Board of Education Regular Meeting: January 26, 2026

001Welcome. This is the January 26, 2026 SSR School District R3 Board of Education regular meeting. It's now 5:15 p.m. and this meeting is called to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the stand indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Erin, please conduct a board roll call. >> Director Fere >> here. >> Director Kendall >> here. >> Director Shocket >> here. >> Director Widerski >> here. >> Director Wis here. >> I'm just I'd like to a quick note. Superintendent Bod is joining us um tonight's meeting via Zoom. >> Hi everyone. [laughter and gasps] >> Moving on to approval of the agenda. The board members have an agenda before you. At this time, I'll take any comments or amendments to the current agenda. Seeing none, is there a motion to approve

002the current agenda? >> I move we approve the current agenda. >> I second. >> We have a motion and second. Aaron, please conduct a board roll call. >> Director Fere, >> I. >> Director Kendall, >> I. >> Director Shocket, >> I. >> Director Werski, >> I. >> Director Whis, >> I carry the vote and agenda is approved. Moving on to agenda item two, public participation. We had no members from the community signed up to speak this evening. Agenda item three, spotlight on success. Um, unfortunately the spotlight on success this evening was the middle school environmental resil resilience team. They're not able to join us this evening. So we'll look forward to celebrating their achievements at another time. Moving on to agenda item four, discussion item. Agenda item 41. The board of education will conduct interviews

003of the professional search firm consultant candidates to conduct the superintendent search. This evening we have two firms we'll be presenting. First is Dr. Dr. Walt Cooper with McFersonson and Jacobson, followed by Dr. Ba and Mr. Brian Eert with HYA. Dr. Cooper, can you join us at the podium, please? Good evening and thanks for the invitation to join you this evening. We appreciate it very much. Um, I'm going to ceue up my slides here. Are we ready? Perfect. Okay. Um, just by way of very quick introduction, um, very quick. Thank you, President Fury, for that. But my name is Walt Cooper. Um, and I, uh, if you choose to go with McFersonen Jacobson for your upcoming superintendent search, I'll be one of two, uh, consultants that will be working the search. Um, Randy Zela, Dr. Randy

004Zela, um, from Loveland is, uh, is actually the lead consultant uh, for the search. he could not be here tonight. So, I'm giving the presentation on behalf of our firm, but um I'm a retired Colorado superintendent. I'll leave it at that. If you want to know more, your page 20 in your proposal tells you all the sorted details, but that's probably not important or of interest to you. Um so, I'll just jump right in and and get to the meat of why why I'm here um this evening. So, again, thank you very much um for this opportunity. Um, I'm going to start with just a little bit about uh about our firm, about McFersonen and Jacobson um and uh our approach and then I really want to u go through this fairly quickly. I I

005trust that you all have looked at the uh the proposal document that's in front of you. So, I'm not going to belabor a lot of those details, but I do want to make sure that I get to the point where we have time um for you to ask any questions that you might have about our approach or anything in the proposal because that's probably the most uh important facet of what we would do here this evening. So, um so I will start and just talk a little bit about the firm as a whole and then we'll get down to what we do in Colorado. U McFersonen Jacobson is truly a national search firm. And this the reason I highlight truly um is because there are a number of firms um in this industry across the

006country um that that do superintendent or executive search work. Um that but just because a firm works in a number of of different states doesn't really make them a true national search firm. Uh so McFver Jacobson, as you see on the graphic there, we're Colorado owned. Our ownership group is based here um in Colorado. Um and then our um our uh structure is that we have um regional offices. We're structured in three regional offices. One in Washington, one in Nebraska, and one in Georgia. Um and you might think um you know, well, what does that have to do? I'll talk a little bit more about that, why that's why that's germanine to the search work here uh in just a minute. But this regional structure really does um um provide us with a true national

007presence. And what that national presence results in is uh Mack and Jake is as we colloially refer to ourselves um has done over 1100 searches uh been around since 1991. We've done 1100 successful searches across the country more than that. That's a round number in 45 states and we have about 120 consultants across the country um that that lean into this work for the firm. Uh you can see sampling of our consultant locations there. Um so but you sitting on the board here in Estus Park may be thinking, you know, well that's really immaterial to us. We really don't care about what you do across the country or where you are uh in the United States. But it does matter. Matter of fact, it matters a lot. Um, and as I said, I'll talk about

008that more uh in just a minute. But what matters most, I'm sure what matters uh greatly is what we do here um in our own backyard of Colorado. And Mac and Jake um conducts more Colorado searches each year, especially over the last decade or so, um than all other search firms combined. Um, and that's that's not anything that uh you couldn't verify if you wanted to look at that, but M. McFersonen and Jacobson does the lion share of superintendent searches in Colorado. And a lot of that is ba is because of our Colorado team. Uh, so that list there that you see um is the uh is representative of our consultants based here in Colorado. As you see, I live in Colorado Springs. We have representation across all areas, all regions of Colorado. Um, our

009Colorado team is is four-fold larger than any other team, any other search firm in the country that does work in the state. Um, and that's important because it provides both regional and local expertise. Um, it also helps keeps your cost down because we don't travel, right? If you're close, you don't have to travel. And so those are expenses. We're not flying folks in. We're not staying overnight. We don't we're not incurring some of those expenses that would be passed along um to you. But um again it the uh we'll talk a little bit about why the um I will talk a little bit about why that national presence um uh is is important to this. But in the event you're interested you can refer to um uh pages 34 and 35 in your proposal document

010lists um more than 70 searches more the districts that we've served in the last about six years five and a half to six years uh in Colorado. those 70 searches and um I'll say more about that as well in just a second. So really there are uh six facets uh more specifically of working with Mac and Jake um that I want to highlight tonight in this order. Um the first is we're an established and leading national search firm been around since 1991. So we're not going anywhere. Um, and when I say wellestablished and and leading national search firm, um, that's easy for you to look. Ask Chat GPT, ask Perplexity, ask your your AI engine of choice. Uh, really doesn't matter how you phrase the question, but if you want to ask about about u

011uh predominant or pre preeminent search firms in the country, do that. Um, based on how you phrase the question, you might see, you know, uh, a change here or there, but there are two or three firms that are going to show up as a result of of the history. HYA is one of them, McFersonen Jacobs and other Ray and Associates. And so, the lion share of all of the superintendent's work across the country really is supported by a very, very small handful of firms, very small number of firms, although there are a lot of firms that um, that work in the arena. I'm going to talk a little bit about our engagement with stakeholders. I know that's important to you. Um, and notice on that slide I talk about authentic and extensive, and I'll tell

012you why I use those two terms. Um, again, we'll talk a little bit about why our national presence and our consultant network is important to you and Estus Park, why it matters that we have folks in Alabama and Arizona and New Hampshire. um talk a little bit about our customized search protocols um the value that you will see with our firm and then the track record of our sustained leadership um as we go through this. So the first thing I'll talk about is um our excuse me [clears throat] our high degree of stakeholder involvement. So that first bullet there um when we talk about a hiring process right no one would argue that it's important to have as as most as best you can right a bias-free equitable transparent hiring process you want to make

013sure that your screening of candidates isn't biased you want to make sure that you don't have any prejuditial questions all of that sort of stuff right nobody would argue that our point is that we really think that eliminating bias and being truly equitable does not begin with the candidate process It begins with the stakeholder process. And so if we really want to have a truly inclusive and equitable hiring process, we have to begin that process with stakeholders. And the primary way we do that is through our online survey. We have a very robust online tool that eliminates things as you see in that second bullet. It eliminates things like work schedules, child care, transportation, all of those barriers that would pre preclude folks from leaving home, coming to a meeting, sitting in a room, doing

014a focus group. probably a focus groups that a focus group that is dominated likely by maybe the loudest and the most disgruntled voice in the room and not truly representative of your constituents. So, uh our online stakeholder uh tool is really really is a critical component uh and really important to our search process. We'll talk about that more in a minute. We also come and do focus groups if you would like us to on-site engagement um for folks that that you identify uh for us meet and maybe that's um maybe that's town council maybe that's an administrator's group maybe it's uh um uh parish leaders whatever it might be what you you identify those groups for us and we'll come and do stakeholder groups with them in person but that supplements the larger stakeholder feedback

015that we get in the online tool but we bring that all in a report uh that helps uh design the search and also the profile of your next superintendent. Uh and you'll see that last bullet there are and that stakeholder report we really believe that that drives the the full process that we do in our search process and this graphic just shows that. So we really encourage talked about how we customize our protocols and and I'll walk you through that in a minute when we talk about each of the phases. Um, but regardless of how we customize each of those steps for you, one of the things that we really really encourage, um, and of course it's your search, so you will you will direct this at the end of the day, but we really

016encourage that the first thing you get out the door is that online survey um, and and really utilize that with us to help design the rest of of the search. And so as you see that we we uh take that that online survey result the report from that and we use that extensively in all the other phases of our search. Um so let's talk about recruiting and advertising right. Um the days of simply putting uh crafting a job description, posting and and distributing a job description and then waiting for applications to come in uh is long gone. Um, so we're committed to very intentional and bias-free recruitment strategies that will make sure that you have the most qualified diversified pool you can possibly have. So we still use those traditional advertising venues. We still uh

017suggest that you advertise with um AASA, the American Superintendent Association um uh as a as a widespread nation organization. Um there are some other paid advertising venues that um that potentially we think that are are worth a return u of investment. Um but we also use the most popular digital platforms and social media and the combination of those really is intended to appeal to the broadest audience. Right? There are some folks there are some candidates out there that would never see this job posting via LinkedIn. That's just the way it it's just going to happen. Right? they may they may read it online looking for you know in the AASA posting and the and the reverse is true. So we want to make sure that um that we we get as many venues uh lined

018up as possible in terms of our announcement. But that third bullet up there really is at the crux of why you want to hire a search firm quite quite honestly and that is that McFersonen Jacobson we act actively engage our network of consultants. So remember back to I said well it is important for you where our national presence is where we have consultants where we have regional offices and where we connect um because that allows us to actively recruit and vet when we do background checks actively recruit the best talent available that matches your criteria. Um about 50% regardless of where our search happens across the country about 50% of our applicants come from out of state regardless of where that state is. that number is a little higher here because who wouldn't want to

019come to Colorado, right? Um we don't have necessarily that high return in some other states. I won't name them specifically. Um but the fact that we have folks all across the country that are doing the work or are very close to the work and when I talk about the work I mean the work of school districts all across the country. It really allows us to leverage personal connections and relationships across the country as we recruit candidates. Every vacancy that we have, we distribute or every um vacancy that we're searching for, we distribute to not only 5,000 potential applicants who have signed up to get our our uh distribution, but to every single consultant in the country. and we start working along with the criteria and start working to find those strong referrals for people uh

020that match that criteria. And then that last bullet is important um in that we really have a strong commitment to not recruiting our previously placed candidates. We don't represent candidates. We were any specific candidates. Nobody pays us a fee. We don't have we don't have a stable of candidates that we're waiting to place. uh we work solely for the board of education and later on I'm going to tell you about what our retention numbers look like and they're very strong. We're very proud of that. We wouldn't have that level of retention of placements if we cherrypicked our own placements for the next best job or the next opportunity that came along. Now that said, if someone we've placed in a job chooses to apply for, you know, we're not going to tell them they can't

021apply. That's that's not my point. But we don't, you know, in some places, it really doesn't happen much in Colorado, but in some places where we work, we see that that is that that are some that is the the uh the MO of some folks. They have a a stable of candidates, specifically preferred candidates, that they really try to move up um to the next best job when that when that opportunity arises. We don't do that. So, I talked about our fivephase search protocol. I'm going to show you a graphic that will outline that in a little bit. Um, but it's a process. Our five phases is a process we've been using for three decades. It's time- tested, proven results. Um, but that said, uh, I would argue that no two searches that we do,

022at least I've done about almost 40 searches now in the last four years, and I can guarantee you that no two of those searches looked exactly alike. some were much more similar than others. Um but it even while we have very very tested and and proven protocols, um we know that every community is different, every board is different, every district's needs are different. And so this is not our search. This is your search. We will tell you what we think are best practices and how we go about doing that. We're not going to require you to do the work. That's not what I mean when I say we customize our protocols. Um but we will we will adjust our path uh and our objectives based on the needs that you identify for us when uh

023when we uh design the search. Um so that includes the timelines that includes what type of interview process we're going to use. Is it solely going to be the board? Are you going to use some community groups? Are you going to use stakeholders? What is that? What does that look like? What is the expectation of your community? Some communities expect, hey, we elected you board members to do this. That's your sole employee. Go do it. Other communities will say, hey, this has got to be an inclusive process. We expect to to be at the table. We expect it to be very transparent. We can make all of that happen. Um, we don't have a a canned bank of interview questions. Interview questions are specific to each search and based on the criteria that you all

024come up with as we work through the design phase. And then we as consultants are directly accessible to board members anytime during the search. You don't have to go through a coordinator. You don't go through our home office. Um if you choose McFerson and Jacobson, you will either call Randy Zela or me if you have any questions at any time. So let's talk about our five-phase approach. So we talk about this in fi the first phase. Uh phase one is a design phase. And I want to highlight the fact that the very first line on this graphic in white text says we meet with the board too. And then it has some bullets underneath that. I'm not going to go bullet by bullet. You can read this as your leisure. But this is the first

025time that we engage with the full board. We take an hour and a half or two hours. We have a process that we through which we work to design the blueprint of the search. Part of that in Colorado is because that's a statutory requirement that you do that in an open meeting. So we will meet with you with you and we will go all the way through. We'll provide you with comparative salary data so that you can identify the salary range which by law you have to you have to post those types of things. So we design the search with you first step toward customization. We don't come in with the blueprint for the search and say, "Here it is. Fill in the blank and that's how we're going to approach this search." Phase two,

026we recruit. We call the recruiting phase. That's when we go and do our work after we've designed the blueprint and gotten it out the door, got the posting out the door uh from our phase one work. So phase two and phase three is where we recruit and evaluate talent for your vacancy. And notice that it does not say at the top of either of those columns meet with the board too. This is what you pay us to do. This is when we leave and we go do the lion share of our work. So there will be several weeks here where you may kind of you know not I mean we we will update you every time there's a a decision-making point and we will we will send frequent updates on developments but this is when

027we're doing the lion share of the work. Um, also this is highly confidential work because as you know by Colorado law right until you've named your finalists all this information is confidential. Um, so that's what we do in two phases two and three and then phase four notice again it begins with meet with the board too. So this is our second engagement full engagement with the board and at this point we will come with you and we will meet in executive session and we will present you. You get to see all candidate applications whether we whether whether they have any business being in the pool or not. You see them all. We're not keeping anything hidden from you. But our job, what you hire us to do is to take your criteria, recruit candidates, screen

028candidates, vet candidates, and so we do that heavy lifting for you. So that when we come to ex this executive session, because remember all candidate information at this point is still confidential. We're going to outline what we consider to be the high the the candidates who are most qualified. We will prior to this meeting uh prepare you with their materials. We will prepare you with video interviews that they've produced. You will review all of that information individually. But then we will come together in executive session in that phase 4. review all of that information. And the objective for the outcome of this meeting is that you adjourn or that you reconvene in open session from executive session, announce your finalists in in open session and then we move forward with the interview process. So the

029objective for phase four is to identify your f summary is to identify your finalists. All right? And that typically takes about 8 to 12 weeks from start to finish. Now, um I asked Aaron if she would place at your uh um at your your uh uh table at your workstation. This time, this is a more specific timeline. So, your packet has a timeline based into like segments of months or segments of weeks. Dr. Zila put together this more specific timeline um that really just bookends if if you were to select McFersonen and Jacobson, we would we could start this week getting our stakeholder survey out the door. As we said, we really encourage you to start with that. We would get the stakeholder out um February 10th is a date that he's tenedly identified for

030this phase one meeting that's on the screen in front of you, right? to design the search, the blueprint for the search. And then if you flip it over, you'll see that it takes you to about that the beginning of that second week in April where you would interview and select your superintendent. So that puts just some some more detailed dates around what a timeline would look like. Still keeps you in relatively the sweet spot for searches. You're getting a little bit toward the back end of that, but not not too badly. Um, and uh uh of course if if dates don't work, dates line up, you need to move a little a little quicker, you want to move a little slower, we can do that because we're customizing this as we go. I will say

031that there are some facets of our timeline that need to move in concert with another facet of the timeline. So while we can, you know, for example, we really need about 10 days or so from the the closing date of the applications till the date that you will have videos to look at, right? That that that's just time that we need to do that work. So if we would if we would extend the posting period, for example, if you wanted to do that, then we'd subsequently have to move that other date. But there are some dates that can move independently. But again, that would be determined in phase one um when we all come together. So um after phase four, go into the interview process and your candidate is selected. And then phase five we

032refer to as transition. And so before I leave this slide, I want to focus specifically a little bit on uh on phase five. Um and because this I I think is truly uh one of the delineators in the search process um that that that may differentiate among search firms. And so one component of our transition work um is the establishment of year one pro uh year one performance objectives and measures. That's pretty much a non-negotiable. I mean if you told us you didn't want to do that, we wouldn't do it. But that's not one of those things that we say, well maybe we'll do this or not. That's really important, right? And it's really important regardless of who in our in our mind it's really important regardless of who you hire. That's a really important

033thing. So typically we come back about maybe you know 20 days 30 days um into the new superintendent's tenure. So sometime after July 1 and they've gotten their feet on the ground and we in a work session format we work with both the board and the superintendent to establish these performance objectives. Um but beyond that we don't propose specific transition activities because our our our approach is that we are going to design appropriate transition activities and support for your new superintendent with you because we don't we don't propose that we're going to know exactly what your new superintendent needs. We don't know who you're going to hire. So, for example, is your new superintendent local or are they from out of state? Are they experienced or are they novice? Do they have significant uh experience

034around student achievement and instruction, but maybe they have very little experience around finance and budgeting or something like that. So the the idea of that we're going to evaluate transition needs. We're going to design a plan for that ongoing support. Now that ongoing support is not part of our initial fee. We don't build that in because like I said, we don't know what that support is going to look like. We also don't know if we're the most appropriate people to provide that support. And I'll give you an example. The last two searches, the last two small rural searches that I did, um, both in in mountain communities, um, hired superintendent, relatively novice, not relatively, both novice superintendent, but both of those superintendents already had a place reserved in the Rural Superintendent Academy run by the

035Colorado Education Initiative. The Rural Superintendent Academy does a great job of building network support for new superintendents. They include a year's a year of executive coaching. Uh George Welsh, former super Colorado superintendent of the year, leads that um leads that group and they provide really really strong support. there really was no need for us to step in and charge the district, for us to provide transition services when in both of those situations, we probably would have just resulted in having too many cooks in the kitchen. Uh and and having the district pay for something they didn't need to pay for it because there's a cost to the Colorado Rural uh superintendent um academy, right? So in that regard, what we wanted to make sure was that there were there were proper supports and transitions for

036every superintendent we placed. We might not be the best people to do that. And if we're not, that's fine. We have a host of services avail. We do superintendent evaluation. We do strategic planning. We can do executive coaching. We do all of those services and they're available um at at a value added fee. But there's no sense in us including that upfront in a fee to you when you don't know whether you're going to need that or not. Um so it's a little different approach that we take. But that's part of what we do in phase five is work to evaluate uh where your current new hire is in terms of their level of competency and and skill set. Um and and look to build upon that. Um so the another thing I want to

037highlight uh that was from that first slide is uh the fact that we consider to be very high value firm um with inclusive pricing. So the first bullet um you have proposal whatever proposals you have in front of you from whomever um you don't have to take my word for it but our transparent pricing is the most competitive in the industry. Um, very simply, McFver Jacobson does not get beat on price. Um, wherever wherever almost wherever we work in in almost any state, wherever we work. Um, and our proposed fees and expenses always include our online survey tool. They include stakeholder meetings and in district consultant days. They include the paid advertising that we recommend. They include thirdparty background checks. They they include consultant travel. And they include the candidate videos. And so whenever you

038compare, as in any [clears throat] comparison, when you have different um different proposals, um you know, make sure you compare the details, right? Um additional on-site consultant support. We bill at $1,200 a day, um which is typically about half of what most of our competitors across the country we see. Um we don't charge a predium or upfront expenses. All expenses incurred, travel expenses or other expenses incurred by um our consultants are invoiced directly for reimbursement with no markup. And then again the last but any of our additional services uh are available at the board's request, but they're not included as a potentially unnecessary uh upfront cost. And so page 22 of your uh of your proposal details um that are uh are our uh cost proposal inclusive cost proposal for this search um in greater

039detail. And then uh as I as I start to wrap up here the sustainability of our leadership now I will tell you that these year these data points are not in-ear data. Um so they're they need to be updated for they have not been updated for 25 26 but it's longitudinal data so the points don't move much but one of the things over that we're most proud of is over the last five years almost 80% of the uh folks who have been placed through a McFerson Jacobson search are still in the position for which they were hired. Um 60% after 10 years and 40% after 15. So, you know, you you look at that, you look at the middle bullet there, right? And you think about that in terms of maybe, you know, an academic

040grading scale and you say, well, you know, you barely made a passing grade, right? 60% is, you know, barely passing on most grades. I would argue, you know, if you bet 600 in the major leagues, you're going to the Hall of Fame. But um in the in the realm of superintendent tenure, as I'm sure you know, um turnover is so high and so frequent um that we're really we're really proud of these numbers. I'll also say I'm not naive enough to believe that there's not some measure of good luck behind these numbers, right? It's it's not all skill, but it's not all good luck either. I think the work that we do upfront to make sure there are a lot of people out there that can do this job across the country. A lot of

041good folks that can do this job. Not everybody can do this job everywhere, however. And so the work we do up front with our stakeholder work and our work with the board to really identify not only someone that is a really highly skilled administrator and leader, but also a good fit for Estus Park. That's what drives those numbers. So lastly, what sets us apart? Um our stakeholder engagement we're very proud of and our reporting and communication to the board that follows that. Um obviously it's your choice to do with that what you will. Um but uh I think once you once you see the result of our stakeholder report um you'll find out why that is so important if you choose to use us. The combination of our local and national consultants. So, we bring

042folks u you know Randy Zela lives 45 minutes from Estus Park, right? He knows the area. He's been here a long time. So, um you know, I'm two hours down the road in Colorado Springs. So, we know Colorado. We know the area. That's why we do so many Colorado searches. We have we know Colorado better than anybody in the industry. Um but we also have that national outreach. We have our three n our regional directors and our national consultants. And I'll give you a real life example of how that works. It happened today. So on my way up here, I got a call from our from a consultant that I don't know, a Mc Pearson and Jacobson consultant in Oregon. We're doing a search in South Central Oregon. I don't know this individual, but there's

043a candidate in that search who formerly worked in Colorado Springs when I served as superintendent at Cheyenne Mountain. our regional director in Washington who's overseeing the Oregon search told this consultant, "Call Walt Cooper, here's his number. I bet he knows that candidate and can provide some background." So, this candidate called me. I did know that candidate. I did was able to provide some background. And that would have never have happened if we just relied on references or previous employers that folks list on an application. It just doesn't happen. Nobody's going to list a reference that's going to answer the phone and say, "Oh, yeah, I know them. Maybe you better keep looking, right? It's just not going to happen." So, the manner in which we can identify and vet candidates through that national, I told

044you it's important to you and Estus Park that we have that presence and that's why um the degree to which we customize our protocol. Like I said, we we know what best practices are. We have a lot of successful experience. Um, but we're not going to drive anything um past you that you don't think is is going to work well for your community and your desires. We have competitive pricing and highv value service. We may not have the curb appeal and the bells and whistles of some of our competitors. We know that. But we have made a conscious choice to not do that. We have have decided that it is better to make sure that we provide a high value on the pieces that do result in great outcomes and search outcomes. And if you

045compare the outcomes of all of the firms across the country that do this work, the firms that are good and the firms that have [clears throat] sustained and are around like McFver and Jacobson, the outcomes are very, very similar and they should be right. It's not the inputs that count so much. It's the outcome. And so we have made it a point to invest our time and our energy in those facets that result in high quality searches and and good outcomes. So we know we don't have the curb appeal of some of some firms, but we're fine with that. Um we continue we can excuse me can continue to support the board as I said with things like executive coaching or uh board development, governance work, any of that sort of stuff. We're happy to

046do that. We like to do that. We may not be the best fit for any or all of these with you as an individual group. We may be the best fit across all of them. That's for you to decide and for you to decide if you want to h to spend that money, not for us to include in a fee that you may or may not choose to to have the service. And then finally, our track record. Um we stand on our experience and the strength of our references. You've got more that we have page uh whatever it is in the in your packet. You've got uh page 30 has some very specific references that we've listed to call that are recent searches that Randy and I have conducted. Randy or I have conducted. Um

047you have the list of Colorado searches more than 70 in the back if you know some folks there. We would love for you to make unsolicited reference calls. Don't just call the folks, right? I'm not going to list a reference that's going to say, "Oh yeah, maybe you ought to pick somebody else." So don't take my word for it. Call somebody else. uh call someone you know because we uh we love to have um unsolicited reference calls because we know what you're going to hear. You're you're going to hear good things. We've we've we've done really really good work for districts across the country and especially in Colorado. So, with that, I'm going to stop and um would be happy to entertain any questions or clarifications uh that you might have or vacate the podium

048and let you get on with the rest of the work that you have in front of you. Thank you so much for this opportunity. >> Questions? >> Thank you so much for your presentation. Um you actually did already answer one of my questions with the presentations. That was excellent. Thank you very much. Uh, and I would just like to know what your general impression of the market is right now. There are several school districts in Colorado who are also looking for superintendents and how you kind of balance that with um the competition and the applicant pool and working with multiple school districts. >> Yeah, very good question. So right now, for example, um my colleagues and I are I'm leading the search in Eagle County. Um my colleagues, uh Dr. Center and uh Dr. Zela

049are leading the search in Steamboat. Uh Dr. Center is leading the search in Gunnison. And another superintendent colleague, a former superintendent colleague, Dr. Happen is leading the search in Rangely. Those are the searches in Colorado we currently have going on. those so many of those pools have overlapping candidates, right? Very few of those pools will surface with short-listed candidates that are synonymous. The reason being is they they may all be very qualified leaders, but they're not a match for in those individual communities. So, across all of our searches, we communicate frequently. We share what we've learned in vetting and all that as you would expect this to, right? But we also talk about what does the pool look like, who's very strict. So in one of those searches, I won't name it specifically, but I

050said to one of my colleagues, this individual um I think is in both pools. My understanding is they're in both pools. I can I can tell you that I think they would be a good fit for X. I am not going to move them forward in Y. And so that that kind of of communication and work among colleagues is really important is because I said there are a lot of really talented folks out there. Um but if you're if you're highly talented in one game and put into another, you may you may be just setting your setting them up for failure, right? So we do that. Um you asked about the quality of the pool, right? again that I would say that the the sole deter not the soul the most important determiner of that

051is the desiraability of the of the of the the job itself and the desiraability there are many factors to that but it's very hard to overcome salary as a driving factor availability of housing and affordability ility if there is availability. So I we found I think and I think um your your next presenters will probably also tell you this those three things likely drive folks into or out of a pool more than any other thing. Right? So um and as the as the candidate pool across the country gets smaller, it's still really good. Um the candidate pool that I'm working with right now in Eagle County is stellar. Um so there there are still a lot of good folks that are looking to to make some moves either sideways or or upward. Um, but those

052three, you've got to be prepared to really step up to the plate on those three facets before you can really effectively evaluate anything else. The the the cost of poker continues to go up. >> Does that answer your question? Okay, >> other questions. >> So maybe can you talk a little bit more about the you said you have like a database of around 5,000 candidates, but they're not previously placed folks. So who is that? There are folks that reached out to you or who who who is that typically? >> They they may be previously those folks may be previously placed. So we don't we don't charge a fee to represent any candidate. Nobody is um you know becomes part of our for you know we're not head hunters in that regard right but anyone whether

053they are a previous candidate or not can sign up for our direct notifications that we send out. Um, many times our previously placed candidates just unsubscribe, right? They got their job, they found their job, they're not interested in getting that. So that's what I said. We don't actively recruit folks that we have previously placed. But we we do have repeat customer. We're not in the business of repeat customers as boards. Trust me, we we only want to be here one time. >> [laughter] >> We don't um but so so we do have you know some folks who would come out of a McFveren Jacobson placement go into a pool compete very well and end up being selected. So we don't eliminate that but we don't actively recruit them into pools. So, we have a we

054have an active list of on any given day around 5,000 that get that notification probably and and I'm on that list, right? I get them. So, I know and sometimes it can be a little a little daunting. I think some sometimes I get like six a day because we have a lot of stuff going. Um, but that yeah, that that's the that's the push notification that we do directly to candidates. Everything else through our socials is a little more passive. And then you also mentioned that we're maybe we're okay but we're a little bit late in the scheduling of things. This proposed schedule is that is there any places there you think we can shorten things? I I know you mentioned certain things take it just takes this >> I think I think we could

055shorten it a I think we could shorten that a little bit but I would also say that going the way that that schedule is placed right now doesn't really put you at a disadvantage. I I don't think especially understanding this is for whatever reason and maybe [laughter] we're [clears throat] we're sort of our own worst enemy in this I guess um there aren't right now there aren't a lot of Colorado openings being being searched right you I mean we have we have five going currently I think I I don't know about other other firms I think there I know of a couple that are just starting out there right but it's not one of those years where by this time of the year we already know of near nearly two dozen openings or something like

056that, right? So, I I think you're still in really good shape. So, I would not um especially if we could get started this week with the upfront stuff and then you're in, you know, in the next with the inside of two weeks you're designing the blueprint because on once you finish that phase one work with us, getting that put together out the door and on the street happens very very quickly. So I yeah I think I think if you're if you're not pushing back past midappril you're going to you're going to be okay. >> I appreciate your comprehensive um presentation and all the questions that I had written down were answered. So thank you. Tell >> you I'm buy a lottery ticket on the way out downtown I think. All right. Thank you very much.

057>> Okay. Thank you. I will uh again say thank you and leave you to your work. Um Erin, do I need to do anything? We just close out of this. Got it. >> Y >> Okay, good luck. Best of luck in the search. >> Thank you. I'm Dr. Bond and Mr. Eert. Please, please join us at the podium. >> Walt and I were close colleagues as superintendent. Okay. Oh, slideshow. Slideshow. Well, good evening, Board of Education, Madame Chair, and we have a superintendent online somewhere. Uh, Bonius. >> Yes. >> Uh, congratulations and on your move. Um, if you're listening, um, I thank you for the good work that you've done here in Estus Park. Um, I come to this uh this evening with with a little different approach in that um I have a house

058here in Estis Park and uh we've had it for quite a few years and my brother and I, we we retreat up here and as I've always said, as goes the school district, as goes the community and I am very proud to say that as I go back and I watch board meetings and as I see where the focuses are here and as I was driving up the mountain today. I said to myself, if I were a superintendent, would I want to be here? And the answer to that is absolutely yes. For so many different reasons, which we'll get into um in just a little bit. Um we do appreciate the opportunity to share our proposal with you. You will hear some overlapping kinds of concepts, but you'll also hear some very distinct differences. And

059um I want this board to know that as your tenure um as a board member, this is probably the most important decision that you will make. Not hiring a firm, but hiring the next superintendent. >> Okay. Absolutely. >> Uh very very important. >> Um [clears throat] as a matter of introduction, my name is Brian Eert. Uh I'm the former superintendent of Littleton Public Schools and the former superintendent of Englewood Schools in the metropolitan area. Uh my full-time residence is in Centennial. Um, I retired after 38 years in public education, having served in almost every single role in public education except for a special education director. I never did that. That is hard work. I retired three years ago um and became an HYA associate because this was my opportunity given my experience of 13 years

060as superintendent to give back to help boards of education uh go through the process of of hiring a new superintendent. But not only that, it's what comes after that too that I think we'll talk about in just a little bit that I think also will set us apart a bit as well. Uh they may be online tonight, but we have uh in the back office we have uh Dr. um Mike Richie. He is the VP of uh Hazard Young and AIA. And I believe if he's not also in another board meeting tonight, he's probably watching. Um but I don't think Dr. Nancy Perez is here as well. Um but they are uh they are very interested um and very involved in all of our searches and we are in contact with them on a regular

061basis. Mike uh will actually be very much an integral part of this particular search once we get going um should the board choose HYA. Go ahead. >> Yeah. And hi, I'm Dave Ba. Uh I'm the former superintendent of the Aspen School District and it's great to be back in Mountaintown. I live in Parachute, Colorado, where my wife is the current superintendent. And um it's kind of in the veins. And so, you know, like Brian was saying, this is a way for me to continue to contribute, continue to give back to the profession that I value so much. I also went through an HYA search to wind up in Aspen. And that's why I opted to go with HYA as the search firm. the rigor, their back office support, their professionalism was second to none in

062my experience. Um, I was a superintendent for 10 years in Pennsylvania. Uh, you res, we won't dwell on that, but and then four years in Aspen and uh, and now, like I said, I currently live in uh, Parachute, Colorado. So, >> and I've never gone through a McFersonson or an HYA search, but I have gone through two Casby searches. and you familiar with CASBY, the Colorado Association of School Boards, which we'll talk more about in a little bit. Um, we are their premier partner. Um, I will say that it is so critical as you recruit candidates to come into a polished and quality process uh for candidates because they are watching and they are also interviewing you and your community. And that's why this community engagement piece [clears throat] that we're going to talk about

063in a little bit is so critical. Did I just hit the button? >> No, Ryan's arrow. >> I wasn't. And wait a sec. Got to hit escape now. >> Yep. Back into slideshow. We thought that uh you know we would crush technology after COVID. So was it just the air? It just turns out to be a little tricky. >> Yeah, that one. >> There you go. So as you know um as you probably know, we're uh a preferred partner with Casby. I actually have a a a a boot in Casby and a boot in HYA and I do leadership development for CASBY on the western region and CASBY is trying to increase its impact in the state. They also decided they needed to do an RFP for a search firm for submitted and HYA was

064selected as um having the most comprehensive reach and impact in the ability to attract talent to Colorado. So we went through the search, we talked about uh Dr. Nancy Perez, our president. She was part of the team that presented to Casby. Um and [clears throat] Mike Richie was with me as well. Brian was out of the country. Uh but we were very pleased to go through that process and that brings us here. You have some data about HYA. Obviously, we're not going to read it to you. We have done a lot of searches. Uh 48 in Colorado, you know, in the Haya portfolio. Uh we've got 130 nationwide associates, about 48 different states. Um and and that appealed to CASBY. One of the main things to really think about and and you know Mack and

065Jake was talking about it too is the retention rates. The superintendency is a very demanding job and the good high-f flyers wind up getting poached. HYA won't let someone they've placed into an HYA search for at least three years. So, they strongly discourage it after that, but and they they flat out won't put you into search uh if they've placed you. And then, um the other thing, and I can speak to this, 75% of the candidates that they place that we place have been actively recruited. So, I got a phone call from HYA and said, "Hey, we know you want to live in Colorado. Um what do you think about a small town called Aspen?" And I said, "Let me do some research. I'll call you back." I said, "Well, that might be interesting." And

066long story short, I took the Aspen uh in July of 2020. And uh that was an interesting journey across the country that summer. So anyway, that's a little bit about CASBY. Uh as a result of the CASBY partnership, uh we have a master services agreement. Um so that you don't actually need to go through the whole RFP process, though we are always happy to do so. Um and the master services agreement means we can start tomorrow. Um >> uh I would like to point out one thing and that is this idea of uh specifically going out and recruiting. So how do we do that? That's why community engagement is so critical to our process is that we want to hear what you, your leadership team says, the principles, the teachers, and this community about your

067district. We have to hear that for us to be able to go out and provide those matches. I have my own portfolio of people that I talked to. I know Dave does. Hya, we have associates all across the nation and we are out there saying, "Here are the things that we need." For example, one of the districts that we did a search for was going to go out for a bond. They didn't want a superintendent who had no bond or meal levy or engaging with the electorate around raising taxes. They had to have someone who had that experience. And so that was a critical piece for us to know and we know who those people are that have that are uh passing bonds and mil levby overrides in their community. So we went out and

068talked to those people and recruited those people. So it's very intentional about how we go after folks. When we get them, they stay around. 94% of the superintendents in uh HYA, they stay in their position for more than three years, which is um actually a pretty good uh statistic. So, um I won't read all this to you, but just a couple of highlights. Um our search team along with all of our associates across the United States, we have vast experience in both um in Colorado. Uh both both Dave and I are highly connected in Colorado uh w with uh current superintendents, former superintendent, assistant superintendent, principles who are looking to go to a rural school district. We have all of that experience as well. Um, and again, I will say the most important part that

069I believe of our process is our uh community engagement, which we're going to talk more about in a little bit. Um, I think it's second to none. It's where we flourish. It's when we're in front of your community, where we're asking them the questions and taking those notes and recording what they're saying and putting that in a final report to the board of education, to the community, and superintendent candidates are then reading that saying, "I think that's a match for me." So we use that uh superintendent leader leadership I guess district leadership report for nothing for not a better term uh to actually go out and recruit which is a very valuable tool for us. We can't do that without our online survey as well and we can't do that without being in front of

070the community here in Estus Park. Okay. >> So, we talk about national recruiting. Uh, it is an Illinois HYA is an Illinois based company but with associates in almost all 50 states. Um, and you can see by this data that we throw wide nets and sometimes they're hired from within state and sometimes they're hired from out of state. What CASBY was trying to get away from by turning to HYA was a lot of time there's a shuffling of superintendent. So you hire one, somebody backfills and you know you you've just jammed up the school district two districts over. So what they wanted to do was to increase the pool and increase the caliber of candidates. And you can see that HYA does that and does that well. you can see that they're pulling from basically

071all over this country to fill positions all over the country. >> As a rough statistic, um you had asked a great question about so what is the pool like? I would say the pool doesn't look anything like it did 10 years ago, but it doesn't for teachers and it doesn't for principles either. So the same trend is happening for our superintendent pools as well. That being said, when we're out there recruiting, what I'm finding um at the end of a search, it's about a third, a third, and a third. About a third of the candidates are incredibly highly qualified and could come in and do the job and do it well. And so then you're splitting hairs. And that's our job is to make sure that your job is very difficult in that final selection.

072And a third of them, they're fine. They'd be adequate. Um and then you have a third of folks that you're just not qualified to be the superintendent in that district. You can see here when we were in PBLO, an incredible, incredibly diverse pool of candidates from all across the country. Um, I wouldn't say that PBLO is like Estus Park, but there was a lot of interest in being in PBLO because of its outdoor activity because it's in Colorado. Of course, many of those candidates hadn't been there to PBLO. But what I'm saying is is that um we will I believe uh with our recruiting strategies um have a have a really good pool of candidates um for for Estus Park. Um I would invite you uh in the next day or so just to visit

073our website right now. Um and I think we're the only firm that does this. We we post every superintendent job in the nation if we know about it. It doesn't matter if we're doing the search or if Mac Jake is or if it's Ray and Associates. We will post it if we know about it. It draws lots of candidates to our website. Um we currently are under engaged in 15 searches and I think that's up to 17 today just because of what happened today. And uh there are 205 other superintendent and cabinet searches um on our website as well. As far as our um active candidates, um we do at HYA purge our uh candidate pool. If you were in there 10 years ago, you're no longer in there. You have to be an active

074candidate. So, when we say we have 1581 active candidates, that means that they're interested and they're in there and they're looking for positions across the nation. We have 44 active candidates right now from Colorado. And so, we think we'd be able to serve Estie's Park. Well, we know the community obviously. We also know Colorado and we also know the nation and the national challenges. We think it's crucial for the kids in the district to have good leadership and and tone clearly starts at the top. And that's why HYA is so committed to going the distance with any school district, any school board that we serve. We don't stop once a superintendent is seated. We want to make sure that the vision, the mission, the beliefs are all part of the fabric of your next superintendent.

075That's crucial. And we'll be doing a lot of vetting and interviewing even before anyone makes it to interview with you folks. Um, and that's part of it. Now, I put a couple of your friends up here on the screen um just because I love deer and I love elk and I do know the difference. Um, as I said, when I was driving up here, um, and you see a herd of a herd of elk and another herd of deer as you're coming up the mountain, and I asked myself the question, um, what would what would I be looking for if I wanted to be a superintendent up here in the mountains? What would I be zooming in on as an external party? And I just wrote some things down. It's first of all, everyone knows

076it's a great place to live um, in Estus Park, minus the wind a little bit, but it is a great place to live. You're at the gateway of uh Rocky Mountain National Park. You've got wildlife everywhere. Um and it's been my experience when I spend time up here. There's a real sense of community when I'm in local stores. Everyone cares about everyone up here, which matters to a new superintendent. But not only that, what's going on inside your school district is very impressive as an outsider looking in. First of all, you have a 94.2% graduation rate. Is it 100%? No. But your strategic plan, as I looked at it, is so incredibly student focused. Three, I think tiers of your strategic plan, but uh academic achievement and growth, that's what we're here for. Real world

077learning, um absolutely important, and wellness. So, if I was the superintendent, I'd be looking at things like beliefs and vision and mission. I'd be watching schoolboard meetings. Do they have respectful discourse? you don't have to get along or agree on everything, but but there has to be um a level of respectful discourse. And um I just think that there are so many good things in this district. I think that recruiting um it for us is um it's going to be obviously a challenge just because of the pool, but you have so much to offer here and the work that's been done in the last several years is just outstanding. So kudos to you and kudos to uh Superintendent Bod as well and the ELP. >> Okay, as you can see, there's there's some similarities to

078the search process, right? There's there's steps that you all have to take regardless of whether you go with the firm or if you were to do it yourself. We don't recommend that if you want national impact, but uh we think and you have a copy of um in in our proposal the time frame and we think we could have a superintendent for you by mid to late April. But the process is really important. We're both process driven. Dr. Richi is process driven. Uh Dr. Perez process driven. We're all about the process because it works and we have high levels of confidence in the process. Um, we think we can get you a top tier slate. >> Yep. >> I mean, absolutely. Great community. And and it was funny as I was listening to the prior

079presentation, I thought, oh, the other thing that I think is really important is a board that is focused on students and student achievement. superintendent who have, you know, I started out in special education, elementary school, and then came up through the ranks. And I still coach uh for a local school district just because I love working with kids. Um, but if you love working with kids and if your board is clearly focused on what's good for kids and teachers, then we can find you good candidates because that at the end of the day is one of the most important things to any superintendent. I have walked out of a job interview based on how board members were talking to each other. Like, oh, oh, no. [laughter] I mean, life's way too short. not going to

080do it. And I walked out into the parking lot and I called the search consultant. I said, "Please take me out of X district. I I don't want to be in that search." Oh, it's a great district. Might be. They're going to pay a lot. They might. It's not worth it. And to most superintendent worth their salt. A good team forming a good team of six is fundamental to their success and to your success and to the success of the students. And that that's at the end of the day what most of us get out of bed for. So now we're going to dig into the process just a little bit. Uh similarly to what you heard earlier, we have an engage, recruit, and select and transition uh piece to each one. We'll talk just

081a little bit about each one. Um the board [clears throat] planning meeting is absolutely critical. So as soon as the the board of education were to make a decision, we would get a a workshop. We would get an open meeting where we would be talking about um all of the steps that are involved in putting together this uh multimonth plan uh for recruitment. And [clears throat] we also then after that planning meeting, we would want to get that uh 360 or the uh community survey out um as soon as possible um and get that data back as well because that will help drive some uh decisions down the road. Uh we also will have uh individual interviews with every board member and also the outgoing superintendent and anyone else that you want us to interview

082individually. Sometimes that looks like cabinet members or sometimes that looks like principles depending on the size of the district, depending on what the board needs. Again, everything is completely tailored to what you believe that the culture of this school district needs. Um, following uh that we really dig into those focus groups uh and we'll be up here for a day um doing focus groups all over your community. We will work with you to talk about what other districts have done to get people to come out and to talk with us about their school district. Um, we will make sure that teachers are there. We'll make sure that there's times before and after school for principles and teachers and staff. Uh, we'll make sure that there's opportunities for community members. We also will do weekends um

083on Zoom as well. Uh, in Pueblo there's a a real working class where they just were working 8 to 5 and could not get out to come to a meeting. Great. Let's do a Zoom. So, we would have 25 people show up on a Zoom call and we would do the exact same protocol that we did for that focus group. Those focus groups will drive um everything that goes into that leadership uh report for this school district. And again, uh let me reiterate that report is so valuable because it's the springboard for success between the board and the new superintendent and the community because it was driven by community engagement. Um okay, move on. And this gets to a little bit more specific. >> Yeah. So, uh, you covered it very well, but I do

084want to, um, we had a robust conversation about this, but we also talk with your students. You would be an integral part of the process. We think that student voice matters partly because it's going to impact them, but also because they're going to become the leaders of tomorrow. And we're first and foremost former educators ourselves, and we think student voice is huge. So, we would be talking with you. We talked a lot about using current technology to facilitate meetings. Absolutely. Flexible meeting times. That's huge. Um, diverse and inclusive, right? There's a lot of diversity in all of our communities. Now, we want to make sure everybody's voice gets captured as part of the final report that we're going to go to the street with, but we would be talking with, as as Brian said, a

085wide array of your community. And you can see in the bottom left quadrant potential focus groups that have been very successful in other Colorado districts. We recommend considering reaching out to them. It's it's very important to capture as much voice as possible in the planning phase in in the blueprint, if you will, of how it's going to unfold. >> Associates love the most the focus group with high school kids. >> They have been in your system K through 12. They know what's going on. They're eloquent and they're articulate and they can share their experiences um about what's gone really well and what the challenges that they've experienced as they've gone through school. Um and their voice is very important like Dave [clears throat] said still fighting that cold. So again, we won't read all of

086this to you. Um, but we do make a commitment and we stand by it and we do deliver on it. Uh, to recruit, active recruiting, calling people we know, tapping them on the shoulder, reaching out to our associates and asking them to think about who might be a good fit for a beautiful mountain town high in the Rocky Mountains. Um, and then the selection piece, it's that's a huge part of it. We have a board portal, which is one of the things that's a little different. And every applicant will be in there. So, you wake up at 3:00 a.m., you're kind of wondering what to do after the milk and cookies, you can go see who applied today. That's all part of it. It's also to avoid any potential conflict on the board. We don't

087want anybody thinking, "Oh, he's giving all the information to that board member. I I want No, everybody gets it at the same time. The flip side of that is we're available. Not 24/7, but we're highly [snorts] available. Let me tell we got to draw a line somewhere. Um, but we're highly available and we're working state and national conferences, all of those things. That's really a fundamental part of it. >> Um, during the focus groups, we ask one essential question at the end is that is who do you know that might be interested in applying for this position? because you have people in Essis Park that work in the Denver metropolitan area, in the Lovelin, St. Brain area. Um, and and they they know people and they know people in these school districts that might be

088interested in in applying. So, we do ask them uh at every focus group, do you know of anybody? Um, and then if you do, send that name to us and we'll call give them a call to see number one if they're qualified, but then number two, um, if they're interested as well. The other thing that we've done in Colorado in previous searches that's been pretty successful to recruit highlevel candidates is to send this notice out uh to Wyoming, to Nebraska, uh to Utah, to New Mexico, to your surrounding states. Um the Mountain West um you know in Colorado again is a is a is a hot spot for people who want to live here. And so uh know that this is not passive by any means. we are out there recruiting hard and finding people

089that we believe will match the criteria that your community has set forth um in the uh leadership report. So [clears throat] >> want to talk about that? >> I guess I did kind of talk about the board portal. I don't need to belabor that. Um if you have any questions on it, uh we can take those now or we'll just keep going. >> It does protect uh the district from Kora. Um there's lots of confidential information that is uh available to the board of education and whoever you select uh probably the secretary to the board to have access to this information and we'll go through the confidentiality of that as well. Um but we also will work with your IT team and give them examples of uh public facing websites to manage everything that's coming

090in so that your community on any given day can look at your website to say oh look what's going on with the search. Look where they are. look where they are in the process. Oh, they're getting down to, you know, looking at candidates. They have a slate. So, your community will know what's going on via that website that we will help your web master develop. And part of the beauty of the portal is we're checking it daily. It's managed and is available to us as well as to you. And we are checking it daily to make sure it's up to-date and accurate. >> There are six tabs in the portal. And honestly, I think the portal really sets us apart from any other search firm for accessibility for the board at any given time about

091the important information that you're getting. Um, there are six tabs and at any given time when you're in the portal, you'll be able to see all of this confidentially. Um, and some of this will come public facing um, when it's appropriate and when the board decides it needs to be public facing. But as we get started, it's all um, just for your eyes only. Um, we'll talk a little bit about transition services available in just a little bit. I want to talk a little bit about this because our day in the district um which I think is an incredibly valuable uh tool that we use that I'm not sure that other uh firms do. I don't know for sure but I do know how valuable it is to us. So ultimately it is the board's

092decision on who you hire. However, when you announce those two, three, or four finalists by state statute, they are considered your finalists. That means they're in it to the end of the of the game and their names are going to be public and they are going to spend an entire day in the district. Sometimes it's a day and a half. We can talk about that at the planning media as well. But at that day in the district, not only do you give them a tour um and let them get a feel uh for what Estus Park is, not just as a school district, but as a community. Um they also then will meet the community in these open forums. Um there's lots of ways that we can uh handle these with uh as far as

093facilitation and asking questions, but the QR codes um are given when each candidate is up in front of their community with real-time feedback directly to the board of education. So people are sitting there with their uh cell phones, they can hit that QR code and say, you know, this person seems like they're highly qualified, but I don't think that they're a fit for this district because of X, Y, or Z. U so those are the kinds of things and this happens in real time. Where does that data go? It goes directly to our HYA database which you will have access to on the portal. So in real time, you'll get to see while they're in front of your community answering tough questions from your community what your community thinks about your three or four finalists

094or whatever you've decided. So it's a pretty powerful tool. And that being said, sometimes there's community members who are uncomfortable using the QR codes and your associates will gather written feedback from the community members that will be uploaded to the board portal for your review. So, we make sure that everybody has access, everybody, like we said, everybody has a voice in the process. >> Yep. >> Email like uh we've been in districts where I I don't do QR codes. I can't do that. It's too difficult. Fine. Send me an email. Uh give me a call. Give me your feedback. I'll take it down. So we we get that feedback from people so that they can't say well I wanted to provide feedback but I didn't know how to do the QR code. >> Yeah. >>

095Um although after co I think we all figured that out even at restaurants. So [clears throat] >> um again this is for discussion when we were to meet to set out the timeline. We believe that this timeline would work. Um you'll see that we say now through early February. Um we would get started as soon as possible. Um you know this week if if that was what the board decided. Um but um we believe that we would have a superintendent hired uh by mid to the third week in April. We think that that timeline makes sense and it doesn't uh doesn't cut anything short. >> It allows a full quality interview including reference checks. You I'm sure you've seen some of the national press where there's been some slippery characters out there who made it

096through. and having us here, we do a lot of that work to make sure that you'll never be embarrassed by your next superintendent, at least as a result of the hiring process. So, yeah. Okay, why don't you talk a little bit about this? So, um I think another thing that sets us apart is some of the work that we do with superintendent that we place. And some of these things are new, relatively new because of our partnership with CASBY. And the first one that uh Dave is going to talk about is this HYA Transition Academy. And this is really neat and this is relatively new for HYA but it's coming with very high regard from the people both HYA superintendent that are have done it and folks who have not come through the HYA process.

097They've done it. There are some key deliverables that just about every superintendent needs to have. And as a new superintendent to Colorado, this would have been a phenomenal opportunity to to have this. I I had 10 years of experience in Pennsylvania. The alphabet soup here is very different from Pennsylvania. Lots of P's, lots of C's here. Um, but this would have been a wonderful thing even for a veteran superintendent to go through and experience the 100 day plan, the key performance indicators. All of these are things that any superintendent really needs to be thinking about. Additionally, we encourage a board member to attend with their superintendent. So, it's not just something the superintendent goes through. It's a national cohort for a board member and the superintendent for that first year. And it's um gets you

098these four essential deliverables. >> I think we would have both liked that as new superintendents. boy, even even every time I you know I had three superintendencies, it would have been good to go through this process. It's a great structure and this comes at no cost to the district. The other uh [clears throat] transition item that's relatively new is the superintendent evaluation process for one year and that is there are very few districts in the state um that have established highquality evaluation processes for their number one employee, the superintendent. we have high quality uh evaluations for teachers and for principles mandated by the state of Colorado. That is not true uh with um superintendent. There are basically four gray areas that you're supposed to evaluate your superintendent on. Uh this particular superintendent is one that

099we've developed in conjunction with um our partnership with CASBY because they too have gotten lots of calls from uh part or districts across the state saying we don't know what to do with a superintendent evaluation. Now we have a tool to do that. This is part of that first year. There's a framework. I'm not going to go into it tonight. It's not that important to hear about it yet. And there's also eight nationally um I guess uh there's eight standards that basically across the nation are used to evaluate um superintendent. Colorado has none. Uh but there are basically eight and this one is based on eight uh of those standards. And then also [clears throat] there is a survey. Um, I won't do that tonight either, but it's a 360 survey and the board and

100the superintendent to agree on who gets that survey. Is it just going to be uh is will it be teachers? Will it be principles? Will it be the community? Um, depending on the size of district, uh, districts choose different ways to go with as far as the 360. So, um, we can talk about that, but that also is included um in the um in the package. >> And we know every district's different. And so some you might be engaged in um a construction project or a bond or acquiring new buses and that might be one of the primary chunks of work for the superintendent to oversee for that year. So we can customize the survey to district initiatives. There's a whole section of the survey that that allows us to do that while recognizing the

101eight sort of national standards >> which and and no we're pretty sure no other um search firm has as robust an evaluation tool and it's meant to support and drive a really good conversation between the board and their one employee. So, in full transparency to you and the community, um our base fee is 15% of the hired superintendent salary not to exceed 23,000. Um it includes those things that you see that are bulleted there. Um 5 days in the district by HY Associates, doing all of the things that we talked about, focus groups, u meeting with board members, uh interviews, those kinds of things. Um we have uh travel expenses in there, but we both live in Colorado, so we're really talking about mileage. um just like uh you know other firms would say um

102it's it's mostly mileage. Um our thirdparty background checks um there is a cost to that should the uh board want that and we highly recommend that given what's happened in Iowa, what's happened in uh on the East Coast with around some superintendents that maybe didn't have the credentials they said they did or they weren't citizens of the United States. Um, so there's been uh there's been some lawsuits that have been filed and so we really do highly recommend that third-party um external uh look and it's a deep dive into someone's background. We're going to do all the background checks. We're going to do all of the Google searches. We're going to do all the social media stuff. Uh but this is a third party that goes deep on everything related uh to their college experience

103or college degrees. uh any criminal records um >> financial records uh any anything that you can find. So um but again it's not required. >> Um we encourage you to call references as well. Um >> I think that HYA's uh reputation across Colorado and across the country is impeccable and uh these are just some people that have spoken out and provided us with some comments. Um the two that are most recent up here um that I was involved when number one when they hired the superintendent in Littleton public schools um they hired HYA and uh that is from the president of the board there and then um I did lead the search in Gresham Barlo School District out in Oregon. Uh again um a very uh good district and I think that they were pleased

104with what we brought forward for them as well. And now we'll stop and maybe there's questions. happy to answer any questions you might have. >> Any more questions? >> I actually this is very rare for me. I don't have a question. [laughter] >> What? But I would like to say because the one thing I was going to ask about was student input when you were talking about those um you know the focus groups and things and we have a very involved and active wonderful engaged superintendent council um and they have their pulse on the the they have their finger on the pulse. That's the expression I was looking for. And we do ask uh we do ask the superintendent or the principal or whoever's putting the group together if it's a superintendent group to give

105us a highly diverse group, >> you know, don't just give us um the student council kids. Don't just give us the athletes. Don't just give us the kids who are in marching band. We want all of those kids and any other subgroup of kids. Um and it it absolutely is fascinating. >> We will we will have to draw straws about who gets to do that group because that's our favorite group. >> If we're not doing this for the kids, why are we even here? Right. So, >> exactly. So, thank you for hitting on that and I appreciated your focus on leadership and I appreciated that your presentation was ESTA specific that you really looked into our district already, you know, just in kind of so I appreciated that. I appreciate your proactive approach. I appreciated

106that you touched on word of mouth which in small communities and mountain communities like this that is huge. So, um yeah, thank you very much for the presentation and your time. Any other board questions? >> Um, questions. So, the five days on site, I'm assuming that that can be split up. It's just more mileage back and forth. >> Honestly, we are not very tight on that. I never have been on any of my searches. I think some consulting firms are really tight on it. Um, I live an hour and a half away. I have a house here. >> Okay. it is easy for me to come and do an extra full Saturday of uh focus groups if that's what this board wants. So don't let that five days say, "Well, that's all." Um I am

107happy and I know Dave is happy. We're happy to be here doing this work for Estus Park Board of Education. >> And then one of your slides said 15 open postings. Was that national? Was that Colorado? >> Nashville. Okay. And then what's going on with you guys right now? Colorado more specifically. >> Nothing in Colorado right now. Yeah, our last big surge, well, see, Aurora, Littleton, um, uh, Pueblo was a big one. Strawber, uh, those are the districts that we've done most recently. >> Okay, good. >> The relationship with Casby is a relatively new one. Just kind of came together uh, in December, actually. I think we in the contract December 1st, and so this is our first full-blown search season. Uh we've also been asked to work on um developing the evaluation tool that

108were shared with you this evening for Colorado specifically and that's we're hoping to be a sort of benchmark for CASBY as one of the offerings. We also do executive coaching uh board governance relations you know CASBY does a lot of work around governance and they're happy to come and work with the boards around that. Um, so full slate of support for your superintendent, full slate of support for the board should it be needed. But again, we don't want to put things into contracts up front that you might not need. Right? So, and I will tell you when I interviewed in Aspen, it was a two-day interview and we spent close to eight hours with students over those two days. there was a lot of student voice in this high search. So that that was part

109of its appeal and that was candidly part of the most fun of the interview. So >> other board questions. >> Great. Thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it. >> Well, thank you very much for your time and should you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us. We'd be happy to honor those questions, answer those questions rather. And uh it was a real pleasure to be here this year. >> Sure was. Nice to meet you all. >> And best of luck. Thank you. >> Yeah. Best of luck. See, moving on to agenda item 42, quarterly financial report. Brian Lynn. Frank. >> Sorry, Brent. Go ahead. >> No worries. Right. Good evening. Um, so I'll go through the quarterly financials first and then um get into the midyear budget revision since

110that's also in the action items later on in the meeting. Um, so through December, we're halfway through the year. You know, we're we do not get any state equalization. So that's why our revenue is shown very low. We'll start getting our revenue um in month and a half. Um, got my notice for my property taxes today. So, so those will start that money will start coming in um in March when we get our first big wave because people start paying that in February. Um so that's why we're only at 14 and a half% through December just because of how we are structured in our revenue. Overall, we're in our historic, you know, we're right in track with where we normally are building wide. Um you can see centralized services um we're at 41% and that's

111we have some money in contingency just because in our preliminary budget we weren't 100% sure on the new um assess valuations that were coming out since it was a assessment year and then also the change in how the percentage was allocated for education. So the number that was given in preliminary budget um we weren't 100% I wasn't 100% positive that the state had the right number just because we didn't know where it was going to be. So, we were conservative and put some um program reserve money into contingency. That's so that's why that that's not close to that 50% just because that contingency number is a little bit higher just because we didn't assign those to expenditures on the front end because we weren't sure we're actually going to get that revenue if that makes

112sense. So, that's kind of why normally that's right around 50% at mid year. just not there this year just because of the uncertaint uncertainties with um that program excess program reserve number based off of where assess valuations were going to be coming in since we didn't know that in May when we were building the budget. Um so you can see we're about 42% districtwide in expenditures at about 7.7 million so far through December. Um, so that's and that's the summary of the general fund and then also capital. We did have some projects finish and go through the process in the second quarter. Um, we had some work done around the high school gym to make sure that foundation wasn't going to sink and those types of things and get water penetration. Um, we also got

113the lighting replaced in the elementary school gym over over the winter break and that was done in December. And then we are in the process of updating um our phone system that's towards the end of its useful life and we did make a deposit on half of that system. So that's in there. And then we did purchase two new buses right after Thanksgiving um at a total cost of not quite 302,000. Um we got those at a very discounted rate because we piggybacked on some larger districts um purchase agreements that they had with a vendor. So, we got those for about half of what we got two buses for the price of one basically because we piggybacked on a larger district that spends millions of dollars a year on buses. So, that was kind of

114what happened for capital. And then also the big thing that happened, we did make bond and uh principal interest payments um on December 1st. You can see 1.35 million in principal payments and then $321,000 in interest and then we'll have another interest payment in June. But so that's kind of how the bonds are structured. Um everything else is in there, the check run, deposits, all those types of things. Do you guys have any questions over any of that information? Uh my question was on the the money getting moved to f food service like a little over 200,000. Is that a one-time thing? Is that normal every year? Just what was the what was the reason for that move of funds to food service? >> You're talking about the fund transfer. >> Yes. >> In the

115budget major budget revision. >> Mhm. >> Okay. I'll get into that. Do you have any questions over the financial? Sorry. [laughter] Yep. Yeah. I'll get into all that stuff here in a minute. All right. So, on that note, I'll get into the major budget. Um, so major budget, so fund 7, that didn't change. We were moving that we moved all that money July 1st. So, that did not change from the plinary budget within fund 10, which is our largest fund. I kind of touched on that earlier. uh we weren't 100% sure on what the AV was going to come in for tax collections and those types of things. So you can see there's a increase in property tax revenue and then also we have abatement um that we are collecting in about $242,000 that we

116did not know at preliminary as well. So that's that was also the increase in the property taxes. Um, other revenues have [snorts] been changed to reflect what our actual allocations are. We got CTA allocation last Tuesday. Those types of things. So, all the budget, all the revenue numbers have been updated to what the state is actually giving us. Um, we will be giving all that money back in June or majority of it because it's categorical funding. So that's why in the notes you can see like we have categorical buyout we received $25,000 for gifted talented those types of things. Um then the other adjustment that is in there as compared to preliminary budget is 6E um grants. So, we were awarded a grant of 60 funding um in October and then we also submitted for

117some more 60 funds for summer school and some after school programming. So, that was added in. We haven't heard on that award, but I put it in so we wouldn't have to come back in two months and do another budget revision. If we don't get the money, we're not going to spend it. We'll have to use general fund money to cover that expense. it won't be tied to the 6E, but we did put it in there. So, then we should we have been getting awarded those funds in the past. So, that's why I put it in. So, then that way we have it moving forward. Um, and then we kept the 3.5 million as the mil heavy override. That was also in the preliminary budget and that's what the board approved for the property taxes

118in December. Um, and then so fund balance transfers. So, we have money coming in from fund 7 because we closed out that program reserve. Um, transfer to fund 21 is our food service. Um, that did increase a little bit from preliminary budget to midyear just because paper goods and some of those types of things have come in more expensive than what we thought they were. And typically we do we we've always supplemented um food service program or fund 21 with a fund transfer from the general fund. Um we budget we might not hit that 225. I think last year we budgeted about 212 and ended up moving 185. So um and that'll just change a little bit too dependent upon revenue from federal government for summer feeding and those types of things. Um that's kind

119of hard to predict what we'll get there and I think we got a little bit more in that last year than what we thought. So that's why that transfer wasn't a full transfer in last fiscal year. Um so that's what those fund transfers are. Then we did not change or I did not change the transfer to fund 43 which is our capital project. That was the program reserve number that we um budgeted to transfer in plinary budget and I kept it the same because as part of the midyear or not mid year as part of the mill levy certification um we were going to use funds for retention incentives and those types of things in the um coming up at towards the end of the year. So um so you can see our total revenue

120did increase in general fund from 19.3 million to about 20.3 million. Like I said that some of that is 60 funding and then also some of that is that adjustment for the property tax just because we weren't sure where the AVs were going to come in. Um as of right now we don't have all 20.29 29 million appropriated. We have money sitting in contingency. Um because like I said, we don't know for sure what that retention incentive amount is going to be. So once we know that, we can move funds. Um some other funds have or expenses have come up with the the facility long-range plan that we can use those contingency funds for. We had a pipe break in the elementary school over the weekend. So, some of those funds could be used there

121too to offset the sucking up of water and those types of things in the fifth grade hall. [laughter] Um, >> yep. And then, um, then whenever the board decides with the superintendent search, we can allocate those funds from the contingency reserve into the board of ed um, expenditure line for the search. So, there's funds available. Like I said, we don't have you can see our expenditures basically stayed the same at that 19.3. We have added a few positions with bringing in special ed and those types of things and expanding the special ed program within elementary. So there's about 8 890,000 that we haven't appropriated and that's what we're going to use for the retention incentive and those types of things. Um so that's general fund. Any questions over general fund? Then the other fund that

122we did make some changes in is um fund 22 which is our federal grants. Um in May we had a we were going to apply for a Lur County mental health grant. Um other organizations within the community applied for those grants and were awarded those. So we decided not to. So that's why you'll see like the local went from 115,000 down to 40,000 because in the past we've been getting 75,000 but we couldn't use that for what we've used it for in the past. So we didn't apply for it and it we're getting the support from other organizations that received that funding. So there's working with our students still. We we just don't have to track it anymore. Um you can see title one did go down a little bit just because carryover amounts and

123those types of things did adjust from what our projections were in June um to what actually was approved um through the consolidated application process. And then the other one we have not got a final number on um is IDA part B which is our special ed. Um so we know what our allocation is. We don't know the carryover number because the state is hasn't gotten that calculated yet. Um they won't have that until March. So, um they said they think they it's going to be like 80 to 85. That's a huge carryover number just because they don't get it to us in time to where we can appropriate it and major to expend the funds. So what we did, we took 50,000 and put that on top of what our allocation is to get to

124the idea of that um as compared to the about 280,000 just because we need to try to use up those funds so we don't have quite as large of a carryover number. Um so I'm working with um director Sunday Peach on trying to get that allocated and figured out um so we're not supplanting and doing all those types of things. We're using Yeah. So, we're working through all that. So, you can see with those changes, our federal grant, our designated purpose grant revenue did go from 637 down to about 605,000. Um, and that's just just through the act getting actual allocations and carryover amounts um assigned. Any questions on that? >> I do have one question. It's not a numbers question, but what are the community organizations that receive the federal grants that we're partnering

125with now? >> That would be a good question for Sunday because she's the one who's working with them. Um, she told me the other day in passing and I for I don't I can talk to her tomorrow and let you know. Um, >> yep, I can do that. I'll talk to her tomorrow. So, um, and then so that's 22. Then that kind of touched on 21, which is a food service fund. The only adjustments we did make was to actual staffing. We've had some turnover and those types of things in there. And then the, like I said, the cost of some of our paper goods and those types of things has gone up um, just because our we are still running at high participation just because it's the free feeding. Um and our revenue source

126I did change that a little bit on the and shifted it more to federal just because um that's where all most of our money is coming from since the state can't support the healthy meals for all. So they have us getting um money through the federal program through the C allocation. um fund 31 that did not change because that's been set in stone since 2007. We know what our uh principal and interest payments are. So that didn't change. Um, like I said, fund 43 did change a little bit because we had a projected fund balance um, in June and as part of the audit, we had to make some adjustments for some invoices that came in September that we back had to recognize in the prior year with the stadium project. So that um, fund

127balance number did decrease which did change the spendown amount. So, um, cuz I think we had like 280,000 and it went down to 2 and 204 587. So, it went down about 75,000 7580,000 from what was in the preliminary budget to final just because we had some invoices come in at after the clos year that got recognized in the prior period. Um but that capital projects that's for [snorts] things we have going that's where the buses came from and those types of things. Um and then the other change we did make was within um fund 23 just because we've had some new programs come in that are bringing in more money and spending more money than what we originally thought. Um CTE doing oil changes those types of things. So, um we did make those

128adjustments and added some um expenditures and revenue associated with the fundraising activities within the buildings. And then scholarship fund we kept the same. Um, we are actually making decent interest since we [snorts] did move that money from UBS into KO Trust and um I need to get with Sonia and figure out who we need to need to talk to to get that into the scholarship um portal for that since we haven't had a scholarship actually get drawn out of there in a while. Um so overall you can see the changes. Um we went from 25,836,639 in our preliminary budget for total expenditures expenditures across all funds to 26,679,688 at the midyear. And like I said a lot of that is just because of the change of that revenue within the general fund. Um, and then

129also there's use of fund balances. Um, so that's the transfer allowing us to move that money in seven into 10 of the 8 $826,000 because that's what our program reserve number was last year and then not to exceed the amount of um fund balance within our capital projects fund which was adjusted after our audit. So, is there any questions over that document? >> Not really more a question, but more of kind of the highlights from a from a board perspective. So, yeah, general funds up a little bit because of assessed valuations for next year. So, board members realize the bund's not going to be there. So, it's going to be a lesser number next year as we that that's over essentially. But, you know, the district And that's in the property that's in the property

130tax revenue now because we have access to it in the current year, >> right? It's not a a double year. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Too bad. >> Yeah. >> Um so yeah, and then so I know that the district is uh you know looking at one-time uses for that money that's not going to recur. Um and then also that we're just at a good financial um position and gives us some flexibility for the future. Yeah. Yep. Good points, Brian. Other questions? >> Nope. Sounds good. Thanks for all your hard work, Brian. Appreciate >> [laughter] >> I bet Erin will go, [laughter] "Oh, that's funny." All right, moving on to agenda item 43, superintendent council reports. Unfortunately, our board member, our superintendent reps needed to attend other school activities this evening. Um, so we

131will not be hearing the report, but we look forward to some more additional information and reaching out with them in the future. Um, so we will move on to agenda item 44, superintendent report. Superintendent Bodie, you're on go. >> Awesome. Hi everyone. It's good to see you all. I am sorry I can't be there uh with you all in person. Um, can you hear me? I can see you if you give me a thumbs up. If you can hear me, I see you head nods. Awesome. That's great. Okay. Uh Brian mentioned a little bit briefly about our sprinkler break at the elementary. We continue to have real heating and cooling problems with our HVAC. I know we go through this anytime we have a little bit of a change change in weather. Some of our

132rooms are extremely hot, some of them are extremely cold. We had both uh requests and maintenance come through of my room is way too hot, please come help. And my room is way too cold, please come help. It just I want to stress the importance of why we're doing this master planning and putting in so much work. Um we really we really need um a plan for our HVAC and all of our buildings. Um this [gasps] month not a whole lot. We have in our facilities update our safety response teams at each school met as part of their quarterly cycle within the last month under the leadership of Eric Adams, our operation director. He's doing a really great job leading these teams. We formed them four years ago and they've just done really great work.

133The teams review our effectiveness of our drills conducted in each building and then they make adjustments to site specific safety response plans as needed. And their participation is voluntary, but it counts as one of all of our employees that are certified employees at the school district or required to serve on a committee. So, it it counts as one of their committee. That's our way to make sure all of the work we do has teacher voice on it. But the the group of staff members that commit to that committee also go above and beyond to excuse me. They they do first aid training, CPR training, stop the bleed training. And so thank you to everyone on those. Our principles and assistant principles and office staff also are on those. And since the formation of those, we

134have really refined our safety management plans and our celebration. Most recently, the elementary school set another district record by completing a full building evacuation and accounting for every single student in 6 minutes and 20 seconds. And yes, that accomplishment is incentivized. And I did bring them donuts. And I'm still waiting for the middle school and high school to beat them. Uh but they just did set a new record. They're just really getting great at our response in emergencies and in the event of an emergency. Our students are doing great. Um, so thank you to Eric for his commitment and our principles to continuing to improve and refine refine our safety emergency response plans. Our [snorts] uh facilities master planning work is well underway with our team of architects. Our next meeting with our architectural partners

135at RB PlusB is scheduled for February 9th. That's in a couple weeks. And so that's going to be members of our long-range planning committee and our master planning subcommittee. Thanks to Brian for his midyear financial report. Um he does a great job with those. I just want to say I'm so excited about the fact that we are um we're we're going to be able to put the money into our people. It's so important for a recruitment and retention um stipend this year. It's really important that we're able to do that and I'm just really excited about the board. Thank you. um for making that a priority, making our people a priority and doing that this year for family and community engagement. Coming up, we are partnering with the CSU Prevention Research Center. The district is

136offering a six-week parent team program. It started last week. It's called Guiding Good Choices and it has a session conducted in English and then one in Spanish. Our staff members are compensated through the opioid abatement grant for both their training and the instruction of these courses. And Sorry. Thank you to Sundy for leading that. Um she she has been great in partnering with the prevention re research center and leading that initiative for our our school district and really focusing on parents and what our parent needs are. And thanks to our staff members also we have Carla Delgado, Stacy Farah, Patrice Patricia Roundtree, Kayla Downey and uh Stacy Shoenberger. They are all teaching that class. So they completed the training and they're facilitating those classes for us. Our district advisory and accountability committee met in January.

137They reviewed district academic data including school performance frameworks and mid-year achievement data. And uh next time they meet will be next week, February 4th. And then they're going to review our family and student perception survey results at that meeting. [clears throat] Rachel Graham, our gifted coordinator, she's partnered with St. brain to provide our parents with a virtual opportunity to consult with a clinical social worker who has expertise in gifted education. So, our parents of gifted students are invited to attend tomorrow evening with Jenny HCH. It's titled supporting your gifted child through stressful times and it's from 6:00 to 7:00 tomorrow. It's a virtual opportunity. So, lots of lots of opportunities for our parents as we start the new year. The next coffee and conversations community meeting that I'll be holding will be February 12th and

138this one will be at Incwell and Brew. So hoping to see lots of people there and I am just so excited to celebrate the progress and growth of our students academically. We've been um reviewing our midyear academic data with all of our staff. We're celebrating a lot of things. So I'll give you a few highlights from our academic data and our family perception survey. On our family perception survey results, we increased 11 percentage points districtwide, reaching 74%. We have an endofear goal this year for 75%. So we're within one percentage point right now of that target by the end of the year. At the elementary level academically, students continue to demonstrate steady academic improvement. Uh we have 63% of our students meeting or exceeding expectations in math. That's a 1% increase from midyear last year,

139but more impressively is reading. We have 62% that are meeting and exceeding expectations at midyear in reading with and that is an 8% increase from midyear last year. Our middle school demonstrated improvement midyear across every single academic area compared to last year. 65% of students are meeting or exceeding expectations in both math and reading. That's an increase of 3% in math and 8% in reading from midyear last year. And in science, 54% are meeting and exceeding expectations, representing a 5% increase from midyear last year. And at high school, students showed continued improvement in both reading and math. 70% of our students to high school are meeting and exceeding expectations in reading. That's our biggest increase. That's 15% up from midyear of last year when they took the assessment. And 57% are meeting or exceeding, excuse

140me, meeting or exceeding expectations in mathematics. And that's a 4% increase from midyear last year. So that's all very exciting. Our district's mid-year attendance rate for our current student roster is 92.2% at midyear across the district. That's slightly below last year's midyear rate. Last year we were at 92.4%. So really close, but it's higher than the 91.6% that we ended last year with in our end of year attendance rate. So attendance [snorts] was impacted significantly. We had a big flu outbreak in December right before break. We even had one building that had attendance as low as 62% one day because of the flu outbreak that third week in December. So despite that, our overall attendance remains pretty strong. We can keep everyone healthy. So, I'm just really encouraged by all this academic progress and so

141so so proud of our students and our staff and all the collective efforts of everybody including all of our community and our families and and you the board. So, thank you to everybody. Uh we continue to make significant great gains. We've made huge academic gains over the last four years due to our strong support for each other and [snorts] just our shared commitment for prioritizing meaning and real and relevant learning and focusing on our strategic plan. So, thank you all. We are better together. Any more questions? >> Thank you, Ruby. Appreciate it. >> Thank you, >> Ruby. Moving on to agenda item 45 minutes administrator report. Miss Miller we'll see if I can I'm going to keep it ready for you Sonia. [laughter] Um hi it's good to see you all. Uh so we are

142excited that um we're celebrating. And I wanted to share again our Golden Globe continues to get passed around and uh and since I saw you last uh Miss Lauren Hollock in kindergarten was the recipient for her hard work and really her communication and strong collaboration as our kindergarten team lead and how she's uh led that team for the past two years and then she passed it on to Bri Acquaintance for her creativity and her critical thinking that she uses engaging our students in challenging real world learning and that's so engaging for our students. And then today at our staff meeting, Bria passed it on to Katie Schneider. And so I'll add that for next time. So just that uh award has really become such a great piece of of just support uh for each other

143in our community. Um I also want to share we welcomed Adam Tully to our community uh coming back from break. He's now our uh special education teacher working in our uh significant support needs or SSN classroom. So we now have that continuum preschool through 12th grade working in conjunction with our ILC in the secondary schools. And so we're just really excited about this program and he's been such a great positive addition to our team. We're working right now we're consulting with Firefly Autism which is a network of schools in Colorado that support students with autism and getting a lot of programming consultation and support from them as well as Sunny Peach in developing our program. and we're very excited about being able to serve all students who enter our door, move to our community in

144the elementary school. We're also celebrating uh right now Paul Mey will be heading off later this week to the uh Colorado Music Educators Association conference. He'll be teaching classes for educators around the state and he's also a leader in the conference this year for teachers around the state. So, we're just excited for him and excited for all his hard work to be continuing to grow around the state and um it's great to see the other uh just events coming up. Our annual uh puppet show which is a big hit with the kids is this Friday. Um so my corner comes I think up from Colorado Springs and just huge thank you to the Estus Valley Library and our partnership with the education foundation for supporting that annual event. There's always lots of kids who leave

145and are ready to write puppet shows and make puppet shows [laughter] and just the creativity at Sparks is so exciting and he is quite funny. Um, and then our annual MA family math night if you want to come and run around the school and challenge people in math will be uh Tuesday, February 10th. And then on February 11th, we'll be hosting the second grade music performance. Uh, Mr. Mey has a student teacher again this winter and so Arjun will be uh leading that performance for the second graders as well. So pretty exciting um opportunity for him. The other event date that's coming up is February 2nd is the closing date for the universal uh preschool uh priority registration for the first round of matching applications. And so we've been collecting those priority registrations in UPK.

146And that's for any of our currently enrolled three-year-olds who want to be in our four-year-old full day program. But it's also for any siblings of currently enrolled students or staff children. And so we've been getting those in and verifying them. After that, in February, the state will open it up to the first round of matching. And then about midFebruary, we'll get our matches from anyone else who has applied for UPK. And then families will be notified in late February of their enrollment status. So that's kind of where we are in our UPK enrollment. Our I will I will just anecdotally our UPK priority registrations are lower this year than they have been in the past three years. So um looking forward to seeing what the matches look like that first week in February. And then

147um like Ruby said, we're we've been celebrating our academic achievement and growth. And I know you saw some of it, some more of it during the work session. I forgot to write it on here, but one of the things that I we've been just really celebrating as a team is that our collective goal at the elementary school was that our multilingual learners that 60% or more make their growth projections, their uh growth goals during the first semester in both ELA and math. And we have never come close to meeting that. And we we beat 60% in both ELA and math this year. and in second grade and in third grade they were actually in the 80% 82nd% and 89% meeting the Rick growth for our multilingual learners. So just so excited for the progress our

148students have made and closing that gap between the opportunity and achievement gap between um our students that we've had for the last few years. Um, but we were so grateful to have March 5th to really dig in as a whole staff and in PLC's to make sure we're a highly reliable school for all students to be making the growth that they deserve throughout this school year. Um it has been and I I'll share this later on in our wellness, but we've been really working with our MTSS system to make sure no student is falling through the cracks and that any student who was below the 20th percentile in growth or in achievement that we have a specifically designed plan for each and every one of those students and then every student above the 20th above

149the 80th percentile too. And so it's been our team has been working very very hard. Um we hosted our books and breakfast on January 9th again around our midyear uh academic achievement and growth and we are excited to share some of that progress with our families but also help them understand the family reports that came home that week and how they can read them, what how they can use them, how they can um what they can do at home with that information to support their students. And I just want to thank you all again for your support with our new ELA curriculum adoption. I know you all knew how much of a heavy lift that would be this year and the commitment and the financial commitment you put into that was so huge for us

150and we're so encouraged to see that NDBA reading data growth and our dibble scores this mid year. Um, our really great reading coach is actually returning tomorrow to work with our teachers and do some more model lessons and meet with them to help continue our progress in foundational reading skills. And then you'll be excited. They've actually published a uh third grade morphology continuation that we're excited to dig into to continue our skills. Um and then we've begun this great collaboration between Jim Mey and the library and our ELA teacher with all the real world learning that's a part of the curriculum. So it's really exciting to see. And then in real world learning, um hopefully you saw that on last week on Tuesday, we had our 31st annual MLK march. And I'm just so grateful

151to Ann Leha and her work the past 29 years carrying on that tradition of ensuring that our students have that real world learning opportunity to learn about compassion and global awareness. And um it was it was a great event. And then we've just started our cycle of winter snowshoeing trips up into Rocky Mountain National Park, which we're excited to get going later this week. And our teachers are excited. [laughter] We'll see how the wind goes this winter. Um, and then you know this year one of our strategic plan goals at the elementary school was to develop those studentfriendly ICAN statements for our global outcomes prek through 12th grade. And I shared that last uh month we got feedback at books and breakfast from parents about that. And then all of our PLC's have been really

152digging in to make those learning targets come to life and we're excited about that final product moving forward. So, um, our team has been doing a great job of creating that. And then in wellness, uh, we had our whole school roars assembly on Friday, and if you're lucky, you can see some great tug-of-war uh, footage. Um, I might have I might have beat uh, Miss Spoiler in tugof-war. And I think that will just be my claim to fame. And just I just am so grateful for the hard work Sever Cargill put into that event. Really, the student council planned it all. They had every single grade came up with their own goal of roars to come up. I mean, the three-year-old preschoolers were coming up in front of the entire school and saying what their

153class goal was. And it was just really moving. A lot of attentive as their choice. So, we're excited to see that in action this semester around the school. And um and it was a really fun event. They did a great job of since we didn't get to have it on the last day of school, but it was fun to have it uh coming back and really as a fun way to kick off the semester. And then I shared our MTSS system has been working. We're actually going to have two full days in February. Our MTSS uh the team continues to grow of the teachers who just want to be on the team and dedicate their time after school hours to support making individualized student support plans. And we really wanted to honor that. So, we're

154having two days where we've gotten coverage for some of our staff and we're going to really support so that it doesn't have to be always be outside of school because we want everyone who can be a part of making those plans to be there at the table and doing that. Um, and the last one, it's kind of can piggy back off of Brian was sharing about the grant um that we have community partners that are giving us the supports and one of those two of those those partnerships are through EVIX and Crossroads. Crossroads received a grant and this one has just been monumental for us. And I just really want to shout out that partnership with Crossroads and particularly Lauren Pouti who was the um therapist who was assigned to work with us. And so

155she comes to school Wednesday and Thursday all day and does backtoback play therapy sessions for our kids who need it for free of cost. And the impact it has had on our students is just so significant and for our families and for our teachers because she supports our teachers and developing plans and it is just such a an amazing partnership. I've never seen anything like it in any school and um I just really want to shout out Crossroads for that work and the grant and Sundy um >> they're the ones that got >> Yeah. Yeah. It just is it's just remarkable. I can't imagine life without Lauren Pooie anymore. So, [laughter] I keep singing her praises and crossroads for that partnership. So, yeah. Any questions? >> More questions? Uh again, no question, but I just

156wanted to thank you, Erin, for your leadership and thank your team for leading the students and creating this wonderful culture of having a growth mindset and what you all have been achieving is just inspiring and thank you. >> Thank you. >> On the UPK topic, yeah, so I believe next year we're going to do the four days a week, Mondays [clears throat] off. Have we talked to our partners, the Y, the rec center and so forth that they might be seeing demand for that Monday where those students need somewhere to go? >> Yeah, I've been in contact um you know Bennett Beverly Bod that's I think their new name. um they have kind of like a more specific enrollment like you can't just drop drop in for one day. But I do know that um

157Mountaintop's enrollment has been down and they have availability for all of our students would be able to go there at this rate. Anyone who wanted to would be able to go on Mondays to Mountaintop. >> Okay. And they know to like offer that as a an option, not all week, but just the one day. Okay. Thanks. >> Yeah. Thank you. Well done. >> Thank you all. Miss Greenway. Gosh, it's right there. [laughter] I'm so tempted to just go down a little bit more, but I won't. Um [clears throat] so events and happenings right now um we have three secondary school students who've been selected for state honor choirs. Um Grace Aldridge the combined league honors choir and Geneva Thomas high school all state. And then a middle school student Estelle Lang will be um joining

158the middle school state choir. So really excited about that. On January 10th and 11th, choirs, high school choirs sang the national anthem at Nuggets and Avalanche games. They sent some great pictures back. Um, we also have students participating in the Patriot League Honor Band in Gley. That's coming up next week and J.R. Hawker um qualified for the um state band. So, really proud of that. I got to high-five him today in the band room. Um it's registration season, so we are deep in that right now. Um we actually have our first assembly for students tomorrow and parent meetings tomorrow night to share the basics of credits and courses and what registration will look like and get that information in parents' hands. And then um the next couple weeks we'll be getting kids signed up for

159classes. So, um, we're ahead of the game this year and excited about that. Yeah. Um, our high school play, Too Many Detectives at the murder mansions and rehearsals. That's February 19th through the 21st at 7. Um, we did have a teacher and a student compete in Ski Jor, so I just have to shout that out [laughter] because yeah, John Gratenhouse from the high school competed. I got to see him on his skis behind the horse. And then Conrad Zir who's in sixth grade um did skyhjo and there were some delays on Saturday. I didn't get to see him compete but I'm sure he was amazing. I haven't had a chance to ask him how it went. He knew who his rider was though when I asked him at the event. I'm like who's are driving

160your horse? He [laughter] said he knew who it was so he was excited. He's that big too and he gets on those skis and just goes for it. [snorts] Um, this isn't really event, but we're working on those fire drills. Like, we want some donuts so we can get them all out. It's It's rostering. So, the kids have got it in hand. So, we're still working um with Eric and Paul and our safety team, making sure that we get everybody rostered and keep working on those systems so we know that if somebody doesn't have students that time that we're communicating that through crisis go. So, ongoing process. It's getting better and I know we're going to get donuts before the end of the year. Maybe when it's warmer actually, maybe colder we'll be faster. I

161don't know. Um for um focus area one academic achievement and growth um we took major map and um the data that I was going to share I think Ruby shared but super proud of the growth we uh were pretty pleased we met some of the goals we had set mir for coming up a few percentage points um in achievement and and we've done it and we will do it again in May and and see if we get the rest of the way there. Um we did hold a raffle at the high school for an acoustic guitar um which was donated um to the school and some gift cards and um the student that won had been asking me about that guitar like since we knew we were doing math testing and uh he was in

162the running for high growth. So that was exciting to see. Um, we had a middle schooler gained 31 points in math, uh, 22 in reading and 18 points in science. So, really proud of those kidds and we raffled off um some gift cards and whatever you want out of our Roar store for middle school. So, they got to go on a little shopping trip. um the high school we had a student gain 24 points in math. Um 25 in reading and another one 22 in science. And um when we broke that data down, and I know you've all seen it, but I'm really proud of our IEP and our MO learners when we look at that growth over time. And that's just a huge shout out to um our special education teachers and staff and

163the entire staff for focusing in those areas. I think a big focus on vocabulary has impacted um the reading [clears throat] scores as well. So proud of that. Um let's see. Um we'll have some honor roll and roars assemblies coming up here next week. And we got some cool bumper stickers. So, parent of an honoral student at Ashes Park Middle School will work on that for high school next. So, parents of honoral students can put that sticker on their car. Um, at the high school, um, we've got winter map under our belt and we have turned our attention to SAT and PSAT that's coming up in April. So, we have plans in place to implement SAT practice into instruction. We're going to use Khan Academyy's SAT practice courses. Um, students will be analyzing their MAP

164scores. the the MAP scores predict performance on CAMASS um SAT so they can get an idea if they're in a place to um get the scores they need on the SAT and then put some plans in place and set some goals to get there. Um we pulled some data. I want to shout out Dy Webster for leading the charge for this. um if students do 20 hours using the con academy, the average increase was 115 points. So, we're going to put as many hours as we can um without taking we have to balance that with instructional time, but this is important and so we know where we are with those scores and we know where we can be. So, we're going to put some time and effort into this and then pilot that this year

165and then we'll start in the fall next year and really hit that hard. Um, [snorts] and we want that SPF up. So, it's I'm happy with where it is. I'm happy to be on performance, but we can get that up there. So, we want to push towards um exceeding the expectations across the board. Um, WEDA testing is underway. So, we'll get those results this spring. Excited to see how much those students have grown. Um, and look at that exit data as well and celebrate with them when they exit. Um, hopefully right here. [laughter] Um, and I had some students share their scores and goals with me when they first started last week and they were pretty excited. Um, and I really felt a sense of ownership. So Shauna Carousel's done a great job of making

166sure that they're owning their data. They know their levels. They know what they need to do and they're doing it. Um for real world learning, we are excited that this semester we're able to offer a journalism class at middle school. Um it's a bilingual newspaper that the students are producing. So, it's project- based learning class and the students have been involved um from everything to like creating their logo to coming up with their name. So, it's the Bobcat Buzz and that first edition should be out and they're really excited to be able to share news in um two languages. We're also offering a kitchen essentials middle school course this semester at the middle school. John Jonathan Santana is teaching that. So, they'll get a preview of culinary and we're hoping to continue to build interest

167in those pathways at the high school with a little taste at the middle school right now. Um, the high school winner showcase. I will take I didn't even mean to do that, [laughter] but I did. Thank you. Sometimes I do that deliberately. Um, the winter showcase was great this year. Um, I really was impressed with the work-based learning presentations. Dr. Harris led the charge with that and um, the students put together presentations. They had to share out to an audience. They hit the global outcomes. They hit what they were learning. Um, I was really thrilled with those and um, we got some great ideas about our um, strategic plan presentations of learning and what those might look like just based on those presentations. They were they were really they did a great job. Um, I

168learned a lot too. Um, we have four high school students who were selected for CI's AI student advisory council. So, um, that's exciting. They'll get to join other students from Colorado and share their insights into AI and student learning. I learned today that there are AI glasses. You can put them on and there's a little I didn't know that a little speaker. So, I wish I hadn't learned it the way I learned it, but [laughter] but now we know. Um yeah, not really nothing was on my radar for that. So, we'll make sure that students aren't wearing those glasses when they're um taking tests or [laughter] whatever else they're doing. So, learning curve for us on that. That was a new one for me. Um our ILC, integrated learning center students have gone into business.

169They have a dog treat company called Bone Appreat. I love the name. Um my dog loves them. So they did they had like a test kitchen and then they test marketed and then they gave samples out and had people take them home and try them out with their dogs. So those kids are really learning some great life skills in doing that and also working on communication um and going out into the school community and selling their treats. So that's been a really fun project. Um, we're welcoming JD Summers to our special education team, he um was a long-term substitute in our middle school office and when Adam Tully moved to the elementary school, um, we interviewed JD for the PAR position and he's been doing a wonderful job. Really thrilled to have him on our

170team. Um, Natalie Apodaka Luna is participating in the American Legion oral contest. The speeches are based on the constitution. So this is the first time uh EPs student has partnered with the Legion and Natalie will go to the state competition on February 7. So really proud of her. She's very nervous, [laughter] but I know she'll do great. Um we're going to offer a new course at the high school next year called basic automotive and home repair. So for students headed off to college, that'll be a great course for them and really anyone going out into the world to learn those basics of how that works. So I'm excited about that one, too. Um, some other new courses coming along as well, but I won't list them all tonight. For focus area three, wellness, we're celebrating

171that we're mostly well. We were the school that had so many kids down with that flu in December, so that was tough. So, attendance is back on the rise. Um, and that's a celebration in itself. Um, our wellness team's offering free yoga classes for staff on Tuesdays at the middle school. Patricia Roundree is leaving those. And we continue to recognize students for demonstrating roars in our global outcomes in both schools. And we recognize staff with our lateral past trophies for staff who demonstrate and model our global outcomes of collaboration, perseverance, and compassion. We recognize Shauna Carousel um who teaches in both schools uh multilingual learners and Alex Jazbahu is our sixth grade science teacher and they were recognized at our staff meeting. Um we're preparing for student le conferences in both buildings. that work will

172um take up a lot of our win time in Tuesdays. Um putting portfolios together and um hopefully students can have conversation with the parents about um SAT as well and show them their MOP scores during that time. Um CPR will be offered on February 2nd. Janet um Fanning and Pam Fry are offering that. So teachers who aren't up to date will be able to get CPR certified. I think that's it. >> More questions. >> Thank you, Sonia. Um, and thanks for instituting the uh additional SAT practice. I'm wondering if students are also being taught um test skills and test strategies rather than just doing the questions review. Yeah, that's part of the um Khan Academy program. And then Alex Harris just shared with me through um Gemini, there's another SAT prep and Khan also offers

173um it's called Schoolhouse and that um families can or students can sign up for on their own and that provides um a tutor. So, and it's a peer tutor. So, they have a live peer tutor and those are all vetted through con. So, we've been sharing that information in our newsletter and hopefully we'll get some takers there. Um, just it's important. There's a graduation requirement. Um, and also those skills are important. So, teachers are going to be talking to students about um other assessment. It's not just one test to take to graduate and um you can't get a driver's license. you know, there's all kinds of industry assessment that that kids have to take or adults take as they move through um the work world, too. So, we're trying to build everything in together. So,

174it it's meaningful and it's not just to jump through a hoop. I mean, we want our students to score well on the SAT and they can. They have to know the importance of it. Yeah. So, practicing for that helps you with all the other assessments that you have to take. Fantastic. Thank you. And then um I'm sorry I did not open your report. Is the list of new classes in your report? >> It's not. >> Okay. Would you be able to send that my way? >> Um I should be able to by maybe tomorrow. Putting everything together. >> Yeah. >> Excellent. Thank you so much. >> I just um no specific questions. I just have a general comment. Our midyear data from as an entire district is incredible. Our growth and achievement both. So, thank

175you to every district employee, our community partners. They're equally as important and it is really taking all of us being laser focused on our student outcomes and working together to get to this level and this point. So, thank you to everyone. It's really exciting. >> Well, right back at you. the support is is valued by us as well. Like this is important work and I think now it's part of our vernacular that we're going to achieve and we're going to grow and here's how we can show it >> and we can do it. >> Great. Thank you. >> See moving on to agenda item 46 board reports. Director can Good point. Thank you. Sorry, we for skipped over before we move on to 46. We forgot the athletic report. That's my bad. Ruby, do you

176have can you share the athletic report? >> Yeah, you bet. I'd be happy to. All right. So, we have winter sports underway in girls basketball. They have had a big win over Clear Creek last week. The team works hard and they improve every time. And the team's led by Abigail Wattry, Marley Davis, and Clara Hawker. The team's playing Flat Irons at home tonight, and they'll travel to Front Range Christian on Friday. For boys basketball, they had some good wins over Netherland and Gilpin. And the team's led by Isaac Hill. The team's also playing Flat Irons at home tonight. And then they'll travel to Front Range Christian on Friday as well. Girls swimming and diving is having a great season and they've already qualified for 3A Chassa State in multiple events. Lean Applegate has qualified in

177three events already. The 50, the 100, and the 200 freestyle. Amazing. Actually, a fourth event, the 100 fly also. So outstanding, Lean. Great job. And then the relay team also has qualified in the 200 freestyle and 200 medley. Both relays include Lean Maya Breezy and Shaylee Jagger and Adriana Hernandez. So, congratulations to that team. The team's going to host their senior night tomorrow at home against Pter at 4 PM. >> I'm so sorry. I sit here and I listen and I don't cough at all and then as soon as I start coughing or as soon as I start talking then I have to cough. I apologize. Uh, boys [snorts] wrestling's having a solid season. and they've had some team wins over Fort Lupton, Daypring Christian, Lions, and Liberty Commons. The team's led by Matthew Lopez

178and Fabian Rojos. Matthew is 21 and3 on the season and 81 career wins for Matthew. We expect to celebrate his 100th career win during this season. The team's going to host university on Wednesday for senior night at 5. And our girls wrestling team, which is new this year, is representing very well. That's their first year of the program. and they're led by freshman Yasmin Lopez and freshman Quinn Battton. Yasmin is eight and seven on the season and Quinn is seven and six. The team also will host university on Wednesday for their senior night too at 5. Everyone come out and see them, celebrate them. So, lots of senior nights this week. Middle school, we have girls basketball going on. [clears throat and cough] Um, I really encourage you guys to go watch middle school girls

179basketball. They have a lot of girls out. Their numbers are high. The A team's undefeated this year. They've had wins over Gilpin, Ascent Classical, Knowledge Quest, Plat Valley, Valley, and Heritage Christian all this season. The team's led by sixth graders Felicity Munch and Pton Hansen. Seventh graders Lily Oriano and Lana Schmidt, and they're making a huge impact. They're going to host Red Ridge View Classical at home on Friday starting at 4 if you want to come watch those girls play. Uh, wrestling is continues to be popular sport over at the middle school. Nearly 40 boys and girls on the wrestling team at the middle school this year. Estis Park has more girls wrestling than any other school in our league right now. The team is led by Vivian uh Netabook and Angelina Orano, Nate Shoemaker,

180Za Rojos, and Milo Bond from the for the boys team. And the team's going to host Plat Valley at home tomorrow night at 4. Lots of lots of home athletics happening around the district. So come out and support our athletes. Thank you everyone. >> Thank you Ruby. >> Ready. All right. Move now moving on to agenda item four six board reports. Miss Director Ken, >> we are better together. [laughter] >> So I attended the teacher evaluation committee. We established a collected shared goal for the committee's work and we created an action plan to meet the goal. >> Director Shet, >> um I think all the meetings I went to have been mentioned tonight. Uh finance meeting, we we talked about that in detail. Books and breakfast sharing with the parents of the elementary school the

181the tests and scores there. And then also on the master planning committee um looking over those initial data on building utilization um kind of scoring different aspects of our buildings across our three main buildings and trying to understand um how we're looking and what our current status is. And then also looking at some photos of other districts and kind of imagining the what if as opposed to locked into what we have. But hey, what if what here's what other districts have look have done to get us thinking of that what if status. So work there will continue. Thank you, Director Worski. Director Wis, >> I attended the SIBO's meeting uh meeting with other district members throughout Northern Colorado and it's always good to hear what's going on in other districts. >> I attended the president

182board cafe and the topic at hand was the legislative session in school financing. Also, district accountability meeting met and we discussed uh the exciting student academic data. Moving on to agenda item five, consent agenda. There are six items on the consent agenda. 51, meeting minutes, December 15, 2025. 52, January 2026, personnel list. 53, mid-year budget resolution. 54, committee assignments. 55, superintendent evaluation. 56 superintendent resignation effective as of June 30th, 2026. Are there any items a board member like to pull from consent agenda for discussion prior to approval of the consent agenda? >> Seeing none, is there a motion and second to approve the consent agenda? >> I move that we approve the consent agenda. >> I second. >> We have a motion and second. Aaron, please conduct a board roll call. >> Director Fere, >>

183I. Director Kendall >> I. >> Director Shocket >> I. >> Director Wederski >> I. >> Director Wis >> I carry the vote. Consent agenda is approved. Moving on to agenda item six, action items. Agenda item 61. The board of education may award a contract to a professional consulting firm to conduct the superintendent search. Is there a motion? I move that the board of education approve the contract with HYA to conduct the superintendent search process subject to final review and approval by council. >> I second board discussion. >> I like the process that hya proposed. It included community involvement and engagement which is very important to all of us. >> Other comments? >> Yeah, I would just like to reiterate that I really appreciated their focus on um leadership and taking a really proactive approach which

184I think is something that our district needs. This is a hugely important decision and I think um it's worth putting in the hands of people who made such an excellent presentation to us. Other comments? >> Um, yeah, I appreciate both uh firms presenting to us. I think they're both high quality and they both would do a good job. Um, yeah, I'm I'm a little nervous about McFersonson. They have five openings of districts just like us that are already ahead of us in the process and that makes me a little nervous with our candidate pool that of who might be available when it comes our turn. Other comments? Um I to appreciate the uh presentations by both firms. For me, I appre on hya I like the uh successful community engagement how they did the involvement

185of the community and uh members from the staff etc. going into the leadership profile report in advance. I like that all that work being done. I think we'll get a good feeling um over all on a potential candidate for that would fit well with our district. Any other comments? >> Nope. All right. Aaron, please conduct a board roll call. >> Director Fere, >> I. >> Director Kendall, >> I. >> Director Shocket, >> I. Director Waderski >> I. >> Director Wis >> I carry the vote and the motion passes. Moving on to agenda item seven, upcoming meetings. The board work session is February 10th, 2026 at 3:30 p.m. at the admin building. Moving on to agenda item eight, adjournment. Would a board member make a motion to adjurnn? >> I move that we adjourn. Is there

186a >> second? I second. >> All right. Thank you everyone. We're adjourned.