001Good evening, everyone. There you go. I love that. In the back, can you hear me all right? Folks at the buffet line, can you hear me okay? All right. Just checking. Thank you all for being with us this evening. I am Rob Anderson, BVSD superintendent. Spring feels like summer, though, right? Well, at least from the student side, expect maybe a little bit more of a cheer. It feels like summer, right? Okay. All right. I can understand the adults maybe not as happy, but welcome to Superintendent's Honor Roll. We get together three times a year to celebrate outstanding achievements of our students, staff, and community members. I really appreciate everyone being here, especially because it's right after a long holiday weekend. So thanks so much for being able to make it tonight to join us. I
002will mention that. Throughout the ceremony there are some people that aren't here, but I'm gonna go ahead and read all the names of this year's recipients as they if they were here So they can be celebrated because this will also be recorded and be online as well So even if they're not here, let's make sure that we give them a cheer Because we know with summer schedules everybody wasn't able to make it Would love this opportunity to recognize our BVSD Board of Education members that are here with us and those that aren't here with us will be here with us shortly. Vice President Alex Medler who's going to be helping me out up here. Treasurer Jason Unger. Jason where you at? He's in the back. Wave. Good to see you Jason. Deanne Butcher. Jorge Chavez.
003And Anitimu Aning. I like the energy. This is good. We're going to have an excellent superintendent's honor roll. I can feel it. I can feel it. So tonight we'll start out with some students who achieved an amazing academic accomplishment. Over the past couple weeks, we've been celebrating the class of 2026. Anybody have a chance to go to a graduation ceremony? Yeah. Did anybody graduate? There you go. Congratulations. It's been my honor to shake thousands of hands of graduates over the recent commencement ceremonies and tonight we have some of our best and brightest students joining us, the recipients of two very prestigious scholarships. First, let's have our Boettcher Scholars come on up. Folks, as you may know, Boettcher Scholars are recipients of Colorado's merit-based full-ride college scholarships. They're awarded annually to 50 graduating Colorado high school
004seniors here. Come on up. Yeah up here Yeah, they don't want to look at me. You we all are the stars here They're awarded annually to 50 graduating Colorado high school seniors and this year we have three from the Boulder Valley School District So the goal of the better scholarship is to keep Colorado's top talent right here in the state So each of the graduates will be going to a Colorado College University So we have Catalina Dunlap her area Catalina wave Molly Kolachoff and Emily Cecillo. Catalina's from Mo High, Scoliotes. And Molly and Emily are from Peak to Peak. Go Pumas. And so what I'd love to do is I'm going to share the microphone. If you could tell everyone what your name is, where you're headed to college, and what you plan to study.
005Does that sound okay? Probably easy compared to the interviews for the Bachelor's Scholarship. Here we go. Hi, my name is Emily Cecillo. I'm going to CU Boulder and I'm studying business with integration with computer science. Hi, I'm Molly Kolachoff. I'm going to Colorado College and I'm studying psychology and maybe minoring in creative writing. Hi, y'all. I'm Catalina Dandabria. I'm going to CU Boulder and studying psychology and art. Another round of applause for our veteran scholars. We're going to take a picture. Do I have that right? And now for our National Merit Scholars. National Merit Scholars, come on up. There we go. So the National Merit Scholarship Program is an academic competition that began back in 1955. About 1.5 million high school students enter the program each year. Finalists are chosen based on their abilities, skills,
006and accomplishments, including their academic records and extracurricular achievements by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors. So our 2026 BVSC National Merit Scholars, and when I say your name, if you could step forward and wave or bow or do whatever you want. Candace Michael, Boulder High School. Sophia Zhang, Fairview High School. Sadwick Ritchie Das, Peak to Peak Charter School. We're going to be scoring you for what you do when you come at the end, so make you count, okay? Victor Garniova. Ethan Bunnell. Santoris High School, Chelsea Dietz Monarch High School, Jade Hanyu Liu, Fairview High, Billa Cora, Peak to Peak Charter School, and Carolyn Schnell, Fairview High School. So as I pass the microphone, your name, where you're going to college, what you're going to be studying. Jade Liu, I'm going to
007Northwestern University, and I'll be studying journalism and political science. Ethan Bonnell, I'm going to be going to CU Boulder for mechanical engineering. I'm Victor Garjanova. I'm going to University of Massachusetts Amherst for computer engineering. I'm Mila Cora. I'm going to UC Berkeley and I'm studying economics. I'm Cadence Michael. I'm going to Duke University and I'm going to study economics and music. I'm Chelsea Dietz. I'm going to Wake Forest University and I'm studying biology. I'm Sophia. I'm going to Stanford University to study human biology. I'm Sathvik Das. I'm going to Yale to study electrical engineering. Another round of applause for our National Merit Scholars! Off to a strong start here at the Superintendent's Honor Roll. Congratulations everyone, that's amazing, incredible. And that we have we have some more academic awards in April BVSC had a remarkable
008number of students compete in place in the Colorado State Science and Engineering Fair up at Colorado State University in Port Collins Let's all have all of our state champions State champions the students who came in first place during the fair come on up Colorado State Science and Engineering Fair provides students from across the state an opportunity to create and showcase their research nurturing an interest in science and technology Participation in research naturally promotes the development of critical thinking, professional skill, ethical standards, and lifelong learning. I'm going to read each of the honorees. If you're here, please step forward and I'll have you share a little bit about your project. Here are this year's state champions, starting in the Junior's division. Eighth graders from Nevin Platt Middle School, Palal Gopinath and Evan Gopinath won the Engineering
009division for their study of the physical properties and environmental impact of climbing chalk. Interesting, right? These are state champs here, folks. It's not the volcano I did for my science fair project back when I was in school. Calvin Yang Jacobs. Give it up for Calvin. An eighth grader at Southern Hills Middle School, who won in physics and astronomy division after testing the lifts of airfoils with a wind tunnel. And now for the senior division, Julia Gao. Is that you, Julia? Stand. All right. Big round of applause. Julia, who's from Fairview, won in physics and astronomy division for the second year of her project toward expansion of the standard model with multi-hadron final states and Miong-Neutrino reconstruction. Did I say it right? A simple yes or no will do. Kind of? Close enough? Julia, would you
010like to tell us a little bit about your project? So the premise of my project is I'm trying to reduce systematic error in particle physics measurements used by scientists around the world. And in the process, I found some negative evidence for a new particle. Very impressive. In the energy caddy, Amvasegna, a junior at Fairview High School, give it up for Amv. Won for her study of materials for the green synthesis of energy intermediates from waste via selective hydrogenation in silico screening. Fairview Senior Natalie Capoletti? Yeah! Round of applause for Natalie. One in the Behavior and Social Sciences Division for a research titled Mitigating and Miscommunicating, Analyzing and Visualizing Discourse Markers from Bilingual Children Across the United States. Natalie, we gotta hear about this project. Sounds fascinating. Yeah, essentially my project is about finding and detecting
011new ways of identifying speech patterns in bilingual children and essentially the project serves as a forum to help identify speech disorders and identify where we can promote bilingual education across curricula in the United States. That is amazing. And then we have one other project from Centaurus High School junior Dev Patel. One in the mathematics and computer sciences category for his project on physics-based simulation and machine learning for optimal two-layered thermal protection system design. Sounds like a winner. Let's give all of our winners one more last round of applause. So behind many of those amazing projects are science teachers that help to mentor and support our students, scientists, and engineers. Fairview High School, that's Paul Strode, and we're proud to share that he was recognized at the State Science and Engineering Fair. Paul, are you here?
012Well, Paul, when you watch this online, you're going to be, we're going to pretend you're standing right here. We're going to talk like you were here. Mr. Strode was honored during the event as the Teacher of the Year from the Colorado Association of Science Teachers. He also received the Doug Stewart Memorial Teacher Award. Congratulations, Paul! Now I could make this real awkward and ask pretend Paul questions, but I probably won't do that but Everybody who knows dr. Strode knows he's in a wonderful incredible teacher Paul if you're watching this online congratulations We're so proud of you and hopefully you've started your summer vacation, and that's why you're not here So now we're gonna move from groundbreaking research to mastering the power of words and persuasion Fairview is still center stage. Let's have Stella our speech
013and debate state champion. Come on up In March, students from across the state gathered at Cherokee Trail High School in Aurora to compete in the CHASA Speech and Debate State Championships. And Stella Hreslak of Fairview won in the Informative Speaking category. Congratulations, Stella. All right, Stella, if you come over here, I've got a couple questions. Tell us a little bit about the competition and the topic you chose. So I compete in an event where I give unbiased speeches about the topic of my choosing and it's just a 10 minute memorized speech with visual aids that I make myself. Yeah. There's no wrong time to clap at the superintendent's honor roll. It doesn't matter. So even when people think of speech and debate, they probably think of students advocating for a side. But what you're saying
014in this category, you're trying just to educate the audience in 10 minutes and there's really not like you're not like debating somebody. Yeah, and like the struggle is to be unbiased because I'm trying to give it, like show both sides, and that can really be a struggle sometimes. I think that's a struggle for a lot of us though. So congratulations. Another round of applause. Let's take a picture. That's so great. So as I shared earlier, student success like this does not happen by accident. Behind every confident speaker, curious scientists, and engaged learner are educators who inspire, encourage, and open doors to new possibilities. That's certainly what's been happening in the Meadowlark Curiosity Center thanks to the work of our next honoree, Marnie Steele, Meadowlark's teacher librarian. Come on up. Ms. Steele recently received the Distinction
015in School Librarian Services Awards, which recognizes the efforts of a teacher librarian who demonstrates outstanding service and leadership, especially those who go above and beyond to impact student learning, build a strong culture of leading, and create innovative and inclusive spaces where all students can thrive and been inspired. And I have spent time with Marnie over at Meadowlark, and I promise you this is what she does every single day. A round of applause. I like it. Y'all were losing your energy for a little bit, but then you picked it up, so that's good. Marnie, first and foremost, I hear you're retiring. Congratulations. Actually, I know you're retiring. I'm not happy about that, but I'm happy for you. You built a special place at Meadowlark through collaboration with other teachers and the energy and excitement that you
016brought to the students at school. You captured a little bit of fun, of the fun Taylor Swift parody. The fate of the librarian partnered after the fate of Ophelia. It went viral. Currently, it was 652,000 views. So can we watch? So why don't we watch the clip? Yeah, here we go, Marnie. It's impressive. You know who would have liked that? Paul Strode would have loved that if he'd have been here with us. So Paul, hopefully you'll be able to catch that. Just joking, Marnie. What a production. What was your favorite part of putting all that together? You know, that's a great question. I mean, there are lots of favorite parts. I think like when you get that inspiration and then just following that idea and knowing that you just got to make something, but probably
017getting all the kids involved. I think we had about 175 when I carefully counted on the video to see how many were in it. And just the excitement around learning, around books, around our space was pretty amazing. So, yeah. Another huge round of applause for Maureen. All right. I just wanted to say a couple things about libraries. So nine years ago, when I walked into the Metal Art Curiosity Center, the shelves were empty, all the books were in boxes, the space was full of possibility, and part of me was like, to be honest, oh my gosh, what did I get myself into? It was a little overwhelming. But I had a vision. I had a vision to create a space that was welcoming, that was engaging, where everyone felt they belonged. A space where curiosity
018and book joy were celebrated and where our students felt inspired to grow as readers and learners. And last week, before shutting off the lights for the last time, I looked around at this space again and I had an immense sense of gratitude. And I also felt incredibly proud. Not because I did it alone. In fact, that was the opposite. Libraries are never built by one person alone. Libraries are built through partnership. They are built through community, through collaboration, with families, with volunteers, with school staff, with local libraries, with local bookstores, with fellow teacher librarians, and most importantly, our students. Because at the end of the day, it's about you guys. I truly believe school libraries matter. They matter for literacy. They matter for curiosity. They matter for community. They matter for belonging. School libraries change
019lives. I know this because I've seen it. Every kid deserves to go to a school with a library, a library that is staffed by a full-time teacher librarian that is doing library work with those children. I know it's an investment, but it is worth it because our kids are worth it. So I want to thank my Meadowlark community, which is really fun because some of you are here. Awesome volunteer coaches couldn't do without you. My fellow teacher librarians and Bestie, love you too. My family and everyone else who has supported our Meadowlark Curiosity Center over the years and helped me make that vision come to life. I've truly loved being a teacher librarian. It's been one of the greatest joys of my career. Thank you. Stay curious. Happy reading. I was going to say and
020watch the Veda Library music video, but we already watched it. But you can go ahead and tune in for the rest. Thank you guys so much. So our next honorees know something about making music as well. Let's have the Broomfield High School Winter Percussion Ensemble, including Broomfield Band Director Sarah Wagner and the remainder of the staff. Come on up. A few months ago, Broomfield High School won its eighth state championship in winter percussion at the Rocky Mountain Percussion Association Finals held at Denver Coliseum. The show was called Wanderlust and is there, well, no, there's not somebody who's going to be willing to tell us about it. Again, sorry, because, you know, this is after the school year. I know that we're having some folks that we'd really love to honor not be here. So let's
021go ahead and just give the Eagles one more big round of applause. for the Broomfield High Winter Percussion Ensemble. Let's stay with winter season for just one more moment. Back in February, Boulder High School freshman Kaisa Wick won a state title in Nordic skiing. Kaisa, come on up. According to Chassa, only one day after being the runner-up in the skate competition, she took the top spot on the podium by winning the classic title during the Nordic State Championships at Snow Mountain Ranch near Granby. Part of the Netherland High School's Nordic ski team, Wick covered a five-kilometer course in about 20 minutes, outpacing a second-place finisher from Summit County and giving Netherland its first skiing championship since 2018 when Emily Creek won the Alpine Slalom. Congratulations, Chassa! So Kaisa, tell us a little bit about the
022race and how you got into skiing. I got into skiing because both my parents skied at CU. So it was just kind of always my life, and I always had a love for it. And on that race day, it was beautiful weather, like perfect day for skiing. And the competition was great, pushed me to my best. Yeah. One other question. How close was the person in second, or can you not look back when you're Nordic skiing? I'm probably not supposed to look back, but I think about like 20 seconds. There you go. That's a B. Definitely a state championship. Congratulations. So a few weeks ago, the state track and field meet was held, and a Monarch student jumped to new heights. Let's have Thomas Cole come on up. Yes. Thomas won the 5A state championship
023after he cleared a 15-foot, 7-inch bar with ease at Jeffco Stadium earlier this month. Congratulations, Thomas. So, Thomas, Monarchs really vaulted itself to being considered an elite program in this sport. What's it that makes the Yotes program stand out? I mean, I have to give almost all the credit to my coach, Mike Toley. He's just been incredible. Like, he was an Olympic medalist himself. He's coached, like, multiple state champions over the last 12 years and couldn't be more grateful for that. And then, as well as our head coach, Kent Reeder, he's great. Our entire program is great. It's not beyond lucky to go to Monarch. Another big round of applause for Thomas and Monarch High School track and field. For the record, Thomas said he could clear the ceiling no problem. So just in case
024we needed him to do that for some reason. Well, that's not the only coyote that we'll be celebrating tonight. We're excited to welcome back the Monarch High School senior, Aubrey Shambo, to the honor roll. Aubrey, come on up. During the 4A state swimming and diving championships, Audrey defended her state title in the 100 breaststroke, becoming a three-time champion in the event. She won with a time of 103.92. And while that's outstanding, what makes it truly remarkable is her comeback from ankle surgery. Imagine doing that. Yeah, that sounds pretty hard, right? Congratulations, Audrey. Tonight, we're finishing up with one more honoree from Monarch High School, the boys' swimming and diving team. Come on up, Monarch. So they've been here before. Monarch boys swimming and diving team recently defended their 4A state title. The team won this
025year's championship beating their closest competitor, Mullen, by 11.5 points. The Coyotes won three of the 11 swimming events, including Tobin Howe from Holy Family, who won both the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 151.67 and the 100 breaststroke with a time of 55.32. Isaac Skillerin from Centaurus High School won the 100 butterfly with a time of 50.11 and all three times qualified these students for all-American consideration. Big round of applause for the... Now, is Coach Amber here tonight? She'll be here in five minutes. We definitely want to hear from her, right? You want to just stall here for a little bit? You guys got any jokes? Why don't you guys grab a seat and when Amber comes back, we'll bring you on up and then we'll take a picture. Does that sound okay? All
026right. From making waves in the pool to making plays on the field, tonight's final honoree, but we're going to bring Monarch back up, is the first state champs that we've ever honored in Ultimate, one of the fastest growing sports in the U.S. Let's have the Centaurus Ultimate team come on up. Recently, these Warriors won the Colorado Division I High School Ultimate State Championship. That's it. Yeah. I love that. So who can tell us a little bit about Ultimate and your title-winning effort? Russell. Russell. Russell. Well, we won. We also won Spirit. Anything else, Russell? No, no. Spirit of the game is not cheating, like some schools. I won't say names, but we played them. I'm going to try to do a little bit better job. No offense. That was great. In Ultimate Frisbee, we are
027a self-officiated sport, so we don't have any referees or anything like that. So we kind of collaborate on calls and things like that. And so spirit of the game is very, very important to us. And winning both the state tournament and spirit is an amazing accomplishment for us. But it's also just like a really, I think, wholesome thing because we played our best on the field, but we also were super kind to our opponents. How fantastic is that? That's amazing. Another round of applause. Congratulations. All right, let's take a picture. Hey, so I just want to say a couple words about this team and this group of kids that we had out here playing Ultimate this year. As we mentioned, this was our first ever state championship. We've never even been in the finals before,
028and so we came out and won it. And I just want to tell a little bit, one story about the final moments of that game. We have a bunch of seniors this year on the squad, and those seniors have been playing together for four years. And actually, most of them have been playing together even longer back towards middle school. So like seven or eight years for some of these kids. And they've been working so hard for all of their high school careers like towards this moment. And the finals are here. They're in it. It looks like we have the lead. It looks like we're winning. And they're about to win the game. And the coaches all pull in the seniors and say, all right, seniors, you get to decide which seven of the players are
029on the line for the final point. And those seniors who have worked so hard for this moment chose to bench themselves and put the sophomores and freshmen on the line so that they could have the honor of winning that tournament. holding that memory in their hearts and have something to fight for next year. And so that tells you everything you need to know about the sport of Ultimate, everything you need to know about these kids, everything you need to know about our program, and it's just incredibly admirable. That's just as important as having won the game. I couldn't agree more. Let's go ahead and have the Monarch swim team come back up. I'm not sure if Amber's here or not. Amber's walking in, so let's, when she walks in, let's say one, two, three, Coach
030Amber. She's not going to be happy that we're coordinating that. Hi, Coach Amber. Hey, Amber, come on. I got some. Hi, Coach. Well, definitely worth the wait. Back-to-back state championships. Talk to us about what made this year's team stand out. Anyone want to field that question? No? These kids are really exceptional and well-rounded outside of the pool with our academics with a lot of different activities that they do and I think what makes our team work is they really take pride in being part of the team for starters and then they are really good learners. They're really good swimmers to begin with from childhood and then we just enhance their already talents in the pool. And we really know the definition of teamwork, and we abide by that every day. And in particular, like each
031individual has a contribution to give to the team, and we really try to bring that out in each one of them. And that's what leads us to championships. So, Coach, I don't want to jinx anything, but the daily camera suggested that this might be the beginning of a dynasty. What do you think? Is this team poised for a three-peat? Yes. I don't know why they spread rumors or start that, but I do believe in that. We teach the best swimming. The kids have year-over-year progress every season, and then a lot of our state qualifiers, they're returning, and they're just getting stronger and more mature, and again, we have a good system in place that they thrive in. So, yes, I'll see you next May. Actually, can we do it in June? For Coach Amber, we're
032doing it in June. You heard it here first. Congratulations again. Let's take a picture. So that was fun. Did y'all have a good time? So proud to be in a district with so many talented individuals, students, staff. Thank you all so much for joining us today. Everybody have a wonderful summer. One more round of applause for all of our incredible honorees tonight. Make sure you grab some food on the way out. Thanks so much. Have a great summer, everyone. I'd like to call to order this regular meeting of the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education for Tuesday, May 26, 2026. Board members may attend and participate in board meetings remotely in accordance with policy BMEA and state law. Laura, can you please call the roll? Buecher? Here. Chavez? Here. Medler? Here. Quinlan Aweda? Rajpal?
033Temuadding? Here. Unger? Here. Thank you. Now I'd like to encourage everyone to turn their attention to the screens for our land acknowledgement this evening. Boulder Valley School District resides and operates on land that is the ancestral homeland and unjustly and illegally taken territory of the Ute, Pueblo, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Apache, Navajo, and 48 other tribal nations historically tied to this land who have called this land home since time immemorial. We acknowledge the atrocities committed here. including the painful history of genocide, forced assimilation, and efforts to alienate the indigenous inhabitants from their homeland, supported by the policies of the United States government. BBSD is aware of the many indigenous peoples past and present and their dignified nations and cultures who care for this land with strength and resilience. BBSD recognizes the histories of the land in Colorado
034and the survival of many nations that carried their moral traditions into the present. It is BVSD's responsibility to educate ourselves, our community, and our students so that we can embrace the wisdom and knowledge of Indigenous peoples and actively stand together to address injustices. In offering this land acknowledgement, we affirm and honor the history, wisdom, oral traditions, and resilience of Indigenous people and recognize the responsibility to care for and appreciate this land together. I'd like to remind everybody that the mission of the Boulder Valley School District is to create challenging, meaningful, and engaging learning opportunities so that all children thrive and are prepared for successful, civically engaged lives. Thank you, everyone, for joining us here this evening. And for those of you attending virtually, we're glad to have you observe and participate in our meetings. At
035this time, is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda? Alex. I move to adopt the board agenda as presented with the exception of items 9.3, peak-to-peak charter school policy waivers, and 14.1, executive session that will be deferred to a future meeting. Is there a second? Seconded by Jorge. Laura, can you please call the roll? Booker? Yes. Chavez? Yes. Medler? Yes. Rajpal? Yes. Temuadding yes Unger yes motion passes okay with that we'll move on to our next item on this evening's agenda which is a superintendent's report Dr. Anderson good evening good evening board president Rajpal board members I want to start my remarks this evening by once again congratulating the class of 2026 We had more than 2,000 students walk across commencement stages in BVSD during 12 graduation ceremonies over the past two weeks. It's been
036my absolute pleasure to shake most of their hands. In addition to earning a diploma, a record 90% of our graduates went even further, earning at least one quadrant of the Grad Plus framework. For those that had a chance to go to the ceremonies, when the principals asked everybody to stand up for the different quadrants, it was just so powerful. We had 2,100... 19 students secure college credit, 823 earned industry certifications, 318 attained work-based learning experiences and internships, 676 seniors earned the seal of bi-literacy, and 51 earned the seal of climate literacy. We have one more graduation, which is for Boulder Prep Charter School on June 4th. We wish all the graduates the best in their future adventures. Recently students from Heatherwood Elementary had the honor of being selected as presenters at the City of Boulder
037Water Festival at the University of Colorado Boulder. Heatherwood, an environmental STEAM school, was the only elementary school to be invited as a presenter. Students' presentations centered on the Front Range Watershed and featured a large three-dimensional topographic relief map that included QR codes linking to a range of student-created projects, including videos, slide presentations, and artistic interpretations of their learning. Heatherwood students explored multiple aspects of water within our ecosystem with a goal to educate the broader community and inspire action around water conservation. Finally, Boulder Mod hit a major milestone this past week. First homes from the Affordable Home Factory, created through an innovative partnership between BVSD, City of Boulder, and Habitat for Humanity, have been completed. Habitat hosted an open lunch so the public could see the homes before the residents moved in. I think we have
038a video to show you. The gloom and drizzle of a May rainstorm. couldn't dampen the mood at this open house. Folks crowded in. Excited to get a peek inside these duplexes in North Boulder. Today we've opened up this house behind me so that members of the community can see. What all the talk has been about what all the excitement is about you look at these homes I just walked through it. It is just everything a family needs. This is one of the very first completed homes And we're just showing it off. It's really exciting for me to be here today and just to see What we've done the affordable homes in the Ponderosa Park community were made possible through an innovative partnership the Flatirons habitat The City of Boulder and the Boulder Valley School District
039have come together to transform our community. The idea, shared at a ribbon cutting a year and a half ago, was to come together to build affordable housing in a first of its kind modular home factory on the campus of the Boulder Valley School District's Education Center. A little over a year ago, we started the first home from a bare empty warehouse. Got the factory all set up. Production going. We got the first two homes set November and December. On-site is finished now with the front porches, storage units, the roof. So all four of these homes are in closing right now for the first four families. The best part? They're all like a little baby. We're building the next generation of construction professionals because high school students did 75% of the work. of this building. I
040feel really proud of all of our work. There are houses that are standing up that haven't collapsed yet. This is the first time that Sophia McPhee has gotten a close-up look at the homes that she and her classmates helped to build at Boulder Maud. I've learned so much. Students get exposed to electrical and plumbing and HVAC in addition to... framing and finished carpentry and hanging cabinets and all the other work that goes into it. I remember putting in a lot of the windows like setting them in place and now they're like it looks like just like a normal house like it doesn't look like students built it. But it's no surprise to the Habitat for Humanity crew. The students are amazing. They did a fantastic job. The Apex Construction Trade Schools were determined to get
041the job done right. knowing that families would soon be moving in. Even though I've never really met the families, it makes me feel like connected to them because I built their house. It's an experience. The windows and the doors, that was a big one. That's also changed the trajectory of Sophia's life. I never really thought about construction before doing the Apex construction program, but specifically Maud and building these houses really like kind of changed. what I want my future career path to look like. Last weekend, she graduated from Centaurus High School with a plan to attend CU Boulder. and can't wait to be back in a hard hat. I'm studying environmental studies and I might try to get a minor in environmental design and then I would love to go into green construction after I
042graduate. It's apropos that the first homes would be completed as Sophia and her classmates finish their time at Boulder Maud. All at the same time. You really couldn't ask for a better graduation gift. It's lining up perfectly. Kudos to Randy Barber and our communications team for putting that awesome video together. Board members, as you saw in the video, you saw a few familiar faces that were at the event, including Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett, Boulder's Director of Housing and Human Services Kurt Fernharber, and former BVSD Board of Education President Tina Marquis, who's now a Boulder City Council member, and Kathy Gephardt, who is now a State Board of Education member, all of which made this project possible. That's all I have for remarks this evening. Board members, happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Dr. Anderson.
043Board members, any questions or comments on the superintendent's report this evening? I just want to say thanks to Randy and his team for putting that video together. I was sad to miss that event, but I happened to be at graduations that day like many of us were. So two things exciting both happening at the same time. Seeing as there are no additional comments, we'll move on to public participation. The board respects the right of the public to speak on matters concerning the operation of the schools. The board does not endorse the comments of individual participants and reminds all those who speak that you're responsible for ensuring your remarks are suitable for an audience that includes kindergarten through 12th graders. Furthermore, this is an opportunity for the board to hear from our constituents. It's not a
044time for the board to engage with or react to speaker remarks. Speakers will each have two minutes to speak. You will see a yellow card when you have 30 seconds remaining. Welcome back Laura and an orange card when you have 10 seconds remaining. If you run out of time or would like to share additional feedback you are always welcome to email the board. First we will hear from speakers who have signed up to speak specifically on the 2026-27 proposed budget which we have one of those individuals signed up Leah Leonard who is virtual this evening. Sounds like she is not online. So that will wrap up public participation on the budget and we will move on to regular public participation for this evening. Our next speaker then is Allison Gold. This is what happens when
045school is out. It doesn't appear that Allison is here so we'll move on to Molly Stauffer. Yoav Luri. Can you push the button on the, if the green light appears you're good. Great. Good evening. My name is Yoav Lurie. Two weeks ago, I spoke to this group virtually. It's great to see you all in person. I spoke about how amazing Summit has been for my family, how we moved from a private school into the district, and our now rising fourth grader is even more excited to attend Summit than he was back then, two weeks ago. But after I spoke, I listened to the comments. and I did a whole lot of research on the 2024 process for the JECCR. I got emails from Nicole and others on this board and I listened. And some members
046of this board said that the pullback of that policy is about equity. Others said it was about uniformity. As a former Chiefs for America staff member, I care deeply about equity and that's why I want to talk to you about today. And it's about two things. They're in the summit. in the summit policies today. First, summit is one of only two schools in the district that has a priority for low-income families. If this board truly wants uniformity across the district, it needs to apply that same standard and should for every school in the district. A low-income child should have priority in the open enrollment at Southern Hills or Meadowlark or Louisville Middle School. The second is the graduates, the alumni sibling preference. I did a tremendous amount of research and found numerous peer... peer-reviewed studies
047including one of over 200,000 sibling pairs which examined the influence of having an older sibling attend the school. And it turns out having an older sibling attend the school before you do has an impact, but it really only has an impact on low-income kids. It has an almost negligible impact on high-income kids. There were people on this board who suggested that the summit preference benefits those who are already privileged. But in fact, when you have a student in a low income family who's attended that school before, that older student is able to help navigate their younger siblings, which is why that same policy. that the board is trying to eliminate at summit should be applied to every school across the district. So in the face of uniformity, that is the right instinct. And in fact,
048the summit policies, which make sense, should be applied to all schools across the district. We should go back to the JECCR process that was started in 2024 with a focus on increasing enrollment and actually revisit that process with a focus on equity. Thank you so much. Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Michelle Mayer. Hi, good evening. I'm Michelle Meyer, and I'm a long time ago Summit parent. I had to dig out my 20-year-old shirt for Summit. I served on the board of Summit from 2003 to 2007. My oldest attended Summit from 2004 to 2006, and my second child, my youngest, went to Summit in 2010 to 2012. So when the call went out from the supporters of Summit for people to come here, I thought I would bring a little bit of historical
049perspective. In doing some reading and talking to people, it sounds like a lot of the conversation is very similar to what it has been over the course of Summit's history and the course of Summit's existence in the school district. Fundamentally, there is a reason for the policy for allowing students and children who have older siblings who have gone to Summit that are beyond the two years. And it actually happens to stem from equity and uniformity in the family. And the reason the founders of Summit put that policy in the contract, and it has been there ever since, and it's still listed today. in your policies that are for the schools of choice is because they wanted to make sure that every family had the opportunity for equity and uniformity within the family. They did not
050ever want a parent to have to explain to one child why they did not have the same level of education and opportunity that the other child had going to Summit. So that is the reason for the policy. It is for that first and foremost. My question for the board would be... If you're looking for, the reason we heard most often historically, and I believe today the reason you want to get the policy so that non-graduates, it has to be within the two-year period, is so that you have uniformity of the policy, is because you want uniformity of the policy. My question would be, what burden is there on the district for the policy that Summit has had since 1995? Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is virtual Amy Gastel. Hi, good evening. I apologize.
051I'm on a road trip with my family. But Amy Gastel, my wife and I have been Boulder residents for over 20 years. And we have twins that are rising second graders at Whittier and a rising kindergartner at Whittier. And we've applied outside of the open enrollment period to get into Gold Hill. And I included the board on that email. And, Nicole, you did respond and say that you couldn't assist, but I appreciate your response. And the open enrollment people have responded to me, but no one has really given me. So the answer is that we wouldn't be getting in. And no one has really given me a policy or an answer why. The open enrollment generic email address, Mike Wilcox responded and offered to talk to me, but he has not responded to me when
052I've responded to say that I'd like to speak with him. And I'm just looking for somebody who'd be willing to advocate just so that I could speak with somebody to understand the policy, why Gold Hill can't accept three more students when I believe they only have 13 students. next year and what's going to happen if somebody leaves. We're just trying to prepare. We really don't want to leave the district and we're just trying to prepare for next school year. So I'm doing everything I can to try to find somebody that will speak with me so that I can understand and we can be as prepared as possible. That is all. Thank you so much. Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Patrick Schmidt. Patrick does not appear to be in attendance. We'll move on
053to Quetzel Klass. My name is Dr. Quetzel Klass. I'm the mother of two boys, a now eighth grader at Summit and a now fifth grader at High Peaks. That little brother is hoping to go to our neighborhood school, which is Summit Middle School. I also have a PhD in clinical psychology and child development with an emphasis in biostatistics. I know data, and I also know child development. I'm here to support the retention of the Summit graduate sibling preference. I'm pleading with you not to separate my children. I'm pleading with you to see the benefit in promoting continuity in our community. I'm pleading with you to recognize that the lottery system that allowed my family to attend Summit has always been a family lottery. And in no way, shape, or form did the board make it
054excessively clear that they would be separating my children back when we applied in 2024. Summit Charter should not agree to the changes until we see the demographics of graduate sibling applicants compared with the total applicant pool. We need to see the projected demographic impact of removing the allowance of siblings to attend the same middle school with the graduate sibling preference. We need to see a comparison study of a less disruptive course to make this change happen. Something like grandfathering in the current students' siblings. and all the public notices, the recordings of public meetings, the dates of the public meetings, and the excessive emails that were sent to parents who enrolled their family in Summit. BVSD's JECCR does not actually say that all charter schools must use the same exact preferences as district schools. Instead, it
055states that BVSD intends for a charter school enrollment preference criteria to be incorporated into their charter contract and not revised annually. Therefore, this is a contract term. The 2024 policy may state BVSD's general preference, but the actual charter school preference criteria still must be handled through the charter contract. The primary question being, is BVSD making removal of Summit's graduate sibling preference a mandatory condition? And if it is, you need to show all the paperwork. Thank you. Our final speaker this evening is Omer Peleg. Hi. Good evening. Hello, my name is Omer. I have three children. Etan is the oldest. He just completed sixth grade at Summit. And Etan and Noam are his younger brother and sister. They're right here. We were very excited when we first received news that Etan got into Summit through the
056lottery system. We quickly understood how wonderful a school Summit was when Etan started attending last August. The teachers, parents, and students had built a great community at Summit, and it was exciting to get to know many of them during the year. Eitan consistently speaks of how much he enjoys Summit, and his younger brother and sister are aware of it. It's not easy for kids to go to a new school, but with an older sibling that has gone through the process and can share their experience, it becomes much easier. Also, the parents have a critical advantage in having their kids go to a school with teachers and faculty they already know very well, not to mention avoiding the trouble of driving kids to separate schools every single weekday. I personally got involved with the robotics program
057and have had the joy to work with Peter English, the computer science teacher. We expect to get involved much more over the years to help share our knowledge and experience with others as NOM and NETA go to summit as well. We've also donated to the school with the understanding that it won't just help improve the school while ititians are there, but also when NOM and NETA attend as well. I am very confused about what exactly the motivation is behind removing the sibling preference policy. The lottery system is an incredibly fair system that works well to prevent those with money from obtaining an unfair advantage in enrolling in the school. So what exactly are we trying to achieve here? Are we trying to show that any agenda intended to provide equality is good even when there
058are no arguments or facts to justify it? And furthermore, when many arguments actually show it can be detrimental to the community? Why jeopardize so many amazing benefits that the sibling policy provides for some agenda that isn't well-reasoned? There have simply been zero facts or evidence brought forward by the board to justify their position. The positive benefits that the family and community building provide to the school vastly outweigh any reasoning to remove this policy. Something is working for Summit that makes it one of the best schools in the country. Maybe family and community are a big part of that. Why not take policies that are working for Summit and encourage them instead of harming the community that has made Summit into what it is today? Thank you. Thank you. That concludes public participation for this evening.
059On behalf of the board, I'd like to thank everyone who showed up in person to provide remarks and those who participated online. It's important for us to hear your thoughts and experiences. We will now move on to board communication on tonight's agenda. Is there a board member who would like to begin? I guess I'll just share it was wonderful to go to graduations the past couple weeks. I mean... The culminating experience of our students' time here, to see what they accomplish, to hear their speeches as they make their way into this new phase of life is just really exciting. So I want to say congratulations to the class of 2026 and thanks to the hard work of all the staff at our high schools for pulling off a very significant event. Alex? Yeah, I also,
060I want to give, Superintendent Anderson, kudos for another excellent honor roll. It's so great to see the wonderful things that our students and staff are doing. If you haven't seen the video from Meadowlark, you definitely should. And we need Taylor Swift to see it as well. Also, really can never say enough about how great the graduations are. New Vista always just super impresses me by the number of time students and staff use the love word. And it's just great to see that feeling of connection between our students and their families and their staff. Also had a good meeting with one of the Gold Hill residents who brought up an issue I think someone brought up tonight, which is about when people try to open enroll outside or open enrollment process. And I think our open
061enrollment process is a super important thing. And I think it's going to be increasingly so as we go forward because there's always been a lot of choice. It's not just the families that are in our charter schools or our focus schools or schools of choice. By my estimate, Every other family in this district tries to or attends a school is not in their attendance boundary between those who are in private schools or homeschooling Those who are in our five charter schools We have 19 schools that don't have catchment zones that people attend and then there's the 35 38 percent that actually exercise ensure or intra-district open enrollment. 2,400 families come into the district from out of the district, and we lose 1,100 of our families from in our district to go out to surrounding districts.
062So out of the 26 or so thousand students that we have, something like 13,000 of them are exercising choice one way or the other. It's a really big part of how our school system works, and it's part of what makes... us a great district. And so I think how we manage public school choice is even more important as private school choice might loom in the future under the current federal tax credit. And I take great pride in having worked in 2004 when I came on the board to modernize our open enrollment policies. And I think as long as that many people are exercising choice, and the ones who stay in their neighborhood school, they're exercising a choice to do that as well because they could leave and go to another school or try. And we
063have to make those options free and open to everybody. And I believe that includes making sure that there are no obstacles that are based on how long you've lived in the district, how long you've lived somewhere, how much you volunteer or pay to a school, whether your child has a disability, their language they speak, their immigration status. All those things, I believe, should not weigh into their ability to get their choice. That's why I was eager to remove from our district policies a series of historical legacy open enrollment policies that I saw as extremely problematic. We had children of founders turning into grandchildren of founders. We had schools that had the number of staff that were leading to enrollment preferences quite much larger than is allowed under federal law. or at least under federal funding
064programs. And so I was glad when we talked about it to get the district's general policies to be universal and apply across our district. I cop to that. That's something I advocated for when I campaigned, and it's something I've advocated for before I was on the board for 25 years, having worked in the charter space and observed Boulder's approach. You have to understand when there's an enrollment preference... It's not like an adjective, it's a verb. When someone gets an enrollment preference, that means some other family that wanted that spot doesn't get it. And the family that doesn't get that spot wanted it just as much as the one who gets it that gets it through the preference. Whether that's for low income status, preference for disability, or preference for anything else. So I know that
065schools like Summit. Schools like Peak to Peak, my kids went to Community Montessori, my kids went to Southern Hills where a lot of families try to choice into it. They could have gone to Bear Creek or Mesa where families are choicing in all the time. There's all these great choices of schools that we have and we're a great district because all our families get to choose them equally. I believe another thing that's key to know is that when you have a charter contract, and this is true for any charter, A charter is a fixed term. It goes for a certain number of years. The very existence of the school isn't a given after the end of a charter term. That's why I pushed quite strongly for five-year terms and real clear renewal standards. So if
066anyone in a charter school says, hey, six years from now, you can do X, they are selling you a bridge in Manhattan. The charter contract is the term that the school has a charter, a warrant to exist. promises to parents that run longer than a charter term are really inappropriate. The same way it would be inappropriate for someone else to say that, hey, if we really value your donations, the school will be open to your kids seven years from now. That's overreaching the terms of the contract that school has to operate under. And I believe I love all five of our charters and I've observed them be pillars of our community and contributors to our community almost as long as I've lived here. And I know people will continue to love and choose them and
067I want to make sure that everybody who wants to attend a school as great as Summit has a chance to do it. There's lots of families probably in the future who won't, might not get into Summit, won't be able to enter. Southern Hills who aren't able to enter schools of their choice and that's tragic because they they want a type of education that we know is great but I think they should all come at that equally I will add I had the privilege of working in the US Department of Education from 1997 to 2001 And during that period, the federal charter school program was getting underway, which is why I went there. And I worked on the original regulations that guide federal money that goes to charter schools. And at the time, the federal law,
068like it has since 1995, says that in order to get money from the federal government, a charter school must have a lottery. And so we regulated on that, and we made it clear, and I advocated for this as a federal official, and I defend it to this day. that there should be a preference that's given to the siblings of students who are currently enrolled. For the current enrollment of that child and their sibling while they're there, you do treat the family as a unit, and that would allow you to receive federal money. If you wanted to receive federal money, you cannot have a preference for a student that is a sibling of someone that's not enrolled there. So I hate to break it to any charter school in Colorado, we now have something called the
069School Facilities Incentive Grant Program. Summit is one of the recipients of this grant. I believe they got $26,000 this year and they'll get another $70,000 or so over the next three years. In order to receive that grant, you have to have an enrollment process that meets the federal definition, which cannot have an enrollment preference for children who aren't enrolled in the school. Happy to forward these non-regulatory guidance to you. Happy to get you in touch with the folks at the Colorado Department of Education who administer that grant. I have talked with them, and what has been the policy at Summit is problematic. So I would love that school to get that money. I would love every family in Boulder Valley to have an access to that choice just as I would love every Boulder family
070to have access to any of the choices that they want to make and so that's why I continue to support the idea that we implement a standard set of enrollment policies that is open to every kid for all our schools of choice and that we maintain it. I also am excited to have our enrollment preferences for low-income kids. I'd be delighted to do that district-wide. If my colleagues on the board want to discuss it, I think that would be a great idea. I also support an enrollment preference for students with disabilities, which is also allowed under the federal law and would make great sense. I would note that the Summit Middle School has gone from years when it had 1.1% students with disabilities. That's in comparison to 14% in the district. Over the last decade,
071they've gotten that up from 1.1% to a little over 4%. That leaves only about, I don't know, if that's taken 10 years, it should only take... 30 more years to get up to parity with the district. I'd be excited to have an enrollment preference there and in all our schools for students with disabilities. But other than creating that kind of parity, I really am a strong advocate, and I say this for all 60,000 humans this school district touches, that I want our public open enrollment process to be open to all students, and that includes making sure that any of our choices are never based on your ability to volunteer, never based on the contributions you make to the school, never based on how long you've lived. And I'm not saying that's what's in Summit now.
072I'm just trying to say that I look forward to having enrollment processes that are... Allying to all those things that when we have a preference it's for the things we want to have and that our families enjoy equal access to all our excellent choices and I'll continue to advocate for that and defend it any way I can moving forward. Board members who would like to go next? Deann? Thank you, Mr. Medler, for explaining the point of view of many of us on the board that we really want equity. My particular concern is maintaining equity for students who are in special education, which has been since the beginning of Summit 30 years ago. Yes, I've been around that long. I was working at Angivine Middle School. It was the bastion of places where... people of wealth
073went and the other kids stayed behind and That is a concern and that is a loss For the other schools. The other thing I'd like to say is that I had the opportunity to go see the transitions graduation and if you haven't seen that I really encourage you to do it because most people don't know about it transitions program is a program for students that are 18 to 21 who need a little extra support before they're independent on their own. And it depends on how long they need, whether they graduate in a year or two years or three years from that program. But all of the students. graduated from transition this year with work experience and one of the medals that we give. And it was a glorious celebration of family, friends, and the whole
074community. People who were past graduates came back to see their friends. And it was tremendous. I had the good fortune of meeting a student of mine who had come back in order to see his friends. And it was an absolutely delightful ceremony that shows that what Boulder Valley School District is doing is affecting kids at all levels. And I hope we continue with that. I also got the opportunity to go to what I think is our last community meeting that was held at Columbine Elementary, and it was in Spanish. And my Spanish is good if I'm listening, good if I'm reading, not so good when I'm speaking. So it was a perfect opportunity for me to just observe. And those parents were so... persistent. They were there until 10 o'clock at night sitting on hard
075benches talking it out and working with us to give us their opinions about how the district should run and I just want to applaud all of those parents who sat there for hours and hours and hours and worked through the process because it was really beautiful. That concludes board communication for this evening. We will now move on to our information item. First information item we have this evening is the Community Bond Oversight Committee update, which Rob Price will present and do some introductions for. All right. Good evening, President Rushbaugh, members of the board, and Dr. Anderson. It has been three and a half years since voters generously approved our Building for Student Success bond measure. So as you'll see tonight, we have completed a significant amount of work. We've got a significant amount of work
076planned for this summer. uh unfortunately john stanton our chair could not make it tonight just let us know a few hours before the meeting so chris stoppenhagen our executive director of bond planning and construction will give an update and we'll also give an update for our community bond oversight and with that i'll turn it over to chris thank you rob uh good evening board members community members and thanks for having me here tonight so uh to provide an update as rob said on our 22 bond initiative and the progress that we've made to date I am new to the clicker. There we go. So over the past, with the close of another school year, we start a busy summer construction season. There's a strong sense of momentum and preparation across our bond department. This will
077be our fourth summer construction of the 2022 bond initiative with approximately $60 million we're doing across 13 sites. So reaching this milestone reflects years of planning, coordination, and collaboration between school communities. our leadership, our staff, our internal teams, and our design and construction partners. So the work ahead represents not only improvements to our buildings and infrastructure, but our continued investments in our learning environments that support our students, staff, and our broader community. Over the past several months, an incredible amount of preparation has taken place behind the scenes to position our summer for success. And here's our updated timeline that shows where we currently are. Our phase two projects that will carry over two summers are high school projects. And a few phase three construction projects started over spring break with the rest that have begun
078now that school is out. Here's a reminder of the schools that we have in construction and our future projects that are being designed. Each project involves detailed coordination with school staff and district departments to carefully plan construction activities around our operational needs and our summer programs. At the same time, while Phase 3 construction moves into implementation, we are advancing design and planning efforts for Phase 4 projects. Having multiple phases progressing simultaneously requires significant collaboration and long-range planning and I want to recognize the dedication of our teams, our consultants, our school communities and more importantly the generous support of our voters that continues to make this work possible that we do. Our Phase II high school projects that span two years include Monarch High and Boulder High School and our Arapahoe campus. So we have mobilized
079for a busy summer at Boulder and Monarch High with work slated here to wrap up this fall. The Arapahoe campus, which serves Apex, Arapahoe Ridge High School, Boulder Universal, and Transitions. Has an active construction or has had active construction occurring concurrently since the spring of 2025? while schools in session We currently are completing phase 4 work while simultaneously starting phase 5 Allowing the project to continue our momentum and wrap up this fall as well In addition to these ongoing projects, we're also finalizing our closeout documentation and warranty coordination for the one-year projects completed during the summer of 2025. Phase 3 projects at Fairview and Southern Hills began over spring break. Just to position us for those projects for a successful summer with the magnitude of work that we're completing there, the remainder of our summer
080projects were mobilized on May 22nd. As a reminder, we adjusted portions of this summer's construction schedule to account for the Board's decisions related to facilities and declining enrollment. So this included all of our final phase of our university accessible playground projects as well as BCSIS and High Peaks bond work for the majority of it. Work will continue at BCSIS and High Peaks for a roof replacement that is being covered under a manufacturer's warranty. In addition, in this phase we are continuing to move forward with other elementary school work to protect the building integrity and maintain quality learning environments for our students and staff. We are in the middle of design for phase four and these projects and final documents are scheduled to complete in September for design with implementation of the projects pending the board's
081facility decisions on declining enrollment this fall. I am very happy to report the installation of the photovoltaic system at New Vista High School that was newly rebuilt has been completed. The system is expected to offset the majority of the school's electrical consumption while significantly expanding the district's overall renewable energy capacity. So with the addition of New Vista's solar array, BVSD's total solar production will increase by nearly 19%. System is anticipated to be fully operational this summer pending Excel's final metering and approval. And as Rob said, unfortunately, John Stanton, our chair for CBOC, wasn't able to join us tonight. But I'll go ahead and go over the financials and give you an update on that. So due to the snow day on May 6th, the meeting was canceled and a rewritten report was provided to the
082committee instead. So the report included an update on the status of projects, a review of our financial documents, and information about a bond sale in April, and we had an action item. So as of April, expenditures totaled $198 million in the program. Outstanding contract commitments were $64 million, and we have a forecasted remaining expenditures totaling approximately $132 million. So you'll notice that this chart now includes an additional bar at the end labeled TBD. So this bar represents the funds which were approved by voters for the new elementary school in Erie. THESE BONDS WERE NOT SOLD IN APRIL AS PART OF THE 2026A BOND SALE. AND THE STATUS, AS I'M SURE YOU ALL KNOW, STILL REMAINS UNCERTAIN FOR WHEN THAT GOES. SO PENDING STILL THE FINAL PLAT APPROVAL, THE CONTRACTOR SEALING THE OIL WELLS AND THEN
083JUST MONITORING ENROLLMENT. SO WITH THAT, We have currently projected, or we haven't projected this timeline out, so that's why you see the to be determined on that. So the committee voted to recommend the transfer of bond premium dollars in the amount of $389,250 for a redundant cooling tower at the BVSD Culinary Center. This allocation would include associated design, engineering, permitting, procurement, construction, commissioning costs, all-in costs, as well as a contingency to address any unforeseen conditions. So due to the district-wide closure on May 6, information was shared with this with the committee via email, and the vote was conducted electronically in accordance with board policy BDFE. This item is on your board agenda this evening. A little bit of background I want to give you is currently the facility, it relies on a single primary cooling
084tower creating a single point of failure. So in that case, if a tower experiences mechanical failure, electrical issues, or even just routine maintenance downtime, we risk losing the ability to maintain the refrigeration temperatures. So reliable refrigeration, cooling infrastructure at the Culinary Center is critical to maintain food safety, regulatory compliance, and operational continuity. So, as I said, we have included design, procurement, installation, and fully redundant cooling tower to support the culinary center's central plant operations. The new cooling tower will be integrated with the existing system. So what that means is it will be configured or operated on load-sharing basis. So, essentially, each cooling tower would carry approximately 50% of the cooling demand under normal circumstances. Operating that in that manner reduces the mechanical stress on the existing tower. It improves the overall system reliability, extends the
085life of both the towers on the whole system, and then ensures that our continuous operation of coolers and freezers in the event of any maintenance or downtime that does occur would not be impactful for these towers and for the operation of the culinary center. That'll turn it over to questions. Thank you for that presentation Chris board members any questions or comments Thank you. The other information item listen tonight was a legislative update This is kind of a standing item on our agenda, but we had the final recap from our lobbying team last week So board or dr. Anderson anything else to add or she just move right along Moving right along since the legislature is no longer in session. Then we will move on to action items, consent grouping. 8.1, personnel items. 8.2, approval of
086minutes May 12, 2026. 8.3, acceptance of donation Coal Creek Elementary. 8.4, acceptance of donation Mesa Elementary. 8.5, approval of the contract to plant Moran PLLC for independent audit services. 8.6, authorization to transfer to the Culinary Center Kitchen Project. 8.7 contract renewal with Shamrock Fruits. 8.8 resolutions 26-16 and 26-17. Additional budget and appropriations for PARA on behalf fund. 8.9 grants, beds, school to work alliance programs from CDLE. Are there any items board members would like to pull from consent grouping? Seeing as there are none, we need a motion to approve the consent grouping. Moved by Alex, seconded by Jason. Board members, any discussion on these items before we move to the roll call? I just want to say we will, due to the competitive bidding process, have a new auditor moving forward. We've had... Clifton, Larson,
087Allen, something, yes. For a long time, and I think they've been great partners, and it'll be, I think, a benefit, both because of the bidding process and because it's always good to get a new fresh set of eyes on our budget, so I'm looking forward to meeting that team and working with them moving forward. And then I'm excited to have a new cooler at the Culinary Center because that would be really terrible if that went down and we had no other option to keep that giant warehouse full of goods. properly stored so thanks to the hard work of the C buck team for their diligence on our bond updates and for bringing this forward to the board anything else board members seeing as there are none Laura can you please call the vote on consent
088grouping for the record board member Quinlan a way to join the board meeting virtually late so I'm going to call her name when I take roll Booker yes Chavez? Yes. Medler? Yes. Quinlan Aweda? Yes. Rajpal? Yes. Temuadding? Yes. Unger? Yes. Motion passes. Board members will now move on to action items as indicated with the agenda amendment. Board Vice President Beller brought forward earlier this evening, we will not only have one action item this evening. That is Resolution 26-18, Boulder Charter Prep School Renewal Application. Is there a motion to approve? Moved by Ana, seconded by Jason. Board members, any discussion on this resolution? Alex? Yeah, I... I'd be curious to get an update on the instructional hours piece. I note that we found a deficiency in the school, suggested they had met it. Is there any
089follow-up that gives us any insight to what the status is of those? And then since I know this has come up before, I'd be really curious to know what our plan is to avoid having that happen again with any of the schools. Does anybody know? Thank you for that question, Board Member Medler. I think this resolution is really just starting the process with Boulder Prep, so that isn't an issue that we've raised. We're using this resolution as authorization to begin the negotiations process. But to your point, That certainly is one of the bullet points that we included with other resolutions, specifically Horizons. So this resolution is in draft form at this time. I think it would be appropriate if the board would like to add that point to this resolution. We're certainly able to do
090so. Just as a point of order, should somebody want to do that, they would need to make a motion to amend the resolution or... That's correct. I'd be curious what other board members think, but I'm tempted to introduce an amendment to make that addition to the resolution. I think all our schools, it's incumbent on us to keep them in a safe position so that their budgets are in a strong position, that we're not having problems later, and that students are getting the instructional support that they need. So based on... The back and forth, though, that's what I was trying to figure out if there had been any further resolution. So if I amend to put in an additional bullet, I guess I would want to use appropriate language that's sort of to explore that and
091to figure out a way to make sure that we are in a strong position rather than saying, hey, fix this thing that we know is wrong because I don't know what status is. Does that make sense, Kathleen? Yes, I think so. The language that the board used in the Horizons resolution was simply a bullet point that read only, school calendar slash instructional time because the header above it includes the language that you expect negotiations to address the following issues. And the way we did that through negotiations with Horizons was to ask that team during negotiations to bring forward evidence that that concern had been adequately addressed. And that's evidence that we'll bring forward to the board when we finish those negotiations so we can demonstrate to the board that it's been addressed. Can I ask
092a clarifying question? That is a very short bullet. Could we still, at the will of Board Member Medler, who brought this forward, make, because it is such a minor amendment, could we still make that and approve this? I know Boulder Charter Prep has been waiting some time for this. I don't want to delay much further, knowing that also our board term is wrapping, our board year is wrapping up. The practice with the board resolution is that it is not something that's shared with the charter school in advance. It's something that's included in executive content and it's moved to the agenda for action at the time that the agenda is adopted. So it won't be a surprise to Boulder Prep. We have very friendly, amicable negotiations with them and hopefully all our charter schools. We're certainly
093working towards that. So I don't think it will be a surprise and procedurally as long as it's a friendly amendment and that's the will of the board I think that that's acceptable. Melania? Oh this is after Alex's comment. I just wanted to ask something about the budget. So just whenever we're done with this piece that's fine. Would you like to wait for the budget in study? No I'm talking about the budget in this charter contract. Oh. If appropriate, I would make the motion to adopt the simple language from the horizon as an additional bullet in the resolution if this is the right time. I can do it after we have the rest of general discussion. Either way. I would hold that because procedurally, once you make that amendment, then the discussion is limited to the
094amendment. And at this time, your board members sound like they're in general discussion. Melania, back to you. Please forgive Kathleen if this is in the resolution. I just wanted to make sure I felt a little bit fuzzy on if there were some budgetary constraints for this school and some challenges there and are those being appropriately dealt with, I guess. And your memory is correct. That is an item that the board discussed and a concern that was identified through the application review. It is currently included in the resolution as an item to be addressed. Again, similar to the language used with Horizons. It says that the issue to be addressed is a revised five-year budget plan with appropriate balances. Thank you. I apologize. I could not find that. Okay. Thank you. Board members, any other discussion
095on this resolution? Jorge? Oh, did you want to? Should you wish to do so? I move that we adopt an additional bullet that is in parallel to what was on horizon for calendar and instructional time. Is there a second? Seconded by Jorge. Board members, any additional discussion on... The amendment put forth by Board Member Mether. I just want to say I don't know what the right answer is for how to do it, so I really encourage us to be flexible and figure out a way that we have confidence. I don't know that there's a right way or even that the way we always do it is the right way. So I encourage us to enter into that discussion with an open mind and get a good answer. Sounds lovely. So we have to vote. There's
096two open motions technically right now, right? Yes. You would vote first on the amendment and then on the motion. Great. Thank you. Laura can you please call the roll on the motion and to confirm we're of we're voting on the amendment of Resolution 26.8 to include an additional bullet similar to that on the horizons contract 26 point 8-18 Did I read the wrong 26-18 correct? Okay. Sorry Okay, I'm going to take roll Booker. Yes Chavez yes meddler. Yes, Quinlan a waiter. Yes Raj Paul. Yes, Temu adding Yes hunger. Yes motion passes Laura, can you? when I move back to the original motion, which is to approve that that was First by Tim wadding and second by hunger. Yes. We'll take the roll call on that Booker Yes Chavez Yes meddler. Yes Quinlan awaita Yes, Raj
097Paul. Yes, Tim. Awad. Ing. Yes Unger. Yes motion passes Moving on to policy action items consent grouping board members We have two items on this list ten point one board policy HD method of determining staff negotiating organizations and ten point two board policy LC Education research are there any items board members would like to pull from consent grouping? Seeing as there are none is there a motion to approve the items on consent grouping move by Jorge Seconded by Jason board members any discussion on these items Seeing as there's none Laura. Can you please call the roll? Booker yes Chavez yes meddler. Yes, Quinlan a waiter Yes, Raj Paul. Yes, Tim. Oh, I think yes hunger. Yes motion passes We'll now move on to our study item this evening. We have one item to study which
098is the 20 26 27 proposed budget Bill Sutter CFO will present this item green light. Good evening. Madam President members of the board. Dr. Anderson. I'm pleased to present the 20 26 27 proposed budget get the right button Will cover the general operating fund and the other accounting funds for the district I'll run through the changes that have happened since we last spoke on April 14th and discussed the preliminary budget for next year. So the topics, I'll go through the budget development timeline and milestones again, the budget development input, projected enrollment, proposed budget, and the next steps. To clarify up front, there are only a couple of changes since the preliminary budget. that was discussed about a month ago for the timeline and milestones this is the same presentation that we've reviewed a few times
099since December the items don't really change from year to year other than the dates the data input the feedback and the action items The red bar is representing where we are currently and just moved a little bit further to the right from the last time we spoke. The slide didn't get updated, but the legislature has ended its work and included significant budget reductions for the state budget. eliminating or reducing some grants for school districts but largely leaving the planned rollout of the new school finance act in place a reminder that to balance the state budget the joint budget committee adopted a more robust or optimistic revenue projection to the tune of about 300 million dollars if i recall that correctly so If that revenue projection doesn't come in at that higher robust number, there'll be
100further discussions in the start of next legislative session. Always the equipment, never the operator. For the budget development focus, employee compensation, strategic initiative investments, special education, grad plus, strategic plan implementation, addressing achievement gaps, opportunity gaps, and disproportionality, ever-present inflation, and also mitigating state budget cuts as we went through the legislative session. These are the same items that we discussed on April 14th for the preliminary budget. The input comes in many forms and throughout the year for budget development. I updated this slide for the additional board meetings and discussion topics since we last met. So there's a couple of additional topics. On this next slide, down towards the bottom where we talked about the preliminary budget, artificial intelligence update, and the sustainability action plan. For enrollment, we've changed the enrollment projection, updated it to increase the
101decline. by an additional 100 students. This was driven by recent declines in the local job market and overall lower home sales, which may indicate lower net migration of students. So you can imagine if there were zero home sales, from one year to the next. All the same people would be in all the same homes and the population of students would unlikely change very much. You have to have some home turnover, home sales in order to generate new students into the district from that net migration and those home sale turnovers and folks coming into the community typically are driven by jobs. So the takeaway on that is declining enrollment continues to affect the district. The 2026-27 projections made earlier in the budget development process are being revised further downward to reflect reduced spring enrollment patterns. Rob,
102you're Dr. Anderson. Bill, just to highlight the significance here, board members, and for our community, it's why our August 28th presentation is so critical. You know, we've been talking about declining enrollment, and when we looked at our projections, we took a, when we look at the projections, there's a high projection, there's a middle projection, there's a low projection. We took the low projection, and the low projections not even coming in. And so, kudos to Bill Glenser-Grew and our team for catching this, making this adjustment. Now, as a reminder, the way that we budget, if we allocate all of the staffing for kids who don't show up, And those are dollars that then are out the door that we aren't able to use and prioritize in other ways. And so just kudos to the team. But
103just another signal that our declining enrollment work couldn't be coming any sooner. Proposed budget highlights. So to start off this conversation. This is a very simplistic slide, but tries to highlight the step-by-step process where we start with the revised budget for a particular year. We subtract out one-time items and known changes to get a base budget. We then take that base budget, we add and subtract one time and ongoing changes, whether they're revenue or expenditures, and that's the preliminary budget, which we discussed back in April. Then we take that preliminary budget and we make further changes, either one time or ongoing. to create the proposed budget which is what we're discussing tonight and then we take that proposed budget plus or minus ongoing changes uh enrollments in the fall if they come in differently than
104projected higher costs any any additional changes how we finalize and end up the year and whether there's additional one-time resources available to be invested and those all get budget. So this is a cyclical or iterative process taking it from the revised budget to the base budget, preliminary, proposed and revised. So some highlights of this proposed budget. Reduction in the projected enrollment as I just mentioned. We have some resource commitments and adjustments, changes from April 14th. In the other funds, very minimal changes, charter fund, a slight increase of the estimated transfer, community schools fund, if you'll recall the scoreboards that were approved to be purchased and installed, community schools is going to manage that process with the advertising and oversight of them. The Ops and Technology Fund, we increased the transfer of expenditures to balance the
105budget. And then also that scoreboard purchase and installation is included. And then I'll cover the next steps. So the highlights of this proposed budget, $4.9 million in new ongoing revenue. Last year at this time, that number was $6.9 million. And fifteen point nine million the year before so seventy percent less revenue than two years ago that's a combination of the new school Finance Act and declining enrollment, so those things are compounding to Decrease that new revenue that we have coming into the district in the general fund 5.1 million ongoing reduction in staffing costs to address declining enrollment and staff turnover. 15.3 million of ongoing and one-time funds committed to staff compensation. And then a couple of changes that I think Rob's going to address. Thanks, Bill. So, Board members, as we have been starting our
106engagement around declining enrollment and what our teachers need, what our families need, It became very clear from our teacher roundtables and principal roundtables and even more clear as we begin to see the early data that's coming back from our engagement sessions that multi-age and multi-grade classrooms is one of the biggest challenges that our school district is facing in terms of the teacher workload, the teacher's ability to meet the individualized needs of all students. the struggle that I think really great teachers are having trying to deliver and then the challenges that students and parents are facing. And so within this budget we're presenting today, I'm proposing a million dollars of central administrative reductions that would then be used to provide additional staffing to ensure that we eliminate all multi-age, multi-grade classrooms for the 26-27 school year.
107This is not something, this $1 million would solve it this year, won't solve it ongoing because this issue is going to continue to... challenge the district if we don't do what we're going to do, which is bring a plan forward for closures, consolidations, reconfigurations of schools, and that'll be happening in August. But given the impact and given the needs in schools, it felt like the responsible thing to do to begin to drive dollars, ongoing dollars, to this priority. Now, once we see the revised budget in January, and then you know prepare the preliminary to the proposed to the actual budget you see bill we can kind of weave it in your lesson there uh we will see if these ongoing million dollars if that is needed additionally for multi-age or if we could use those
108dollars in investment another another thing that was prioritized by our community if through the closures consolidations reconfigurations there aren't as many multi-age So the good news is for next year I'm proposing that we not have any of those classes and use these administrative reductions to be able to fund that. I think that... barring any massive objections, we'll probably begin to start to move on that sooner rather than later because we have really good folks that are probably sitting waiting for us to do something that might be great fits for those positions. But I wanted to wait until we brought the proposed budget forward and then was able to get a peek at some of the data that was coming in that I think aligns really. well around this challenge of multi-age classrooms to be able
109to do something proactively and i feel as superintendent this is the right decision to make so i just want to speak to that can i ask I just want to make sure myself and the public are understanding the $1 million in central administrative reductions is an ongoing, we anticipate that to be an ongoing reduction. However, the $1 million in additional staffing to eliminate multi-age, multi-grade classrooms is only confirmed for... one year with this and while people might see some surprisingly small class sizes as a result in 26-27 that is by no means guaranteed moving beyond that school year because hopefully our conversations on declining enrollment will correct that as well The $1 million is ongoing, so it will be there, right? But to your point, if there's 20 multi-age classrooms because we don't close, consolidate,
110reconfigure enough, then we'd have 50% less because I'd have $1 million to be able to take care of that, and we might have to look at different budget adjustments. So, yes, this isn't a forever promise that there'll never be multi-age classrooms in our school district. For next year, we're going to be able to eliminate those with this budget shift, and then with the hopes being that when we present that... the plan to you all in August, we will be able to predict and project how this will be impacted going forward and whether this million dollars will be needed to solve this issue or if we'll need it to look at counselors, teacher librarians, other things that we've prioritized. So I would just, whatever communication goes out to the schools that will be benefiting from this,
111I think the one thing I have learned time and time again with our budget is people get really used to something and they like it, and it's really hard when it goes away. And so if for some reason we end up with class sizes of 13 as a result of this, that doesn't mean you are going to have a class size of 13 going forward necessarily. Like those, I just, I want to make sure. People really like changes that are extremely positive and perceived as beneficial, and then when we kind of read back and just readjust again to the reality of the subsequent year, it feels like taking something away. And I just I just really however this is messaged. I just would love some thought and care around that so people understand you might
112not always get a class size of. this small because if we have three-round schools like you know you probably aren't gonna have a class size that's that small it's great advice we'll make sure that we're very careful and and and really communicate thoughtfully in terms of how we made this happen and how the challenges ahead of us mean that this challenge doesn't go away with this move Thanks, Alex I'm just add appreciate that and I think that communication idea is great and I recognize from the six different sessions. I went to I also heard this was like a top priority everywhere I think it's important to understand that the flip side of the math on this one So one of the other things I heard during the teacher roundtables was frustration that there were schools
113that had 13 to 1 and they had 30 so the solution to not having multi-age classrooms is to have some classrooms with 13 or 14 people in the district. And that that's something that our parents were almost universally saying, yeah, do whatever you need to do to not force kids into the multi-age classrooms. And I think like other trade-offs we make, this is a trade-off that leads to some schools having small class sizes and other schools not. Next up, 6.1 million committed to additional school staffing programs and instructional materials, expansion in the Apex opportunities, some new content areas, special education, expansion of the moderate needs resource program, textbooks and curriculum materials, and charter schools. $3.8 million transfer increase, so this is moving expenditures off the general operating fund and onto the operations and technology fund
114to support a 1% cost of living adjustment for staff. and $6.9 million additional funding committed to long-range planning, building maintenance, health services, and addressing inflationary pressures for software and utilities. I will note of that $6.9 million is $5 million that was included in the revised budget for this current year that we're in. As a reserve, we put that in in January. So this is moving it out of a reserve and into expenditure for next year. Not that it's all committed or planned to be spent, but that gives us the opportunity to make some adjustments as the plans from the proposed closure consolidation reconfigurations comes together. Again continuing that step-by-step process we had our preliminary budget that we reviewed in April We make those changes with the notes Assign the side there reduced enrollment one-time property
115tax 1% Cola the ops and tech fund change charter fund and then It wasn't a change in the tabering contingency requirements. But of that ending fund balance, that $5.4 million, is $5 million of one-time dollars and $400,000 ongoing. As we think about the two biggest risks to our budget next year, a budget rescission from the state. and then the potential that our enrollment numbers won't come in. We feel like that it makes a lot of sense to roll over. fund balance of five million in one-time dollars to be able to address those things to be able to continue to move things moving forward in the case of one of those things were to were to happen and then the four hundred thousand dollars ongoing again as well we just feel like this is a responsible
116thing to do at this point to typically our ending balances are closer to zero but there's a reason that that's not the case and that's why Not a question just a gratitude expressed I really appreciate the first column of these figures on page 18 and 19 with the base numbers that we're adding to just helps me understand better their perspective and the big picture so I really appreciate the addition Thank you oops so this slide summarizes the total change right so the previous slide was the change since the preliminary budget this is the total change to the base budget Again, we wind up in the same place with the proposed budget numbers. These changes include projected one-time resources available. Those were all discussed in April. additional expenditures some of this is moving expenditures out of
117a reserve and into the expenditure line so there's a lot of movement going on here but these are the the changes that are happening from the base budget to the proposed budget so one thing to note this is the general fund the general operating fund on the revenue side that 440 million is about 63% of our total revenue for the district, $698 million. So the majority by far. On the expense side, the general fund is about 49% of the total expenses, $386 million out of $796 million. And that is because of the transfer line where those revenues come in, per pupil revenue, override dollars, things like that. And the transfers to the other funds like charter schools are the vast majority of that transfer, but also transportation, preschool, athletics, things like that. And then the
118discussion focuses mainly on the general operating fund because 74% of the FTE in the budget, 2,792-ish out of 3,775 are contained within the general operating fund. The vast majority of the staffing and the activities of the district are contained within the general operating fund with those other funds containing some of the accounting requirements for what we have to do. Pages 106 through 118 of the budget document that's attached to the agenda item details those revenues, beginning fund balance, revenues, expenditures, transfers, reserves, and ending fund balance for all of those funds as well as that FTE summary for all funds. Next steps. So on June 9th, we have the scheduled budget adoption. June 30th is the statutory deadline for the next year's budget adoption. And then January 31st of 2027 is the statutory deadline for the
119revised budget. That is the end. Thank you for this presentation, Bill. And I just want to also say thank you for... I'm keeping that a little bit larger of a carryover this year. It is challenging to predict, put together a budget in very unpredictable times. So I think that's very prudent to have that five, roughly five and a half million dollars on hand in case. Lelaney, I heard you chime in with a question. Thanks, Nicole. Bill, thank you again. This was an illuminating presentation, and I encourage, if there are any members of our public that need to dive deeper to see that whole budget document that is attached to the agenda, I feel like... Folks could spend a lot of time delving into it and if they want to it's there And we have full
120transparency on it. So I just really appreciate that attachment being there and Encourage the public to view it with any questions. Thank you for members any other questions or comments on the proposed budget Seeing as there are none we'll move on to our final item on tonight's agenda, which is future agenda items board members We will have our board prioritization meeting two meetings from now and so this is a great time to bring up any last potential agenda Requirements items you would like to be up for consideration Alex. Yeah I guess I think it's an update that I'm looking for not like an action item or something but I I do think with all the potential changes with our elementary school consolidations that we are likely to deal with continuing you know Public school choice
121happening. So I was I have been thinking about how much What happens when people want to move earlier or later than our process and what are the things we do to protect ourselves from the instability of that that happens? How do we protect against a flight from schools that are operating next year after we discuss? Their potential closure and the impact that would have on kids during the next year So I'm curious to get an update on how we anticipate handling mid-year changes, exits, desires to transfer that might happen next year after we have announcements made. And I don't know what, I don't know if there's a time to do anything about it now, but I think as we consider the things, it'd be good to know, like, well, what will happen if 100, you
122know, parents say, oh, I now want to leave earlier, or I want to transfer sooner to do something, or the discussion about Gold Hill from the community today would come up, like how we would handle those things. Can I? Just ask a clarifying question because we have some policies that talk about transfers, open enrollment windows. Is it a discussion of those policies or is it a request potentially to include, like have some information keyed up for like when we have to, when we reconvene next school year on how procedurally. Like if we're going to continue to align with policy or we if we're if there are considerations for deviating for I'm just trying to understand because there's that inner play there Yeah, I appreciate that. I guess I'm thinking I would like to be up
123to date on Think a little bit about what the policy is get an update on how it plays out in terms of numbers and Understand what issues you might see coming up that would complicate the way it and I'm not advocating a change. I understand we have things we need to manage and it totally leads into this budget and staffing issues, but I also think we're gonna have community people saying, hey, what do I do now? And people will perhaps be making thoughts and advocacy at different times. Dr. Anderson. It's a good question. And I do anticipate that we may... in the fall have to make some suggested updates to open enrollment policy or to anticipate a new set of circumstances that our policies might not have been designed for. If you have a handful
124of folks trying to move around and you have room, administrative transfers have done the trick. If you have hundreds of people seeking administrative transfers, that's not what they were designed for. So I do think that it merits consideration in our prioritization process. Board members, any other items you'd like to bring forward? It's not so much of a prioritization item, but we continue to hear from our gifted and talented folks in our gifted and talented community about professional development, professional learning on that topic. And I just wanted to put a plug in for SHD staff. So choose to pursue that I would be in full support, but not necessarily a prioritization item seeing as there are no additional Future agenda items request our meeting for this evening is adjourned