to continue to um best use that time uh to serve the the community and the needs of um all of our folks. Uh we we recognize all of us recognize the need to have parent teacher conferences, to have back to school nights, all of these things. Um but as we've talked many times in negotiations, uh many of those same structures, like in many school districts across the nation, have not dramatically changed in anyone's recent history. And so in this next year, uh, we have an MOA, uh, to go along with that that's going to, um, look at and make recommendations to, um, the district's policy council, that's the group that makes a lot of our big decisions, that has students, parents, administrators, classified,

159certified educators, um, on that committee on some recommendations on how can we possibly uh, do things like community and parent engagement differently? um how should we update potentially our policies and and whatnot uh to maybe be more effective and align better with uh the district district's mission, vision, and goals. And I think the last uh article that we'd like to just draw draw to your attention on this long list is uh a new MOA and a new concept designed to help us when we return to school in the fall and we are doing class size balancing. And you may have heard us talking about hot spots and cool spots where the enrollment in a classroom is less than we had predicted and that's a cool spot and we need to do something to right size

160or a hot spot where it's much greater than we expected. And um once the school year has started, the cont the teacher contract year has started. That is an incredibly difficult ask to say to a teacher, I know you just got done setting up your classroom and I need you to tear it apart and go set it up at a different school and I know you were ready to teach second grade. We need you to teach third grade. It's really really difficult to do that. And very often the people who the process we use to identify impacted parties tends to identify people who are newer in their career and less experienced and they are the very people who are least prepared to do a good job of that. And so we wanted to incentivize perhaps

161better prepared folks, people who were maybe a little farther along in their in their career and maybe ready for a change. Um, and by offering a a financial incentive to people who raise their hand and volunteer and say, "I'll go." Um, I will this year take that very last minute very disruptive change and go and willingly do that. And so we've uh written an MOA that provides some um conditions for that and and some uh identified resources for that. and we'll we'll see if that doesn't incentivize the right people to do that hard thing for the sake of our our kids. Uh the only other thing I have to add is uh the ratification timeline will be presenting the um we've had some preliminary uh presentations to members now, but the official ballot will go

162out next Tuesday and we'll close the following Tuesday. So, it should be done and completed in time for presentation for your 21st uh board meeting. And I guess we're open for questions now. Any questions? I just want to say looking at the list, didn't realize we did this much work in the moment. I know. And we did a lot of work, but then I'm scrolling through. It's like it keeps scrolling and scroll. It's like do great work and it and I've shared um previous meetings that it's a great team and what I appreciate about the team is there's a lot of disagreements. There's, you know, differing of opinions for sure. And everyone comes together to compromise and to figure out what's best for kids. And that was always the theme of all of it was

163how do we serve kids? How do we what is best for kids? So, yeah, great work. I have to agree um just because I've been a part of this team for so many years and you know we our team really is exemplary uh for teams all over because our facilitators know what other teams are capable of. I know what a few others are capable of and we might not be able to offer the most money, but we do put a lot of time and effort into making sure that our teachers working conditions, which is our children's learning conditions, are as best that we can have with what we have. Um because, you know, we know that there's other districts close by that can offer more money, but our teachers continue to show up and do

164what's best for our children. So, I appreciate all the work that this team does. My comment's pretty similar. There's a part of me that's inclined to send a videotape of your presentation to Mark Clark and Norm Jennings because when they were on the board, as they started before IBS, what they would often say is we can never get anything changed and accomplished in the master agreement. Because in the old days, I think we all know each side could open three articles. both sides would often open the same articles, negotiate to impass and so the presentation probably would have been about three minutes long. Here's where we landed on compensation and we changed one sentence and one article and that was kind of how it landed each year. So the fact that we've got a lengthy

165presentation of so many things that are getting changed and improved I think it's great validation for this work we started uh with some unease years ago about trying IBS. It's definitely allowed us to do much better work in being nimble and uh and proactive in many cases. The second thing I would say is I think there's times that people feel like the IBS process is some magic elixir that just makes everything easy and okay and I think that's not the case. Um the people around the table on our team are a lot of the reason why we hear from our facilitators who do work nationwide in a variety of other states and other districts that we do the very best work in the space and it's because of the people we have around the table.

166It starts with Mila Shepard and Dave who both I think you know are retiring from these roles for next year and it's going to be a tremendous loss uh for our team and for our district for that to be true. Gina and Aaron are also a big part of our success there because everyone trusts when it comes to compensation that uh what folks are sharing is accurate, honest, uh there's not any smoke being blown and that's really helpful. I saw an article the other day in Durango where the mediator or the facilitator of the IBS team was saying the time when IBS gets really hard is when you get to compensation because that's when it typically gets positional. And as I reflect on this last year's discussions and in most of our recent years, compensation

167was probably the easiest topic that we had and the least positional of them all. And it's because we just have people who are reasonable, rational, realistic, committed uh to working appropriately together. And it's an honor to be part of that team. Dave and Milo, we're going to miss you a bunch. Thanks, Chris. And I just want to I I want to follow those comments with a point of personal privilege to just say thank you to my partner in this work because we came into these roles together eight years ago and um we I think we've built something that we can be proud of and continued something that was started but uh done good work together, innovated a lot and uh I just think that all that we've been able to do as a district is

168because of a positive collaborative relationship and that just starts with leaders. leadership, brave leadership, a lot of courage to do things that were the right things for kids and not always received positively in the field. And so, thanks for your courage, Dave and Steve, as you led into this to make this work. And I just want to express my appreciation for that. And I want to express my appreciation for Lori and Mera for doing that work. And I'll just stick with Dak. But no, thank you. It's going to be a great loss um to have both of you leaving at the same time. And you can tell that they were absolutely devastated about retiring. You said retiring. No. Well, it seems to be a pattern. Mark and I left at the same time. Mark Hson

169and I, you guys came in, now you're leaving. And it's and the beauty of IBS is that as a team we've had a lot of people go in and out over the years, but we've maintained the integrity of the team. So that's cool, too. So thank you. I guess it looks like we're going to have Tim and Steve in those roles for the next eight years. So that's reassuring and good to know. All right, workers comp coverage update. [Music] Good evening board. I'm Gina Laneir, chief financial officer, and I wanted to take a moment to introduce Rodu to you all. He's our director of risk management. He's been with the district just over a year and in that time he's um really really done a deep dive into a lot of our processes and has

170been looking for ways to improve our um support to employees, improve the programs and also look for ways to save money. So I'm going to turn it over to Radu. Thank you Gina and thank you for having me here. And most of all, I want to thank you for your leadership navigating us through this tumultuous waters and crazy and super uncertain environment. Nothing that I've seen in my career. And I can honestly tell you, I've been here a year and I'm proud to be part of this team and I love coming into work where every day and and it's great and the culture is amazing and I I really love it. So, thank you very much for that. Um, as Gina mentioned, I like to look at stuff from a different perspective and using my

171experience and uh trying to find improvements and um I think I have some some good news and um I wanted to run some ideas by you on um our insurance program for workers compensation which is almost half of our spend for insurance. The other half is property and casualty insurance. But workers comp is something that we deal with every day. We have a lot of people that get hurt and we take really good care of them uh in line with our culture to uh put people first. And uh I'm going to cover what we have in place right now, the proposed alternative and some estimates of cost and pros and cons and also um the recommendation. We're currently with Pinnacle Assurance. We have a very high retention or deductible if you want half a million

172dollars on each and every claim. So pretty much everything that we pay is out of our pocket and that's the general fund. Uh we did not have luckily anything that went over um 400,000 in the last seven eight years. Um so it's everything is our money and we pay about $1.1 million in yearly in claims. Uh below the deductible again there's everything's been below the deductible. On top of that, there's a claims adjusting fee. So, we have third party adjusters. In this case, it's Pinnacle as well. Um, and then um there's a premium for the excess coverage over half a million dollars to the statutory limits um for Colorado. And they total about $1.6 million a year. And as you know or or might know, Pinnacle is a is a quasi independent political subdivision of

173the state. The proposed alternative is um JSD which stands for joint school district pool. Um their retention is very similar is $550,000. um claims adjusting similar 5% is not a big piece. And the combined cost that we were quoted this year was $1.58 million, which is the same as what we pay now, but they used an actuary to estimate our losses and they came back with $1.3 million instead of the 1.1 that we're paying in average. And um there lies the savings, but I'll show you a different uh a different slide with how it's calculated. Um so technically, if our losses are going to continue to be $1.1 million, we're going to get $200,000 back uh because they're that's incorporating the premium and there's a retroactive assessment that's done at 18 months and uh we

174get refunded for that. and their membership is solely school districts and he they were founded in 86. Um they were never open to adding new members and that came around this year. I started talking to them about nine months ago and uh there's another district that's interested in joining them in um in Colorado. Uh so um it's it's a good opportunity, a good time to join. They're very similar structure to what we have in place right now. So um on the left is what we currently have with Pinnacle. On the right is uh GSD. So up to 100,000 will be um paying for each and every claim. uh from 100 to 550 which is their deductible is going to be shared about the members and we'll pay our share of premium of losses which is

175going to be 14% and then they reinsured through safety national over um 550 and here's who the members are Boulder Valley Cherry Creek Aurora Littleton um it's potentially going to be us and one more school district. Uh we would be the fourth largest, third largest being $600 million. I they didn't share, but I believe it would be Cherry Creek and 137 is Littleton. Um and we will be the fifth largest out of u all of them from a premium standpoint due to our really good experience. is like we're not uh number five from a size standpoint, but we're number five from a premium standpoint. So, the largest premium is 3.3. We're going to be at 1.6 and then Littleton is uh 630. So, we're not the big dog anymore. uh is very similar to our

176current structure and will have more ownership in the process and and there's going to be a third party managing the claims versus the insurance company which um is a bit odd but that's required by by Pinnacle right now. And here's the the savings. We currently pay 30 389 in premium to pinnacle. We expect is going to be similar or maybe an increase with inflation. Uh the estimated premium which is expenses for GSD is 195. And this is always going to be true. I don't think Pinnacle is going to go down in premium or anyone else that's an insurance company. um versus the 195 which is pretty much it's self-managed by the by the member. So you don't pay expenses for for an insurance company structure. Um and the calculation is 247,000 in expenses, but they

177also are able to invest the income because they charge a premium initially and they estimate we're going to get about $50,000 back based on their prior experience. So we will end up paying about 200 and the delta which is per year and it's likely not going to change. Uh the assumption is the losses are going to stay the same under two programs. They're going to be managed similarly. Um deductibles are similar. So I don't see I actually predict the losses are going to be a bit better because we'll have a bit more control on on the process. Um, and here's the pros and I'll have cons as well. We will have more control of adjusting because we can set up some rules on when they need to reach out to us and how they should

178handle our claims and all that. Uh, we can share knowledge with our peers. Um, CCMSI is the claims adjuster, the third party administrator. 70% of their business in Colorado is uh public entities. So, they're really good at that. Uh, we're we're going to be uh part of a big pool. Um, $12 million is their total premiums uh versus our 1.6. So, less variability. Um, we will have a seat on the board. So, we have a say and and it's equal to all the other members. And um they at the end they reconciled the premium. So we're going to pay what we actually spend in in claims. Uh even though the premium might be a bit different initially. Some cons, we'll have to keep the existing claims with Pinnacle until they close. Uh so we'll have

179to manage two relationships. Not a big deal. We can do that. Um the number of claims is going to be the same. um potentially will pay for some legal services. We usually don't get there. We didn't have any legal um council involved in our claims this past year and I can think about it in the past because we do take good care of people and we do the right thing. So, um and and adjusters can handle claims and workers comp is not like liability insurance. everything is well defined and uh we we settle for the right uh causes and and um we don't have issues. There's a slight increase in the deductible. We never got even close to that. So I don't think that's going to make a difference and uh as I mentioned we

180can reconcile uh and get our money back if we end up spending less on claims. So with that, the recommendation is that we switch at u the school year. Um on June 1st is when we renew insurance. The estimated yearly savings will be $200,000 and I expect that to continue. U as it's pretty much a fixed cost. I I believe we'll have better control of claims. I did meet with the with the potential TPA and and they have a good process and a good team in place. I do expect lower claims cost, but even if they stay the same, the the 200,000 will be there and uh we'll have the opportunity to discuss claims and trends and everything else with our peers. Um this membership was just approved, our membership was approved by the board

181of GSD. However, it's pending your approval and uh the state approval as well. It's in process right now as potential. Um it should be an administrative decision, but you never know. So, um that's kind of where we're at right now. Any questions? Um I have a question. You said that we will have a member, a representative on the board. Would that be one of us or Okay, thanks. He would Gina actually was on this board on this poll before at Aurora. Maybe you want to talk about it. Yes. So, the board is made up um primary seats are the typically the finance representative from each of the districts and then they have an alternative that is the the risk person. And so um very heavily I would be if if we were to make the

182switch I would be much more heavily involved in the workers comp administration than I am today because I seem to remember when we were part of a Boseis one of us was a rep one of the board members was a representative. I'm starting to get deja vu here. Yeah. Not going back to that. This seems like a a a pretty pretty good deal. you answered my question about the legal claims. We we didn't have any that we really had to support last year and it seems like historically that hasn't really been an issue. Um, thanks for your work in exploring it and setting up this connection. It seems like a positive one. It'll save us what, $200,000? Yeah. Yeah. Like in jobs, we're going to save jobs, right? And we're going to be able to

183give back to kids because this comes out of the the general fund. So, it's not much, but it's it's something. And $200,000 is a lot. Okay. Yeah. I I come from the corporate world, and I cannot believe how tough uh finances are in in in education. I It's actually sad. Uh but we're doing our best to contribute to keeping our kids educated. And education changed my life. So I I am totally behind it. While Radu is here, I'll just mention uh beyond this proposal, which will save us some money and put us in a better spot. He also, because of his knowledge of insurance, helped us secure some supplemental insurance on our Thornton High School project, which is a massive undertaking, $260 million. And typically where architects and contractors are insured, you would have a

184lot of exposure and risk. And for a really modest cost of I think $150,000, we superers sized our insurance in a way that just gives us a lot of reassurance and protection on a site that I think you all know is complicated to design and build on given the sloping and all the other dynamics. So Radu's helped us in so many ways in a short amount of time. Really glad to have him on the team. The savings were much bigger there because they quoted over a million dollars for the contractor to buy. a very different approach. That that's bigger money. I love being Thank you. Thank you. All right, Gina. School finance update, which I have to say I feel very updated because um I was getting texts at weird hours of the day. I'm

185sorry about that. That's okay. So, um, those of you who have already looked at the presentation, this is not a Adams 12 budget update. Instead, this is a school finance update to let you all know the school finance um, bill passed 1320 with some amendments. And so, wanted to walk you all through some of those change some of the amendments. When we were initially presenting on our budget projections, one of the big changes that happened was we were assuming I mean we had a lot of assumptions but one of the last assumptions we stuck with was we would end up with four-year averaging and 10% implementation of what was 1448 and now 1320. So some of the changes that happened is 1320 is being extended one year. So, it was originally supposed to be phased

186in over six years and instead is intended to be phased in in seven years, meaning that the full funding from the new formula won't come into effect until 203132. It's hard to even say that time frame. That doesn't feel like we should be talking about the 2030s yet. Um, in that new implementation, I just wanted to share, like I said, we've have we've landed on four-year averaging and 15% implementation. So, that's 5% better than we were initially modeling. And then I show what the um should all go well and the state have enough to fund, this is how it will be phased in. And so, that's 15% of the new formula money, 30% 45, and so on. So, in the event that the state does not have the funds in order to fund the new

187school finance act, as I just indicated, in 2627 that budget year, we would go back from so the plan is to go to three-year averaging 30%. I don't think I said that. Sorry about that. Um, so instead of three-year averaging at 30%, we will go back to four-year averaging in 15%. If in the 2728 budget year there aren't the funds to fund the new formula, then a smoothing factor um will be implemented through the work of some work groups. And part of that piece is if the state education fund balance falls below 200 million. I'm a little interested with another slide that I'll I'll touch on this to see what happens with that. Um the one that I cared heavily about, not that I didn't care about the other pieces, but um Aaron and I

188identified on March 12th that the new school finance act didn't work with existing statutes that tell us how to fund charter schools and how the state funds CSI schools. We identified the issue. You guys have heard um some of that. The good news is we were able to get an amendment pushed through that maintains mostly status quo. So the um state will have to calculate the school finance act in the old way and the new way. And so the old way we will allocate status quo how we've how have we've been doing and then the new portion of the school finance act 15 that 15% implementation will be allocated on a straight per pupil basis. We will divide that money by the funded pupil count and then allocate it evenly to our charter schools and

189the state will do the same for our CSI schools. um a work group of stakeholders will create a recommendation to address the um budget years beyond 26 I'm sorry to address beyond the next school year for the future. This is just a one-year fix. And I wanted to share with you all what would have happened if we didn't get this amendment through. So what would have happened is Aaron and I would have made some assumptions about the intent of the law and we would have chose how to fund our charter schools based on what we believe the intent was because the language made it impossible for us to do what we were supposed to do in that a charter school could have very easily said the district is not funding us per law and the

190remedy for that is they would take that to the State Board of Education and we would argue our case and see where it lands. So, a huge amount of relief on my part and I know on Aerin's part that we have some certainty on what we would put together follows the law. That was our big concern. We wanted to um do that calculation in a way that follows the law. And then um the last piece that I'll highlight through the amendment process um I'm sure you all heard about the kids matter account. So this is the piece that as I was just talking about the state education fund if the fund balance drops behind 200 million. Um I think this piece may be the the portion to try to prevent that. And so it creates

191a sub account of the state education fund that goes into effect as of July 1, 2026. And um if appropriated and I think that's really important language for for everyone to hear if appropriated by the generally general assembly general assembly and I realize I I believe I have a typo. It's 65% of onetenth of 1% on federal taxable income which is estimated at around 233.7 million in fiscal year 2627 will get deposited into this new sub fund of the state education fund. Those dollars may only be used for funding total program for school districts and the categorical programs. Um we thought it was important to contrast what the constitution already requires for the state education fund um created in amendment 23 and that requires onethird of 1% of taxable income to go into the state

192education fund. So Aaron and I had some fun doing the math on this and um it is 0 I wish I brought my sticky note 0.009 09 something%. It's it's a really teeny teeny number that will be added. I get 233.7 million is a lot of money. It's not going to solve. It's not new money. It's from the general fund. So, this is this is coming off the top of the general fund going into this account, which hopefully does protect the ability for um the new school finance act to be funded. What questions do you have? I just will test two summary statements of what you shared. So all the work around uh the charter school funding piece. I would summarize that as saying we did some technical amendments because the old law and the

193new law didn't tie together well in terms of terminology, methodology. We had some gaps that you've helped uh the state feel fill that largely preserve what's been uh the practice historically for lots of years. The next step will be to have a policy discussion about whether some of those allocation methods should change because one of the things I've shared with the board before was Stargate as an example that because we have more than 40% of our kids who qualify for free and reduced that triggers a statute that sets uh their free and reduced lunch or at risk allocation at our percentage instead of their actual percentage and the state has backfilled that historically uh to the tune of about 682 2000. The policy discussion about whether that practice should continue will be a next step

194that may change legislatively in the next session. Correct. And then the other thing I just wanted to to say out loud that I think is true, but we'll have uh Gina affirm when we did some of our modeling for budget reductions earlier this spring, we expected a 10% implementation of 1448 instead of 15%. So that change to 15% brought more money as well as I think a methodology change that measures the 15% against what we would get under a five-year averaging system instead of a fouryear. I think the net is we probably came out about $4.3 million better because of those kinds of changes over the last four to six weeks. We spent $2.3 million in the 0.5% COLA for our employee groups and the other $2 million hasn't been allocated, but will probably help

195us balance for next year. So, she doesn't look as enthusiastic about that part. So, I'll let her correct whatever part she needs to. I you guys know I do not like quoting numbers that I can't those numbers have changed so many times in the last six weeks that I I would not want to say 100% certainty that it grew by about that we came to the good around 4 million. I think you're close. I think it's similar but um I your honor I'm not going to say that under oath. That's fair. We'll talk about that more when we do our budget update next meeting. Absolutely. Thanks, Gina. And thanks for what you've done for school finance as a state. Yes. You know, you really brought to light things that had never surfaced. So, thank you.

196Yeah. And really that was um simply listening to the um figure setting it. It Erin and I tag team and try to listen to as much of what happens at the capital around K12 education funding. And we got really lucky that we happened to be listening, we understood enough about how supplemental at risk works. So as soon as it was stated that they could literally not calculate it, our flags were raised of well that's how we fund charters. If you can't calculate that, we can't calculate how to fund charters. And so, um, a lot's to be said about paying attention to those meetings because had we not, I don't know that we would have figured it out when we did. I don't want to beat the horse. That's important. But, uh, there's a lot of

197people who have awareness and aren't willing to put in all the sweat, equity, and time that you did. I mean, literally, you were working on this, uh, late into the night, 10, 11:00 plus weekends throughout the day. it became your full-time job for about two weeks was my sense. So, there's a lot of people who say, "Yeah, there's a problem, but I don't have time or interest in fixing it." And so, I'm grateful for you and for Aaron leaning in and uh making this better. Yeah. And I that's I was I'm going to echo that. Yeah. The amount of work and time you and Aaron put in is just Yeah. beyond appreciated. So, thank you so much. I was just going to say that as well. You and Aaron are an indispensable team. Um, the

198other thing I was going to say is that I do appreciate I think it's State Senator Kirk Meyer and State Senator Kulker for the bipartisan effort to keep the education fund continuing. Um, I do still feel like, um, we're being handed a tiny little corner of the proper flotation device we need to stay afloat in this raging ocean of inadequate funding. So, thanks. Thanks, Gina. Thanks, Sarah. All right. Proclamation National Gun Violence Awareness Day. Um we we um I will entertain a motion to adopt the proclamation declaring Friday, June 6th, 2025 as National Gun Violence Awareness Day in Adams 125 schools as presented. So moved. Second. Um we had um Kathy Kelly talk to us at during public comment earlier about this. Well, and that's where I was going to talk about cuts to mental

199health. Um, uh, mental health funding is so vital and critical for victims of gun violence and not even just drug victims, but secondary victims of when Kathy Kelly was sharing um, that even I'm not Oh my gosh, my brain's not even working at this crime anymore. Oh my goodness. Not direct violence and not uh um violent superviolent crimes, but accidents [Music] and just got done talking about suicide risk assessments and threat assessments and how gun violence is an epidemic um in this country. And so it's it's just critical that we come together and we work together in order to help our communities and help people struggling. Um and again continue to provide these protective factors that our team was just talking about. And one of them is reducing access to means and so of violence.

200So um yeah, this is something that we definitely need to come together as a nation to support. Call the vote. Director Assad Lucas I. Director Badestelli I. Director Goldstein I. Director Marsh Hen. Hi. Director Potter. Hi. All right. Sorry that they um couldn't wait for this because nobody's here. Well, you guys. Okay. Um I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the work study session and regular board meeting of April 16, 2025 as presented. So moved. Second. Any discussion? Director Assad Lucas. I, Director Batistelli, I, Director Goldstein, I, Director Marsh Holen, I, Director Potter, I. All right, personnel actions. I will entertain a motion to approve the personnel actions as listed, resignations and terminations, transfers and reassignments, employment, and leaves of absence. So move. Second. Director Assad Lucas. Hi. Director Batistelli. Hi. Director

201Goldstein. Hi. Director Marsh Holen. Hi. Director Potter. I Okay. Uh, future agenda items. Um, the next meeting is after a graduation, so we'll um adjust accordingly timewise and it's going to be busy. Uh, the next two meetings. Uh, we did cancel the last meeting in June. Uh, make sure that you tell Stephanie which um, graduations you're able to attend and whether or not you're able to go out to eat in between with us. Um, B's all excited about one of the places. All right. Uh, anything else? Okay. Um, then we'll be adjourned.