001[Music] 7 o'clock. We'll call the meeting for today in order. October 20. Roll call, please. Chris Brown. here. >> Amy Grantham >> here. >> Nancy Hopper present. Katie J. John >> here. Smith >> here. Sarah >> here. Pledge >> of allegiance please. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty. Next we have the approval of the previous minutes. Pleasure of the board. >> Move to approve. >> Second. >> Welcome. >> Chris Brown. I >> Amy Grantham. >> Hi. >> Nancy Hopper. >> Hi. >> John Fy. >> Hi. >> Vinnie Smith. >> Hi. >> Sarah. >> Hi. >> Okay. Next we have opportunity for the audience. Anyone like to address the board? Now is your time. Madam President. >> Yes,
002ma'am. >> May we approve the agenda? >> Oh, that might be a good idea, huh? I think so. Yes, that would be great. Could we approve the agenda? Pleasure of the board. >> Move to approve. >> Second. >> Roll call, please. >> Chris Brown. I >> Amy Grantham. >> Hi. >> Nancy Hopper. >> Hi, >> Johny. >> Hi. >> Lindy Smith. Hi. >> Sarah Whitney. >> Hi. >> And I was so hoping that we were going to have somebody in the audience to talk, but I just jumped the gun a little bit. Anyone? No one. Okay, moving right along. We have reports this evening. It doesn't look like our high school represent our students here this evening. Next would be the board of education. And I know y'all will fall over, but I don't have
003anything to report. So, we're going to move right on to the superintendent. >> So, I got a couple things. First of all, I'd like to welcome my neighbor Pete to the meeting. >> We're neighbors. He helped me lift the couch in over my deck. Nobody saw nothing's house. >> Anyway, um I just want to mention a couple things here. Number one is Jane Molina, if you remember, he came here last year and did a little performance for us with his cello. I believe he's mostly selftaught, but he's gotten some training, additional training here at um Fort Horn High School. but he tried out for the 41st annual Western States Honor Orchestra and he is one of eight chists I believe in all of the western states of the that was selected to to participate. So
004um really great news for Javier and looks like he's got really bright future ahead of him. >> That's so awesome. You know, I wondered about at the um winter conference for Cassie. I thought his name we look at submitting his name to be a presenter for art. I mean, that would be great. >> If you would have a play on the stage. >> Yes, that'd be awesome. >> Can you give him that? >> We'll look into that. Yes. >> Yeah. Um, the other thing I wanted to bring up and I if you could pull that up for me, you know, we've been talking about our renovations down at Pioneer and one of the things that we talked about was a safe entry and creating a vestibule. Well, when the engineers, we originally talked about just
005using the office space and creating two classrooms and then taking the two fifth grade classroom and turn into office space nurse, things like that. Um, we felt like uh that was going to be the most economical use of the space, but their engineers came back with a little bit different idea, which I thought was pretty cool. They said that if we didn't put the vestibule on the outside and we put it on the inside where the cursor is right now, that's actually on the inside of the building and then we create a pass through window or into the office. Um that would save a ton of money which would then turn around and allow us to take the third classroom and um actually create um a teacher's lounge back there, a work room, a couple
006of uh um meeting rooms, the principal's office, there's a speech, there's some itinerary services for um our our school site, things like that. Um, and then we would take the existing office space and create two classrooms. And then where the instructional coach is now, there'd be a third classroom. >> And so now you have your three classrooms and they're all about the same size. But instead of taking that back room back there where there's that I don't know if you've been to the teachers lounge and the work room that they currently have, >> we were just going to extend that wall into the library. Well, instead of that, we're going to extend the wall, but we're also going to create a hallway that is makes it kind of a big circle around uh the inside
007of the building. So now the kids just walk around in a circle through that hallway. Uh but as you can see there in the drawing, there'll be a hallway through there from the um east, the west side, west, east side, whichever direction you're going. They they are pricing it out right now, but I keep telling them I really like this option if you can keep it under the budget. And uh there should have some numbers for us here shortly. Um so I guess I would ask for any comment or thoughts. This is the direction we're kind of looking at right now. It's just kind of exciting. Wanted to do the three classrooms, but we didn't think we'd afford it. >> Um, now we believe we can afford it. So, >> wait, if we get that
008third class >> and you said it is all under the same budget, >> if it's not, we will go back to the original plan. But I just want I was excited to show you guys where where we're heading with it. And I really think that uh Adriana down there will be the envy of every principal in the district with the setup that we have down there for Pioneer now. Be a really nice um addition to the building down there and very safe um uh as safe as it can be. We have our safe entry now and u just really proud to be able to put it together. It's good. >> So, I'm assuming you'll just come back with us once you kind of made those decisions and let us know. We don't need to do
009any action because we've already Well, yeah, you've approved the amount. We're still working on the contract details, but that's about done. Um, but I believe we talked to Adriana and she can said that she can move her office over into the art room sometime in February or March. Um that means they can start taking down the office space and creating the classrooms March to April and May and then once then finish those up and once summer comes they can move on on the rooms start making them offices. So hopefully by the first part of August and if they have to even go in a week or two into August, we could actually have art over at Coline in the first semester and have them use the art room for the first week or two of
010school if they have to. We're hoping not, but we really feel like it's a good schedule. We feel like we can accomplish what we want to accomplish in that time. >> Sounds good. >> So that's my report. Any questions? Thank you. Moving on to the assistant superintendent of curriculum is not here. >> So I can I can comment if you'd like. Um you have in your packet there the unified improvement plans. Um and what we did it's first time we've done this and I really love um so as you know Pioneer Green Acres at the high school have been working with city ward um to work on a improvement planning. We've seen some success with it. But what we did is we brought in Cindy Ward to one of our principal meetings and she actually
011worked with every one of our principles and we created the UIPs for in the we created the first part of the UIPs as a group in here in the district office. Now, of course, Green Acres and um high school were a little further along, so they have got to go do some other work in other spaces, but um we all sat right in here and it was really a good conversation, good day. Um I think you'll see a lot of um alignment with them. Um a lot of things around parent community involvement. I know the high school's looking at some things around um changing the way we approach math to more of an integrated model. And they're also going to work on some English language arts, um, math, excuse me, ELA, social studies, um, science,
012common assessments. Um, but as you look through some of these UIPs, you'll see they're really focusing on achievement and growth because we believe that while we had great growth this year, our achievement was not that high. And so, we need to really start focusing focusing on that achievement as well. And so, you'll see that in all throughout all the days. So if you have any questions feel free to ask. Um but like I said was not able to be here under the weather. So >> any questions? >> Okay, we will move on to the assistant superintendent of human resources. >> Good evening. Um I don't have a lot tonight either. Our personal action report um is in front of you. It's been a nice and slow month for us right now, which is good. Um,
013and so not a lot on there. We've been able to add a few specialies to our list to try to help support the schools classified, I'm sorry, in the custodial area as well as some more classified stuff. So, um, other than that, active job postings right now, we have five certified positions that are open. Some of those have been open since last year. Um, we do have a couple weeks that we've been dealing with filling those positions. Uh, and we have two classified positions open as well as our normal substitute. And that's all. >> Thank you. And next we have chief financial officer. >> Good evening. Um, I just want to give you an update. Our auditors will be on site November 3rd. We are coming along nicely with our tri balance. I feel like
014this is probably the cleanest expand in the years I've been here to give to an auditor without a ton of adjustments coming after. I feel like um we're on track to have the audit finished before the end of the year. So there should be an extension unless something happens for but we're just excited. We feel like Skyward has been a good move. Most of the people I've talked to have been happy with how it works and how it functions. It's much easier to get information out of it. and a lot more variety of things that you can do with it. So, um that's pretty much all finance world now. >> Thank you. We always like good things. Yes. Yes. All right. We're going to move right into discussion items. We have 4A for Oregon High
015School softball program, Mr. Greg Edson. And while he's on his way up here as our district athletic director, just a reminder that I caught in the building when he was a student. So my son said I'm old. I still remember. >> You brought it up, Mrs. Hopper. >> Well, good evening everybody. Hope you all are doing good. Um, I wanted to bring some information back to you guys. I know last June we had talked a little bit about the ideas of uh, you know, bringing softball back to to the high school. um felt like we needed a little bit more information. You know, trying to do everything on a uh short window was going to be hard to get things up and rolling. And so, I just wanted to kind of have that conversation with
016you guys. Um discuss with you some of the conversations that I've had, some of the information that I've been able to get my hands on, um in terms of, you know, is this a a good move for us as a district or is it not a good move? Um, so what I had said to you was the girls sports team data from the last five years of all of our team sports from high school. I feel like that's an important component uh to look at things as we as we start to move forward. Um, and then I'll summarize kind of the survey results that we've received as well as talk about um, some of my outside conversations with uh, people who are are involved in in youth softball currently and kind of get their what
017their feel was with with where we're at in the process here. Um, so first of all, for all of our girls sports and high school from 20 would have been 2021 to 2025, um, you can see a list of their combined records. I would feel safe in saying that we don't have a standout girls program in our high school right now in any of our athletics. Um, and I think that that is important to to kind of recognize because, you know, we don't have uh a plethora of girls right now that we're cutting as well. We cut four girls from our high school volleyball team this year. It's a pretty low number. I'm crossing my fingers that we have enough for enough girls to come out um for AC team for girls basketball. I don't
018know if we will or not till the season rolls around. We're going to kind of have to see where we're at with that. Um confident that we will have varsity and and a JV as long as eligibility and health all stay in there, but we don't have a deep pool there either. Um so with that being said, um I sent out a survey to all of the middle school and all the high school parents. We sent this survey out two different times initial time. And then we have a reminder, you know, saying that the the survey will be closed. Asked for um you know, the students grades. Do they currently participate in a fall sport? Um if a team were to perform, would they be interested on a scale of uh one to five? How
019interested would your child be in this? Um what previous softball experiences your child have? and has your child expressed interest in playing softball? And in total, we we received uh 58 different responses to that? Um kind of varied between middle school and high school. Um with the high school age groups, there would be currently um 16 kids that would be in high school next year that express some interest. Of those 16, uh, nine of them have zero experience playing, which scares me a lot. Um, when we look at the league that we're currently in, the Patriot League, uh, we're picking up Berth into that league next year. So, I'll include Berth in the number, but there were 11 teams that would be in our conference that were in the regional softball tournament last week. uh
020we would be a 4A volleyball program and of the Northern Colorado schools, area schools that we would have to try to go schedule to get some additional games with, there were 12 um or I'm sorry, 11 additional there as well that were in the regional tournament. Northern Colorado's got a deep talent pool. I think anybody would tell you that the Patriot League when it comes for softball is uh the cream of the crop. the number one, the number two, the number, let's see, four and six teams are all in our in our league. My goal with all of our athletics programs is to develop a competitive culture. Um, you know, I I feel like that if you have a competitive culture, kids are going to be able to grow every day at practice. They're there
021to compete. When you go out um to to play games, that competitive culture is a must if you are going to have good teams. When I look at the overall win percentage here of our girl athletics, um I I struggle to say right now, man, it's a great time to go start another program that I'm going to tell you it's going to be a couple years to get up and running to find it to be competitive. Um I would hate to start something to invest in something and not have it be sustainable, not have it be down, you know, that five years down the road where we still have the interest. I met with Ally Schneider. She's uh running one of the club teams in the area. And within her program, there were zero girls
022in the 1200 team that are from Port. As you start working your way down, um there's a few more kids that are involved. There's another program, Rush Area, too, that's running some some competitive things. Um, but for me, um, I think we need to form a better partnership with the city and help them and promote their recreational program and start getting kids at that younger age at least, you know, with bat in their hands and the ball in their hands and playing the game. I would like to see that program established and hopefully lead into um either some more additional club offerings in that, you know, sixth grade to eighth grade range for our girls before we say, "Hey man, yep, let's do it. We're going to be in a good position to to make
023sure that this program is sustainable." Um, so those were some of the kind of the the key notes that I took away. Uh, in my meeting with Ally, I said, "Hey, let's flip this. You're in my position. do you feel like this is a good time? And all goes, no, it's not. She goes, we're we're not in that position yet. Um, they're working hard and I think there's some momentum for youth softball around the community and I think that it's important to try to keep that momentum and to support that momentum. Um, because we're all in this fight together, right? Whether it's it's city leagues in the summer, getting kids involved in their programs all the way up to middle school and high school. Um, so just my my two cents from what I was
024able to look through. Um, we need to find ways to help those feeder programs funnel more of our kids into them before we're ready to start uh a successful program. So, um, I'm I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys might have, but that was kind of the gist of what I saw from everything. >> When you talked to Audi, >> Yep. Um, did you meet with anybody from the Havoc? >> I did as well. >> No. Okay. >> No, I didn't. >> They know those are separate programs. >> Yes, they are. >> They are. Um, >> and I was hoping, you know, if I saw, hey, we have 50 50 yeses on this. Clearly, we have the interest level, but, uh, I really didn't see that interest level a whole lot. There were,
025you know, eighth grade, it seemed like there was some interest in the idea. Um there was probably more responses from eighth grade than any other grade, but then again when you start looking at the experience piece of it, um it just wasn't it wasn't there. >> So >> the city did successfully complete a four-week season this summer fall. Did Did we happen to did anybody get any data from that see what participation was like or >> No, I didn't go that way. >> No, we have a lot of work to do with the city. I think uh I I once the fall slows down here, September and October are pretty crazy. Um that's my November December goal is to start meeting with the city and see how we can be better partners and help them
026and help support their programs too. One of the things that I asked of all the the head coaches at the beginning of the year uh that I think is important is a vertical alignment of fundamentals and skills that we can go to the city and say here give this to your coaches you know when it's when it's time they struggle to find coaches. Let's give them some tools but let's try to find ways to build better fundamentals that are more aligned with you know what we need for when those kids get into middle school and get into high school. Um, I think that that is going to be a good foundation for us to obviously have a great partnership with the city. >> Did Ally allude to uh coaching? Did she say that she might
027be interested or have you spoken to anybody who might be interested? >> No, I didn't go that far. I felt like that's probably a little early in the process um you know uh to to figure out who that coach is going to be. Obviously, we want to get a good coach and the best coach that we can for whatever programs we have. And I felt that we were pretty early in the process to start asking those questions. >> So, I did speak to Colby um I'm going to write the date down, but about the softball um league for the city. Um and it he said it closed in July 6, so this was obviously before closing date, but he only had 20 girls at that point interested. He said he didn't have the exact numbers
028for me when I spoke to him, but he said 5 to 8 was high, 9 to 10 and 11 to 13, there was not even enough girls to see the team at that point when I spoke to him. So I don't know, I haven't talked to him since the program was complete. Um, and also I did speak to Havoc before they separated and at that point when we had our meeting in June, they only had one, two, three, four maybe five working girls out of 36 girls. What was the age group? >> There was so there was a 12U team, there's a working new team, there was a 10U team, but we didn't we didn't know the age group. >> So we had there was two at 12U, right? >> Two girls at 12U, there
029was one girl at 10U and she didn't know about 14U, but she didn't think she thought they were pretty at that higher that higher level. And there there's a lot of factors to this and Ali alluded to this too that you know that some girls don't want to go play in brush. They know that there's not a softball program so they don't get involved in it, right? Um but so it's kind of that chicken and egg idea. Say, "Yeah, we're going to go all in and start this, but knowing probably it's not going to be very competitive for for a while, right?" And you do that. Are girls going to then want to join a very non-competitive program? Or do you start at the younger ages and try to build the momentum and follow that
030momentum as the girls build up so that when they're coming through now, we can establish and we can start something knowing we've got that feeder program in place to kind of help us. Um, you know, I think it's important that we try to support all of our all of our sports. Um there's a lot of kids in the middle school that I think would benefit and we've had parents, you know, come to us and ask about the idea of middle school soccer as well. Um you know, to establish programs we also have there. My my goal, guys, is to get as many kids playing and as many kids competitively playing as we can. Um needs to be highlighted. That needs to be important because we got to find ways to make kids more competitive. I
031have a couple of uh other questions too. Yes. Um so this the CHASSA registration deadline is February. >> Yeah. So we had declarations last week where we declared our um you know October count numbers and where we would fall. I did declare softball open for us but that leaves it open. It doesn't sell us one way or the other but I wanted to have that open that way. >> Okay. Followup question to that. So if we did decide to go ahead and get it started this year, we sign up with we meet the February deadline through Chassa. We get the schedule going and then um do we implement a sign up deadline for for players to ensure that we have a team in the fall. And >> follow up to that question, >> if we
032don't and we go ahead and start the program, we order jerseys. we have all of this stuff in the works and then we don't have enough to suit a fatigue. What would be the consequence of that? >> Uh the consequence would be basically all these girls would end up at the brush program where they're at. We don't get penalized unless we try to have a team the next year would have to be J only. It was the second year of that cycle if we forfeit that season if we don't have a season. Um the what was the first part of your question? because I had a >> It was confusing. What do you mean? Um would we implement a sign up deadline for the fall? >> Yeah. And that's tricky as well, right? Because May
0331st is the technical day that we can go to the middle school and meet with those kids for any sports. So that deadline is going to be later. You know, it's going to be in May at some point. And that's not even necessarily a declaration that say, "Hey, come play this sport. Here's our summer schedule. when we start doing this here. Let's see there. But we can't based on CHA's bylaws, we can't go start that process until May 1st. So that makes that a little tougher to say, yeah, in March or in April, I feel confident knowing what our numbers would look like and would, you know, have a summer of development. Is that enough time to develop a program? Probably not. A competitive program, probably not. And just so that I'm clear on the
034geographical um stipulations. So if we had a program, would Wiggins, the girls who play for Brush now, would Wiggins, those girls have to play for Fort Morgan or could they choose to to play with another adjacent program? >> I don't believe there's a seniority piece of that because they play there. The way the bylaw is is it's any district that you share a border with. Um you can go and participate as a school without a program. So, we share a border with Wiggins. They couldn't jump us to go say we're going to go play in Rush. Um they I do not believe they'd be grandfathered in because they've been playing there and now we started a program. When we start that program that will move those girls, >> but they could potentially go west and
035play for Central or >> a Gi School. Yes, it' be Black Valley probably would be the closest school to them with the with the program. Black Valley or North Central >> or they also do they share with Strawburg? I think they share a border with St. Anybody be opposed to me sharing just a personal lens? So, I do have an athlete that played uh finished her first season with the brush program. And so, just from a statistical standpoint, Fort Morgan um had three freshman girls that participated in that program to start the season. Um one girl decided it wasn't for her and she quit after two weeks. And um another girl had a lot of eligibility issues. I believe she only was able to compete in a couple of games this season. So that left
036my athlete to represent Fort Morgan for the remainder of the season. In addition to that, Wiggins um had three girls that competed with the brush program. Uh two of them were freshman and one of them were sophomores. Uh two of them were varsity and one of them is kind of like JV and varsity. So just from a statistical standpoint, that was just something to offer. So, Rob, if let me ask I think when this came before us in June and we we asked and thank you for being here because I know we said this November timeline for a report. I do believe we were going to vote relatively not tonight but we were going to make a decision about where we're heading with this. Is that correct? Relatively soon. Yeah, I think it's the very
037next meeting for >> I think that was our intent that we had a decision made in October before you moved in to November if I'm correct is what I'm asking. >> Yeah. Well, December is >> I mean November. Yeah. And then the other question I have with pertain to we have a fiscal responsibility to the district as a board for everything. Just concluded I think October one or October count. And I'm curious at some point we'll need to have that information moving forward where we are fiscally. Um because any program we start up there's going to be a cost factor to it. And I I think everyone on this board would agree. We always want opportunities for students. We want our students to be successful, but we also have to be fiscally sound. And so
038I guess I'd like to know is whenever where we are comes standing whether October count, we don't have deadline maybe yet or you may have an idea, but at some point we're going to have to take that in consideration too. So, with October count right now, the way that works is as long as they're in the seats in the month of Octo right now, as of last Thursday, we were 99 students down. And with averaging, our best case scenario was um uh two years a you do one, two, you the existing year, two year, three year or four year averaging, whichever is the best. I think it was a two-year averaging which gives the 40 down um at this point. Now again those numbers should change over the next week and a half um seem
039change a ton but they could uh but segue to a little bit different not really pertaining to this but at some point when we do get our final numbers I'd like to see if we get contracts to that data to see where those students went. I think that would be imperative for us to know where Yes. >> Oh, see I knew that. But where where are our students going? So >> this conversation, but I know about 80% of them went to a another school in Colorado. Um, and don't quote me on these percentages, but there was a number of them that were school in a foreign country. There were a number of them that went to online or home school. Uh but the majority transferred to a school inside of Colorado or to another state
040inside the United States. One of our biggest issues is the fact that we're not getting any newcomers. Last year we had 45 newcomers at this time. Zero. So that's a lot. >> I'm going to visit with you later about what? Um okay. I just think that's apparent that we kind of have an idea of where the because with kids and enrollment that's funding and that's money and if we're down 100 kids we need to kind of figure out where they're at and how that's going to impact us as the year progresses. But I do thank you for your report. >> Absolutely. Any other questions? >> Thank you. >> Turn into such a nice young man. Is that is that on record? [Music] >> Moving right along. We have 4B policies, district revision, third reading. Any
041discussion? Okay. 4C, policies, district revision, first reading. Any discussion or questions? Next we have consent agenda. >> Pleasure to work. >> Move to approve. >> Second. >> Roll companies. >> Brown. >> I grant >> I Nancy Popper. >> Hi. >> John Crowley. >> I Smith. >> Hi. >> Sarah Whitney. >> Hi. >> Okay. A 6A unified agreement plans for the 2025 2026 school year. This is an action item to the board. >> Move over second. >> Roll call, please. Chris Brown. >> Hi. Amy Grantham. >> Hi. >> Nancy Hopper. >> Hi. >> John. >> Hi. >> Smith. >> Hi. >> Sarah Whitney. >> Hi. >> 6B. Waiver for title one funding. Pleasure. board to approve. >> Roll call. >> Chris Brown. >> Ian. >> Hi. >> Nancy Hopper. >> Hi. >> John. >> Hi. >>
042Smith. >> Hi. >> Sir. >> Hi. >> Next we have a 6C policies district revision third read. Pleasure to the board. >> To approve. >> Second. >> Welcome. >> Chris Brown. >> I Amy Grantham. >> Hi. Hi Nancy Copper. >> Hi >> John. >> Hi >> Mindy Smith. >> Hi Sarah Whitney. >> Hi. >> Okay. Up next advance time 7A. The board of education meeting in November will be November 3rd and November 17th. And the board of education reorganization meeting will begin at 6:30 on November 17th. And then the rain happen right after that. There is no further business come before the board. We are adjourned at 7:34.