001good Saturday morning everyone it is nine o'clock sharp and we are going to get started uh today we are talking to one of the only applicants for 2022 for charter schools be the change community school is here today to do a presentation and talk a little bit about their facility and the programming that they'll have so I want to welcome be the change Charter School good morning the presentation today starts at 9 00 a.m and it is 9 A.M exactly at uh we're scheduled to talk for 10 minutes but we take about three or four so they get to start a little bit early but be the change will have 15 to 20 minutes to do a presentation and share a little bit about their Charter School what their hopes are what they want to
002do what the programming looks like after that we'll open it up for question and answering from the audience you should each have a card or two or three or four if you have questions please write them on the card be sure and be as clear as possible with the card because I'm the one who has to read it and I'm not wearing glasses again today so please try to write as clearly as possible I will read your question and when we are finished with all the questions in the room Chief Burke has some additional questions from online and from our groups that have looked looked at the application and so she will be asking questions and then about five minutes ten minutes to uh 10 o'clock we will wrap up the question and answer give
003you a chance to do a final a little bit about your school and and just share any thoughts that you have and then we'll close it down I do want to remind everybody that we do have a survey that is online the survey was originally supposed to close Monday at midnight we are leaving it open till Wednesday at midnight so it will be open just a little bit longer for you if you want to leave some comments or complete a survey so with that this is Amanda and Amanda it was hard to memorize those two names and so I'm going to turn over the clicker to them and we'll begin awesome thank you good morning everybody thank you for coming out on this early Saturday morning um it's great to see your faces I am
004Amanda Gonzalez I am the co-founder and the director of cultivation Abby the change community school so I will serve as our school leader um I am a proud special education teacher ELD education teacher including at Adams City High School just down the block from here I have been a high school principal very proud to have been the school leader of the top performing High School in Denver public schools for a number of years um I have a principal and a special education director licensure in addition to multiple teaching licenses and I am very proud to have just been been named the 2022 educational leader of the Year from the Colorado Association of bilingual Educators I'll let Marquez introduced herself hello everyone thank you again for being here early on a Saturday my name is Amanda
005Marquez and I am the director of innovation for be the change Community School which is like an executive director for other types of schools um I thought maybe this is the third time we're doing this that I wouldn't be nervous today but no I am still nervous um and I tell I tell the audience this because one of the core values of be the change Community School is confidence and I used to think that confidence meant not being afraid or never being nervous like speaking in front of a group of people and working with be the change Community School what I've realized is that confidence is about believing in yourself and knowing that you have the capabilities and abilities to achieve whatever it is that you've set out to achieve and so even though I'm
006nervous I am here today because there are many people who have come before me who have accomplished great things and even though I am a little bit nervous I am here standing before you because that is the gift and opportunity that I have today and it's the gift and opportunity that we want for our kids is to have that confidence another one of our core values is identity so I'll tell you a little bit about myself I am a Proud by cultural Latina I'm a first generation college graduate and I'm a Commerce City Community member I live right up by Monaco Elementary School I'm also a career educator I started off as a special education teacher and a high school math teacher I've been an assistant principal at a high school a principal of a
007middle school I hold a professional Colorado principal licensure and I earned a master's in educational leadership from Harvard um I also consider myself a learner I'm always trying to learn and grow and watching YouTube videos reading books listening to podcasts I have a vocational degree in cosmetology and an undergraduate Bachelor's of Science and business administration so always trying to learn new things and always trying to grow now if you had told my 17 year old high school self that I would have worked in education my whole life or that I love to learn or that I'd be starting a school there's no way that she would have believed you I was the kid who never wanted to go to school my mother would have to come into my room and pull the covers off the
008bed to try to get me up to go to school in the morning I'd often say that I was sick when I wasn't so that I didn't have to go you see that I didn't see myself in what I was learning I didn't know why I was learning what I was learning I didn't learn my ancestors history that stuff was cut out of the curriculum I saw school as a means to an end the thing I needed to do to get on to the next part of my life it wasn't until I was an adult that I got to learn more about my history and my identity that I realized I have a lot of power to make change and make a difference within my community and what we want for our kids at be
009the change community school is to when they're young people get to know who they are so that they don't have to wait till they're adults to realize that they love learning to figure out who they are that they don't have to wait till they're adults to realize that they can create great change here in their community and out in the world so everything that Marquez just said really drives us to the mission the mission of be the change community school is to cultivate Shapers of change who lead towards Justice we do this through transforming our future through revolutionary confidence Community engagement our students will will stand and know that they possess the power to create change even as ninth graders right they don't have to wait until they're adults until their 40s until they've settled
010on a career to to realize that they can create change our students are change makers in high school and so be the change Community School was actually built on the dreams of these five uh students at the time in 2018 they were students at Adams City High School Annette Kearney middle school and they responded to a call to say who will dream with us and so we pose the question if there were no restrictions what would School look like to you what do you want it to be and so we ran various workshops with them and ultimately they design and they told us they want their teachers to know who they are they want to learn about things that are important to them and they want sunlight in their classrooms and so from there for
011the past four years we have worked with over 200 community members with over 400 teenagers with Educators with um with Community Partners to continue to iterate on these ideas and to say what could a School a high school look like in our community if we're just dreaming how do we think outside of the box and so really for us it was important I'm a parent of Adams 14 graduates six of my seven children attended Adams 14 Schools but to really say this is created for us by us so as we were out talking to people there were a lot of questions around charter schools and what is that and what does that mean um and so we wanted to share a little bit today about um important things to know about Charter Schools is number
012one be the change Community School is absolutely free there are no fees there are no costs associated with it we are a public school open to all students that's often a question that we get is well who can come to your school do you have to apply do you have to have certain test scores no it is open to all students um charter schools are to provide options and opportunities within a school community and we are held accountable we're held accountable financially and academically and everything that would be in our contract the Adams 14 district would hold us accountable for the state holds us accountable we are accountable to the same outcomes as every other High School in Colorado and then we are also held accountable to our own board of education so there's a
013lot of people holding us accountable as a charter school making sure that we are keeping our promises to our community and so more students attend a Colorado Charter Schools than any other school district in the state be the change Community School we are a community school built on Community School values and we are not affiliated with a large Charter management organization we are an independent single-site Charter School it's important to know also that we are a small school I want to tell you a little bit about my um one of my sons so I told you have seven children I have three sons four daughters um my oldest son he is like the epitome of tall dark and handsome right um he is brilliant he is funny he is a deep critical thinker and um
014when he was in Middle School here in Adams 14 he was that kid who just flourished all of the teachers knew who he was everybody loved him um he was like that Star Quarterback on that Middle School football field just amazing young gentleman when he moved into High School however he really got lost in the crowd he was identified as highly gifted in elementary school and he realized that in in high school his needs weren't being met not only his his push for increased just rigor within the classroom but also his effective needs his his social emotional development just it just wasn't being met and he was instantly just kind of lost in the crowd um throughout his years I mean if you're a parent we know that it it hurts when our kids are
015not doing the things that they need to do right and so it was a struggle at home to get him to school I'm like I'm a whole High School principal I can't have my kid not going to school right it was that struggle um and we realized that a lot of his mental health issues were kind of rising up and showing themselves throughout high school there was one person at one time who reached out to find out what is going on with him it was and it just so happened that it was an educator that worked with him at the middle school and so she knew him she knew exactly what his his potentials were and I mean she came to the house she knocked on on his door waking him up to get to
016school but it was one person one time he was lost in a huge school which is one small aspect of why it's important for us to be a a small High School so a little bit about our academic program and things that are happening at be the change community school as Gonzalez shared we talked with a lot of people in the development and design of this school and one of the number one things that we heard was that people wanted to have a voice they wanted to be heard they wanted to be listened to in their child's education and so that is part of the foundation of our school it is built on committees Community committees so that community members parents students teachers have a voice in the way that our school is shaped and
017what we do and moving forward and that is part of the foundation of our school and cannot be changed whether we are here or not that is something that will continue so that our community has a voice in the education of their children forever something else that we heard was that our kids come to us linguistically gifted and we know that and so that is the reason for the by literacy program we want to make sure that our kids graduate proficient in two languages for most of our students that will be English and Spanish for students who come to us gifted in other languages the beauty of technology is is that we can make sure that they have the literacy instruction needed so that they can also graduate with the biliteracy the Seal of bi
018literacy from the state of Colorado and talking with kids what we heard was that high school is boring that's not just that's everywhere that's across the United States is that kids say that about high school and so in talking them we're like What do we want what do we want to be different about school and what we heard was that they want real world learning they want things to they want to know why they're learning what they're learning they want to know how it's connected to what they want to do in life and so we have chosen a project-based learning model which when I talk to people outside of Education they're like oh that's what happens in the real world there's a problem that we need to solve and people come together from different departments
019within where we work and we solve it together and that's what our educational model looks like we also make sure that our kids have access to job shadow career exploration and internships when they're in their 11th and 12th grade years so that before they go on to their post-secondary learning they know what it is that they like because the last thing we want is our kids to go on to college pay all of this money and realize that that is not the thing that they wanted to do with their life we want them to find their passions when they are young so that they can pursue them wholeheartedly as they grow up and we want to make sure that all of our kids are prepared for whatever Choice it is that they want in life
020all of our kids will be academically prepared for college readiness they will all be prepared for college but we know that not all students choose College they might choose to start a business or go into trades whatever it is we will support our students in following their passions and being academically prepared for any choice that they have in life as I told you I have a trades degree and I also have a master's from Harvard and we want to make sure that our kids are academically prepared for all of the choices that they have in front of them and so we want to make sure that everybody knows because one of the things we heard from parents was that Lake Gonzalez said um parents want their kids to be known and so our school is
021a small school so that we can know the needs of every student in our school whether they have a plan a formal plan or not we deeply get to know each of our kids stories and we see them and we know what it is that they need we're a small school that allows us to do that additionally we want to know we want people to know that we welcome all students and so often we get the question do you serve students with disabilities and we are former special education teachers and so absolutely we built the program making sure that it impacted and affected positively all types of Learners so if a student has an individualized education plan or a 504 plan an advanced learning plan for gifted and talented if students are linguistically gifted or
022come from various cultural backgrounds be the change is a place with a sense of belonging and that is what we want for our kids and our academic programs can meet the various needs of different styles of learning and so we'd love to hear your thoughts we on the Adams 14 Community survey do you want me to change does this sound something that that could come that can contribute to serving the community um also we're available text us call us let's go have coffee our contact information is on the back of the Flyers that are here um we're both just eager to talk more to learn more let's dream together if you have an idea let's talk uh we're available on all of the socials if you look us up at be the change Community School
023give us a follow and yeah I look forward to answering some of your questions okay well Dr Burke is going to Archie Burke is going to be walking around the room collecting cards in case you have cards that I don't have up here I have a number of cards that we have collected and I now have readers in case I need them on some of the questions thank you it's a Saturday you gotta love it right so the first question that we have from the audience why have you decided to start a new school instead of working with Adams 14 to improve our current schools yeah that's a fantastic question I can answer that do you want um I I immediately think back to my son right who needed that small school environment I also
024have three other graduates from Adams City High School who thrived in the large school environment and so we're not about trying to replace what there currently is we know the rich rich history of being an Adam City Eagle but we're also just wanting to provide an option to families especially for those young people who might need a smaller School thank you does your teaching plan follow an academic format like the Adams City High School is just starting Academy format oh thank you I appreciate that um so yes and no my limited understanding of the academy format that is starting at Adams City High School is very is limited to like the identified academies and it's my understanding that through that students will um you know say the engineering Academy they will then learn those concepts
025of engineering ours is a little bit more Broad in terms of it is problem based learning so it is learning through the problems and the projects that are brought To Us by our community academic design team as identified through Community Partners industry partners it is through the presentation of learning that students choose their very specific pathway and so we're all learning kind of the same Concepts we're exploring the same projects but throughout that just like in life we recognize that you know I might be more introverted and I'm gonna thrive in this way whereas my extroverted colleague might work through you know a different pathway we also want to ensure that we're meeting industry partner needs such as technology and that we're incorporating things like that throughout and we're paying attention to the the business
026needs that our graduates will um I mean what is our our industry say technology right how are we incorporating that throughout charter schools in Commerce City have had a contentious relationship with Adams 14. how do you envision the relationship between Adams 14 and be the change Community Schools I think like we have a very fun spot in our heart for Adams 14 as a former parent and a Community member we want a true partnership we believe in transparency and trust and we want to be able to work with the district and like work together we all know our community best and and we work best when we are working together towards the same goals and we all know that we are doing that and so we envision our partnership as as a a piece of
027the greatness that is happening here in our community and in our district and so I think that we are very open to communication and changing and adapting as needed like I said we're Community School our community helps make these decisions and so um we very much would like to partner with Adams 14 in doing that and not have uh okay you've signed our Charter now we go away and do our own thing we like like the idea of of sharing professional development sharing resources sharing ideas and whatever District initiatives there are how can we be a part of that and make sure that all of our students are benefiting from them and so we really Vision Envision this as a true partnership yeah and how could we change that notion that like long time history
028of contentious relationships let's be a model of Shifting that and saying we don't have that anymore what if any charter schools have you researched or modeled your policies and bylaws after so we looked at Empower High School which is a high school in Aurora it's a project-based learning High School rooted in identity as well and so we looked at that it's one of our models we've looked at the Steed school which is also a project-based learning school we've looked at schools throughout the country as well the da Vinci schools high tech High there are many schools around the the country doing this type of work and specifically for bylaws within our board we have looked at like those schools but we've also worked with a lawyer to make sure that we were meeting expectations of
029boards of school boards as well as you progress in enrollment how do you propose to partner with swap DVR and transition programs yes yes absolutely I mean for us that's a critical piece of following the idea and ensuring that all of our students whether they have a formalized academic in individualized plan or whether they're just you know we we need to make sure that we're supporting Workforce Development and so ensuring within the district Partnerships like how is the district working with swab how is the district working with the Department of Vogue rehab and ensuring that we're following the same district policies but also I mean that to me is just a right of of life for all of our students to make sure that everybody no matter learning difference has a right to access Beyond
030High School we have special classrooms for students with special needs will you have special classrooms for special needs students or students with special needs yeah I think that that's a longer conversation within like the contract as we develop that with the district to determine what are the district's needs what are are we available to serve where on the Spectrum do we land with serving students with disabilities I will say that as Mark has mentioned like both of us being special Educators being special education administrators it is critical that we are welcoming all students and that we're serving students within our capacities our special education teams that within this within the daily schedule there are times built out for those resource classrooms resource instruction also within within the um the least restrictive environment so I think
031to that question I think we don't know yet what that what like the wide spectrum looks like that's a conversation with the district and kind of negotiating the needs and seeing the the greater need within the district thank you this one goes with that question how do you envision serving more significantly impacted students with disabilities yeah I think it just it just the notion of an IEP is an individualized education plan and so we know that no student that has learning differences is exactly similar to the next student that has learning differences and so this really involves us saying how what are the unique needs of the student will this student best be served in a center-based environment or in the Gen Ed environment right but really exploring the entire spectrum of serving our students
032with learning differences and and not just on an IEP but our gifted students are linguistically gifted students and even students who are coming to us that might be below grade level all of that results in where's the Spectrum where are we at and how are we going to differentiate and scaffold for that explain the rationale for not having a board elected by members of the community and being appointed by existing board members that's a great question so I think that like as a governmental entity um our school board here in Adams 14 is an elect they're elected officials Charter School boards are held accountable by the school boards that are elected there is a contract that is set up that the school board the charter school bullet Charter School Board is held accountable for and
033so it's kind of like a double layer of accountability where elected officials do hold the charter school boards accountable for that contract how do you plant excuse me how do you plan to recruit students that are not currently attending Adams 14 Schools so we are currently recruiting students in like the Thornton area Brighton Area Denver area we're very lucky that we sit um in the middle of of many different communities and so in addition to like letting students who are close by who might not be in our district know about our school we are also doing a broad awareness campaign we know that there are already students in our district who need different options and are choicing to leave our district and so our hope is that by by putting it out there to all
034families and students those students who might normally choose to leave our district to have a different opportunity for school we'll realize that there is an option right here in their community that they can choose so rather than leaving they will stay here in Adams 14. knowing the current challenges with hiring qualified Educators how do you plan to recruit train and retain teachers and staff um so one we're already developing Partnerships with local universities we envision this we envision a place be the change community school as a place where even students or pre-service teachers can come into the school that can learn how to teach in Pro problem project-based learning models and and have they experience within small schools so we are recruiting from our relationships within those universities within our professional networks within larger networks
035that we have such as the national Compadres Network right and just kind of putting fillers out and seeing who aligns with our values in terms of training and developing teachers so actually our our section here of the application that speaks about our annual goals has the annual has an annual goal of that our teachers will continue to be developed appendix D in our application goes in depth into how teachers are developed and individually coached not only will our teachers be coached and trained on like the policies and procedures needed to make sure that we're hitting our annual goals but we really believe in the professional the long-term growth of our teachers in the same way that we want our students to succeed far after they've left us it's the same with Educators we want to
036be able to build their resume and create experts and content leaders in their fields and So within the application it talks about our day-to-day policies our Arc of the Year our walk through rubrics are evaluation of learning teacher evaluation rubrics and we are firm Believers that Justice is not served if we just say hey teacher here's how you're evaluated good luck but we want to make sure that we are teaching that we are training teachers on those very specific measures again not only because we know it'll serve our students our families our school best but because it will develop them into just long-term experts in their field thank you what challenges do you anticipate being first-time Charter School leaders yeah I think that there's a lot that we have to learn this is you know
037we haven't done this before we are fortunate to have a lot of experts that we can work with to support us through this so we do have a lot of networks I think that the number one things are one and two things that um Charter Schools struggle with their number one enrollment and number two facilities and so we are fortunate that we have partnered with organizations that are helping us with both of those um because and I guess the third thing is the finances which goes along with enrollment and so I think that those are the things that we are um really we know our are growing our need for growth in that and so we've partnered with people who have done this before and have supported people before so that we know that we
038can be successful in these areas we don't we are not experts um and so we are smart enough to look to expert to support us in these things have either of you served on any Adam's 14 boards or advisory committees to promote positive change so I have not served on the Adams 14 board but in the past I was part of Education educator advisory committees to say hey let's just Advocate as part of the Adams 14 teachers union and also a few years back we had a an event that we really were pushing a lot of community members I sat on a panel at this event community members teachers um I feel like it was organized by the Adams 14 CTA I'm trying to go back into my memory here but I have really sat
039during my time in this District to push forward new initiatives also when I was a teacher leader in the district I oversaw the special education department of over 200 kids over 15 staff members and when I was working on a master's degree in special education Administration I worked under Dr Robert Phantom Allen to develop special education training and policy within the district at that time what are your plans related to service related to service providers example smaller size and P impacts ftos thank you yeah do you want to talk to that one yeah so we have um put into our budget that um we like can request those services from the district and so there's many there there's also um we've budgeted for outside service providers as well for those services and so ultimately like
040when we do the contract determining which Services make sense through the district if like the availability and things are there we understand hiring and things like that so if that's a possibility that would be great and if not um there's a Colorado League of Charter School preferred provider that they recommend and so we've talked with them as well about those services we have two additional questions from the audience and then we will turn it over to Chief Burke to continue the question and answer session from what was posted online where will be the change be located this is always a an interesting question we are so close but we do not have ink signed on a place and so I can share with you that it is one of the places in our application um
041but I it will be here in the core part of Commerce City it is not very far from this building but until we have ink signed and we don't want to yet give out the exact address of that place but core part of Commerce City that is what is most important to us is that we are serving students right here in the core part if your board Is Not Elected by parents from the school who will what voice will they have in the direction and Leadership of the school so parents and students are on our um what do I want to say like on the committee that helps determine um like interviews potential candidates for our board um so that's one way that they have voice and then we also have like our I forget
042what it's called the school accountability committee by the the state but we call it our collaborative schools committee and that is really where like our parents and students have voice um and where the direction of our school and policies and things that need to happen and they make then recommendations to the board as well as to what needs to happen I would I would add to that we're constantly seeking community members parents students teachers even to sit on our academic design team because we don't want to just do this alone we've built into the structure of be the change again like Marcus said like long after we are gone no school leader can step in to be the change community school and and erase the voices of parents because the very Foundation is built on
043our school committees and parents and community members can always come and sit on our board that is one of the beauties that it doesn't have to result in a long election campaign with funding that's the beauty of a charter school board is that it can say hey come on in let's come and sit on our board thank you that concludes the question answer session from the audience if you have questions that arise during the time that Chief Burke is going through the questions that were posted online please be sure and fill out the card we will submit the card to be the change for an answer to be posted for you so if you have questions please continue to write them down on the cards we will collect them just as we've been doing it
044and they'll be answered at a later time with that Dr Bert uh Chief Burke I'm going to turn the microphone over to you thank you good morning ladies good morning so part of our process around charter school applicants is that we have our district accountability committee and our internal Review Committee um reviewing the application and part of that there's questions that have um been generated as a result of the review so those are the ones that I'm going to read today and there's some of the questions have been asked here so I'm going to ask them again just for the record and then you can choose to add to them or say that we feel like we've covered them if they're repeated the section I'm going to begin on was where we left off on
045Wednesday which is section 9 governance and decision making any of the questions we don't get through today will provide to you also you can provide a written response so the first question is how will the required reading be verified for new board members and how will the required reading options be determined in the future so in our section for clarification for folks in the room who might not have read um there's a section in our um development plan for our board that says that in their first year they will read one of the following books what we realized was that like this question asks how do we hold people accountable so we've actually changed that to a book study for the whole board at the same time so we didn't know that the whole board
046is reading the same thing and so the first book that we're starting off with is Paulo freire's pedagogy of the oppressed and so that's how we hold accountable is through a book study type model second I think that like our board members teachers parents making recommendations to like these are the things that we think that our board should be reading and learning about as far as it goes to education those can be added to the list and then as a board determined which one they'll read next thank you I can time to time be formalized into a set of requirements to determine when additional board members are required and so in our bylaws it says that we can have anywhere from 5 to 13 board members and there isn't a set Cadence for when we
047add those board members so um yes if a board member steps down or something like that that is a time to replace them but if we are you know sitting with six board members and recognize that oh we have met this person who has this component that could really add to our board or we have a parent leader who would just make a great addition to our board there isn't a set Cadence at this moment that says well we have to wait until this time before we can add an additional board member um and so could time to time be formalized a little bit more absolutely I think we have left it open for that reason so that we can add people who who add to um the collective like diversity diverse thinking and perspective
048of our board um but definitely something maybe we can formalize a little bit more and is the board required to take the recommendation of the recruiting subcommittee so I think this question is about like when we add new board members the way that it works is we have our governance committee who kind of is working on recruiting new board members um and then we have a committee who does like an interview and again that includes like students and parents and community members making a recommendation and then that governance committee makes a recommendation to the board for vote um the way that our bylaws are laid out they do not it does not set in our bylaws that if the governance committee recommends somebody that they have to be voted on I will also say that
049our board believes in the community school model and believes in community voice and if this is community folks saying yes this is a person who we think needs to be on our board I mean I can't speak for them they get to vote independently of what I say but um that that is value of theirs and so ultimately no but I think that they value the voice of community so the next section is going to be section 10 employees what are the specifics in the academic professional development goals beyond the buzzwords yeah so I think that has been touched on within the the questioning but specific attendance D in our application it really lays out in detail how teachers will be developed both as an you know just like an entire staff model within departments
050within grade levels but also individually because we know that we're individuals and we need to gain skills individually also within the application we provided a menu of options so after with monitoring trackers through individual coaching you know hypothetically we have let's say we have a teacher who is just thriving who is scoring the highest who we just know is like the greatest teacher we want to continue to offer them opportunities for development and this can look anywhere from how can you be a teacher leader are you leading professional development let's have this Collective shared genius to also saying what outside organizations um and training opportunities are we providing to you and so it's laid out within the menu of Services of professional development again I don't want to make sure make it that it's we're
051only training on policies and procedures specific to be the change it is again a spectrum policies procedures how are we ensuring that our annual goals are met and great instruction is happening um great social emotional learning fantastic restorative practices but also how are we developing you as an educator in the field because it is important to us that we're also thinking ahead and thinking forward and maintaining Educators in the greater education ecosystem thank you how will you know how or when to adjust your Staffing guidelines guidelines are really based just like every other school based on enrollment based on professional development need based on trends that we're seeing through our monitoring processes and so in terms of Staffing shifts I think that also just would would depend on what are we hearing from our community
052what is the data showing us and that would guide any kind of Staffing shifts you shared a little bit about this question already um do you have a section that focuses on developing teachers professional growth plans yes absolutely the next section is going to be section 11 insurance coverage the expenses for the coverage of liability insurances appears to be under budgeted can you provide more coverage details as it relates to the actual coverages the charter plans on ensuring with the limits of the coverage listed so in our application we worked with Hub International which is a firm that works with many charter schools in the state of Colorado to provide insurance coverage and so when we met with them this was like a learning opportunity for us we had to take their expertise of okay
053what is it that based off of will be renting a facility we'll have about this many students this many teachers what is it that is expected to meet the minimum requirements and not even minimum but like what should we be doing what do good Charter Schools do in order to have the appropriate insurance coverage if the district thinks that like if there are expectations that we have not budgeted enough for um like like we have like School liability property workman's compensation property casualty we have our health insurance dental and all of those benefits if there are more types of insurance that is expected from the district within our contract we are happy to go back with them and work with them to to redo our budget to meet the expectations of the district for insurance
054thank you are the amounts per year or a monthly basis and so those were in the appendix we kind of laid out all of the costs and so they are all an annual cost thank you the next series of questions have come from section 12 parent and Community involvement what is a representation from the aforementioned groups and so I think we talked about this a little bit at the last meeting and so I think like all of the groups that are that talked about it's our collaborative schools committee our community academic design team our school design team and the biliteracy board and so the makeup of those I think the one there's one that was undefined and it was I think the schools collaborative committee but all of them do have students parents teachers community
055members so that all all voices are being heard on those design teams and throughout we definitely are always looking for representation of our community as well whether that's with language race and ethnicity but like all voices are welcome and wanted and so but like we are trying to be intentional about um representing our community in those in our four different types of groups that we have thank you how do you plan on hiring Spanish-speaking teachers yeah so we spoke a little bit about this last meeting but definitely leveraging our professional networks partnering with intentionally partnering not just with the universities but with Hispanic serving institutions and their schools of Education exploring options for how do we support visas for teachers who may want to come from out of the country and um and ideally our
056ideal is always like how could we get a fully bilingual staff if any schools out there can figure that out like we want to learn from you but just also intentionally marketing our hiring toward um toward bilingual people thank you what plan is in place if not enough Spanish-speaking teachers are available yeah so uh but same kind of concept we addressed this before but also um if we cannot find our our one Spanish language arts teacher then as we continue the the recruitment efforts for that ensuring that we are leveraging technology like video conferencing co-teaching models um and and so we don't claim that all of our staff will be bilingual that is a push that is a plus and I think that on a side note like a random thing that makes me truly
057excited is that our board has also voted in and given us given me the ability as a school leader to pay people extra for those type of skills for for by Literacy for bilingualism and that is something that is we're hoping is a um a huge recruiting piece thank you now move to section 13 enrollment other than students currently attending the district schools how will you plan to attract students back to Adams 14 or keep them in items 14. I think we touched on this a little bit earlier but like yes our marketing plan is both outside of the district to bring students in and then within the district like making sure that we are working with families who might be opting who would typically opt out to another school that they're like letting them
058know that there is a choice here in Adams 14 and that we want to keep our kids here at home and we can bring our kids home and so that's what we're really marketing towards is bringing kids in and letting those who are leaving that we are a choice here in the district thank you I'm going to move on to section 14 transportation and Food Services what are the service expectations with differences in the district calendar when Adams 14 staff are off so we have put in our application that as like a potential we would use the services transportation and Food Services of atoms 14 if possible and we recognize that if we have different calendars the employees of Adams 14 have a different calendar than our school and so there's no expectation obviously that
059they would work on the days that we are working however I think what we can do is work together to figure out what can this look like so that our students have access and so if that means that on a like for food we have lunches prepared the day before and kept and so that we can serve them or for transportation we are working with an outside provider for that day to provide transportation for our students on that day we will be working with the district to make sure that we're meeting their expectations of course but um I think we can be creative and and solving for those I would only ask also add to um to what Mark has said is that the calendar that we provided the school year calendar is a draft
060calendar and so that during contract negotiations with the district we would really look to eliminate as many of those days as possible that don't work thank you this next one is a two-part question is be the change Charter School offering Universal free meals to students similar to what we offer in Adams 14 and then who will cover the Gap in payment for paid status students if Universal free meals are offered so in working with I worked with Doug moss and before him the other Chief Financial Officer to figure out the cost of this because my understanding is this is a service that Adams 14 already provides on a per pupil basis so we looked at it what would the cost of every meal be per student so we budgeted for breakfast and lunch for every
061student in our school so we would pay we already are planning on paying the difference in those costs thank you is be the change Charter School budgeted for Food Service staff who will they report to Adam's 14 nutrition services or be the change Charter School so in our current Staffing model we do have I think in the first year one food services staff member to be working with us we also recognize as if we're using the Adams 14 Food Services that they need to work in very close proximity and they need to be certified as the forget the word for it but you have to have a license to be able to serve food and so they would need to meet the expectations of Adam's 14's food nutrition services and so I think that like
062in our negotiations we could talk about like ultimately yes there are employee we pay for them out of our budget and how do we make sure that they're meeting the expectations of the Food Services Department thank you if you cannot secure Services through an alternative vendor will you consider altering your bills scheduled to accommodate our resources and this one is specific to transportation I think like yes I think that like if we are if we want to be Equitable to our students in order to make sure that they can have access to our school we know that with school choice not everybody always has school choice because if you are expected to have transportation you can't necessarily choose if you don't have that Transportation so it's something that we're very committed to and so if
063that means that we have to shift a bell schedule or something to make sure that all students have access to our school I think it's something that we can negotiate absolutely thank you are you willing to increase your assumed budget for transportation services absolutely when we met I met with Doug Moss to talk about transportation services and what those would cost there wasn't a number yet available and so we budgeted based off of um ensuring that all students had bus passes using public transportation and then using alternative transportation services for students who might have disabilities or other needs for transportation so we have about three minutes left what are your drop off and pick up procedures as it relates to transportation so at present um I think that those are very building specific depending on
064where we are for um where our location is and so those are something that will be developed once we have our building finalized to make sure that students are safe that we are making sure that our students are safe and where they're being picked up and where they're being dropped off um and then as well like traffic patterns and things like that how that is related to our community making sure that everybody in our community driving by is safe and our students and families are safe so the next section is going to be section 15 on facilities what are the current and future traffic patterns at the four proposed locations so once we have and we're like I said we're just waiting for some paperwork um and once we have that all settled um we'll
065work with our company radian to do like a traffic study to determine what those are I imagine that this question is in relation to safety and as I said like safety for our community and our families as they're dropping off kids and kids walking to school and different things like that is incredibly important to us and so doing that traffic study to determine if there are like mitigating measures we need to do talking with local law enforcement to determine what it is that we need to do to keep everybody in our community safe thank you what is your plan for emergency response situations yeah I'll speak to that so as a former principal I have written emergency plans a lot and I always do so in um in conjunction with this with the district's Department
066of Safety and Security and the local police department and so that's how our plan will be written thank you about two minutes left uh you touched on this a little bit but how does the current infrastructure of these locations ensure the safety of community stakeholders yeah I'll you wanna I'll speak to that so um again all buildings that we're looking at and all facilities are zoned for educational use and then we will also bring in um and make sure that we're providing like building safety measures security cameras limited access doors limited access to various rooms again all of this is building dependent um but there will be security measures throughout okay this will probably be the last question what uh you answered some of this what is the location of the facility identified at the
06717 800 square feet so that was an average square footage based off of our student enrollment and so there wasn't an actual facility of R4 that was that um that was just sort of budgeted and there was also like a line item of like 17 something budgeted for that number of square feet the one that we are looking at is actually a lot less expensive than that so we're very excited that we'll save some room in our budget for some other things um but that was a an average holding place as as we um determined which site was going to work best for us thank you very much we are concluding the question and answer portion of this uh presentation I want to let you know that Chief Marquez will be collecting all unanswered questions
068and providing them to you and we believe I believe they agreed upon date would be Tuesday that we'd have the responses back and so those will be back Tuesday with our responses um you have a couple minutes to finish off and let us know why you think be the change should be in the district yeah absolutely again thank you for coming out on a Saturday morning thank you for these questions that are on point in-depth challenging um that's those are the questions that should be asked for schools um I just I'm excited about be the change as an option for families and like we've said many times we want to make sure that we're keeping our children here that we're providing that opportunity for families and students to attend a school in their neighborhood and
069bringing other kids home so thank you so very much for this opportunity yes thank you all for being here um and just to like add on to what Gonzalez said like this is a rare opportunity that this is a school designed like for us our community by us our community and we just have this great opportunity to really partner with a district that is doing amazing work and so we really hope that we can be an option for our students and families here thank you very much it is about three minutes till 10 o'clock so we started on time we finished on time I want to remind everybody of the important dates we've already covered one two and three this is our third meeting the first was Monday October 17th at nine our second was
070Wednesday at 6 pm and today was our third and final at 9 A.M on Saturday we do have the community survey that is online and will remain online through Wednesday October 26 at midnight so if anybody would like to take that survey you are more than welcome to go to the webpage and uh engage in that survey we want to thank you for coming today we want to thank everybody in the audience for coming today we hope you have a wonderful Saturday and welcome to Adams 14.