001[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Down down down down down down down down down down down [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Heat. Hey, [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Down. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Down down down down down down down down down [Music] down. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] I would like to call this meeting of June 4, 2025 to order. And I want to thank the live simultaneous Spanish interpreters for joining us today. We are also live streaming our meeting. Roll call, please. Miss Harper. Miss Applegate, here. Miss Kenworthy, here. Miss Parker, here.
002Miss Reed, here. Dr. Va, here. Would you all please uh stand and join us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisibley and justice for all. Is there a motion to approve the June 4, 2025 meeting agenda? [Applause] I move to approve the June 4th 25 2025 agenda as presented in board docs. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? It has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda for today's meeting of June 4, 2025 as presented. Roll call, please. Miss Harper. Miss Applegate. Yes. Miss Kenworthy. Yes. Miss Parker. Yes. Miss Reed, yes. Dr. Va, yes. The agenda is approved. At our May 29, 2025 meeting, we heard presentations on the following topics. Monitoring report 3.1 and
0033.3 and the TDPAC uh engagement with the board that is uh um technology and data privacy advisory committee. The public can watch the recording from the May 29, 2025 meeting to learn more about this content. You can also visit our board page on the Jeffco public schools website. There you'll find a host of information and links to both the board docs and our live stream platforms. Um the board met in an executive session yesterday to confer with the board's attorney for the purpose of receiving legal advice regarding the board's legal rights and obligations under the superintendent contract dated April 19, 2021 as amended. No action is taken in executive sessions. No action is planned for today's public session either. Board members may choose to make comments during agenda item 2.08 during the board dialogue on
004current topics. So now we will proceed with today's agenda. I want to acknowledge that Dr. Kim Leblanc Sparza is sitting in for Superintendent Dorland who is not feeling well. Um, so the first study item on the evening is for the board to participate in a student-led discussion on sustainability. The board specifically requested this opportunity to engage with students prior to our summer hiatus. This group of activist students has prepared a board end on sustainability for our consideration and discussion this evening. The students are joined by Megan Tarden, sustainability program manager on the district's energy management facilities team. I want to thank our students for taking the time out of their summer vacation to be with us. The time is really meant to be a dialogue between students and the board. So, let's take a minute
005to go around and each introduce ourselves and say what each of us hopes to get out of the conversation tonight. We'll start with our students and Miss Tarden and then move to the board members. Who wants to start down here? And you have a microphone. your name. What school you're from? My name is Tate and I am from Evergreen Middle School. Hi, my name is Luke and I'm from Parmley Elementary. Hi, my name is Zoe and I'm from Alama. My name is Addie and I am also from Alamita. Hi, my name is Kayn Bullard and I'm from Evergreen Middle School. Hi, my name is Anukica Bergstrand and I am from Evergreen Middle School. My name is Aziza Jabar and I'm from Rston Valley High School. Hi, my name is Louise Ladle and I'm from Everdine
006High School. Hi, my name is Claire Nmer and I'm also from Evergreen High School. Hi, my name is Amelia and I'm from Evergreen Middle School. Hi, my name is Odin and I'm from Lucas Elementary. I'm Megan T. Garden, sustainability program manager for members of the DAS. We start with Dr. Kim. Hi guys, thank you for being here. Kim Leblanc Sparza, Deputy Superintendent. Hi everyone. I'm Michelle Applegate. I'm the secretary for the board of education. I'm really excited to hear your thoughts and hear where you guys are at and what you think. Um so really looking forward to the dialogue. And I'm Mary Parker, the president of the board of education and I also am very excited about talking with you today. I'm Paula Reid and I'm the first vice president of the board of education
007and I am really hoping that we end up with something actionable out of this. Hello, I'm Aaron Kenworthy. I'm the second vice president of the school board and I'm thrilled that you all are here even though it is already summer vacation. Thanks for spending some time with us. I'm Danielle Verda um and I'm a treasurer on the school board. Um, I am um hopeful that you can tell us about your experiences and what you expect of the adults to come out of this um and maybe also what you're really excited about and what you might be kind of mad about. Okay. So, I will be facilitating this discussion and I do know that you guys have worked kind of hard on this. I don't miss tea garden do you want to um open it up
008they have some uh presentations to make I think yeah so we have three students who wanted to present the end statement that they had worked on so I'll let um these students present it um the way you were guys wanted to yeah okay hi so again my name is Aziza and I'm just going to start off by reading or probably for most of us rereading the end statement so first Jeffco public schools will incorporate responsible resource management and climate resiliency into relevant department policies so that sustainability is understood as a core value of the district and is considered when making decisions. The district will take proactive measures and establish goals to conserve natural resources, reduce water use, reduce waste, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enhance energy efficiency, and implement practical solutions that ensure long-term environmental and
009financial financial stewardship of its operations and facilities. And finally, students will be prepared for a changing climate through the incorporation of sustainability practices and environmental stewardship during their time at JPS. Curriculum will include evidence-based instructional materials that reflect an evolving future. So, I'm going to start off by speaking on the first point. Uh the language of this first bullet point ensures that a sustainability policy is incorporated throughout all departments of the district because just as climate change is incredibly intersectional and affects every part of life, the policy should reflect that and be involved in every single aspect of school and education in Jeffco. And additionally, the language um promotes a long-term sort of outlook um because again, as climate changes, it's going to be here for the rest of our lives. We're going to see
010the effects for the rest of our lives. And so, there's no reason that the policy should be any less than that. It should also be long-term and there to benefit students all throughout the future of Jeffco public schools. This language also says that climate and sustainability will be a core value of of Jeffco public schools there now. Um, which I think is really crucial because I think as Coloradoatans it's a core value of ours. We live in a beautiful state and one of the most beautiful districts. Jeffco is gorgeous and we are so lucky to have that and Coloradoatans and people in Jeffco public schools understand the value of our natural resources in our land because we value it so much because we get to use it and we also feel the effects when our
011natural resources aren't conserved such as you know we have droughts and fires and things like that. So because it is a core value of us as Coloradoatans, it should be reflected as a core value of all people in Jeffco and Jeffco public schools. And just for some examples of uh climate resiliency, there's, you know, air filtration for pollution days and um when there's wildfires, which there will be more of and proper HVAC systems for really extremely hot days because we do start school in August and it's still hot in August up to 100 degrees. I've seen um shade at playgrounds so that students don't get overheated on hot days again like days in August and May and solar solar panels to um to have a more to have cleaner energy that can supply all of
012Jeffco. That is all. Um hi. So my name is Louise again. Um and I'm going to be talking about the second section of the policy. So the second section of this policy um that addresses resource management is vital to JPS's commitment to climate action. It not only addresses the district's significant impact on emissions, particularly in the building and transportation sector, but also demonstrates how sustainable practices can lead to a substantial cost savings and improved educational outcomes. In Colorado, public schools are the biggest energy consumers in the public sector. Around 45% of Colorado's overall emissions are generated by the building and transportation sector. JPS has around 350 to 400 buses and they're around 155 buildings and it is the second biggest school district in Colorado. So any major changes in JPS will have the ability to
013positively affect the overall emissions of Colorado. Various other school districts in Colorado have already taken significant steps forward to reduce their overall emissions. Look at the Boulder Valley School District. They set the ambitious goal of being carbon neutral by 2050 and have implemented wide-ranging policies to achieve this. The result of this is that in just 5 years they have succeeded in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 13% which is a very significant. Another example is the pudra ball dual district that has implemented similar policies and they have achieved a 25% in energy savings and a 29% water use reduction in the past 5 years. These examples demonstrate that these policies do work and that it it is entirely feasible to have a major impact on our environment. Not only would be would passing this policy
014and Jeff a Jeffco in significantly reducing their emissions, but it would also align sustainability practices with fiscal responsibilities. Simple initiatives such as electric stool buses and LED or solar modifications are sure to offer a major return on investment. For example, Denver public schools committed to sustainability by implementing a climate action policy which resulted in them being able to save more than $5 million every year. These policies are essential to free up funds that can be reinvested in education and student resources. Finally, another major area that is critical and that is essential to reduce emissions is food waste. Food waste accounts for 8% of all global emissions. One school in the district has already implemented food food waste collections leading them to collect around 50 to 75 pounds of food daily for 420 students. That food
015waste is then composted, providing opportunities for more sustainability projects around the district, such as school gardens. Reduction of food waste would not only aid in reducing greenhouse gas emissions attached to the food waste, but it would also allow families in need to obtain good food that was safe in the trash. Additionally, composting around stools would serve as a fantastic learning opportunity for students to engage in and learn about the importance of composting. Taking these actions would definitely further the the district's commitment to environmental and financial stewardships. Overall, passing this policy is critical as JPS is one of the leading school districts in Colorado and can make a great impact on Colorado's emissions. Additionally, JPS would see a great decrease in their transportation and building costs due to a great reduction in energy use overall, leading
016to many funds being freed up to further JPS's students in their education. JPS now has the opportunity and responsibility to lead to Colorado forward. So, let's act on it. And the other students here today will have more examples to add on to these pieces to further illustrates these points once we are done presenting the policy. Thank you. Hi, my name is Claire and I will be speaking to the curriculum part of the policy. According to a youth climate literacy survey in 2025, 85% of teenagers are worried about climate change, but only 12% feel like they know a lot about the causes of climate change. These stats exemplify that there is a desire to help. There's only a lack of information and support. Merely having vague worries about an issue without truly understanding it leaves no
017room for hope and innovation. The climate seal of biiteracy is an amazing first step and we're so grateful that you have implemented this incredible program into this the district. This will be a great way for students to delve deeper into the issues around climate change and more importantly the solutions. However, we believe that climate change needs to be more prominent in Jeffco's curriculum and practices so that we can create create a community rooted in environmental stewardship. We want everyone to be involved, not just the handful of kids who are interested in earning the climate seal by literacy. The ignorance around solutions is a gaping hole that needs to be filled if we are to have a chance at mitigating climate change. Only 10% of students feel like they know a lot about solutions to climate
018change. It's vital that we know where to begin. It's much harder to start coming up with solutions when none have been created yet. It will be easier to know that other people have been working on ideas for decades. Not only does this give us a place to start and plans to tweak and perfect, it gives us a sense of safety and community, a feeling that we aren't alone. We aren't alone in making steps towards a sustainable future. We can build off of the amazing work that Denver, Cherry Creek, Douglas County, Adams FiveStar, Boulder Valley, Pter Valley, and St. Brain school districts have already accomplished. Along with incorporating sustainability and climate change into Jeffco curriculum, we need to ensure that sustainable practices are implemented into daily life in Jeffco schools. Not only are providing plant-based meals,
019composting, encouraging the reduction of idling, decreasing the use of pesticides, and planting droughtresistant native plants easy and effective things the district can do. They also teach students about current solutions and demonstrate the district's awareness of present- day issues. There are so many simple, cost-effective, and powerful ways to be sustainable in our schools. We need to implement as many as possible along with a thorough climate curriculum to become a leader in sustainability and empower students. It's time to show students that Jeffco cares and that there are existing solutions. We need to be inspired by what the world is doing now and empowered to keep that momentum going into the future. And I know that you requested for us to have some examples of policy language from other districts and that's on the handout that we are
020giving you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'd say very impressive. You have done your research. Um before I open it up and ask um the board to ask questions or make comments, anybody else have um something to say on on your proposed um ends and the you know add-on especially I'd like to hear from the ends of the tables here and see what it's like at your school or what are you thinking we might be able to do to help you. Yeah. I've one thing that I have seen is that there's honestly a lack of adequate transportational needs being met. like um some less supported families [Music] um around like schools in JPS um I have seen are would might have might be it might be hard for them to ensure safety of their students
021while having their students for example walk to school because there's a lack of sidewalks or Um there's just and there's not enough safety precautions put around the the roads literally right next to the schools and that leads to increased emissions. That also leads to um just a overall less thriving school community. It leads to more intoxicated students that are less able to learn. And it's not like that this is more um expensive. Like if you invested in this um it would the funding would would the there would be a significant reduction in costs that would quickly make up for the investment prices. These things are very simple and yet some these things are so critical yet there's still a major problem. We need to change that. We aren't just behind. We are far behind. Oh,
022in the Denver metro area, there are tons of school districts that have already taken plenty of action in in trying to do reduce their carbon footprint and still in doing that help their learners thrive. And that just proves that very much is possible. And because it is possible and it's not like there's funding that you're missing in order to implement it because that is reducing costs. We must implement it if we want like it's necessary for the current like state of honestly the world because climate affection is affecting us pretty often almost less than daily. Um, which means we just we just must act and we should act now if we want to both help our learners thrive, help try to have more um funding available for like resources and also just um overall be
023better, be more eco-friendly. Thank you. How about uh the young lady sitting next to you and then we'll go to the other side of the table. Do you have something that's specific for your school? Um so at my school um we do um a food waste program in our cafeteria. So we try to reduce as much food waste possible. Um and um so we have you sorted out through liquids, recycling and food waste and trash. Um and I would like to see that placed in more schools to reduce as much waste and help our earth. So yeah. And how about on the other end this one in my school talking about more like what she said about the or the green team that we are on in our school. I'm also looking at the plastics
024that we have in our school like normally like the silverware we use and like just bowls and stuff like that. I feel like we could change that maybe to something eco-friendly. At my school, we do um a composting thing. And I think um we should have more than just one composting bin at every school that we should have like seven or eight or something like that. And we should have it at a lot of other schools, too. Yeah. At Alama, we had a we're we're trying, you know, a similar plan to all the other schools that already have composting. Uh so, you know, our school is proof that other people are interested, but nobody really knows that there are these options. You know, it's only us here. Uh I don't know how many other people
025are aware that it's even possible to compost at schools. We have a lot of waste. We don't have any composting bins, but if we did, I feel like most of the kids would put the stuff in the composting bin rather than all throwing it away in one giant big. They're always all filled. But I feel like if we had that option for a composting bin and maybe a, then there'd be a lot less of that actual waste, which would probably that they get from the gas station rather than all the food that they give us at school which is on paper trays that are compostable and the paper what's the milk cartons and like vegetables and all that stuff we could throw into different bins. We don't have that bin to even throw it in.
026So that would be really helpful to just have to add on to their point. I feel like we do have quite a few people in our schools that would be so willing to become climate literate. But the problem is that our school's education is so illiterate completely. The quality is low when it comes to environment right now. And we have so little people that actually know about what's going on. So little people that even know that some of us are at this board meeting arguing to improve our education. And honestly, I think that our community and our entire world is just sick and tired of hearing growing numbers on the news, rapid voices, all that, and are sick and tired of not seeing people take a step forward. And if Jeff Co can take that
027step, I don't see why we don't walk. I don't really have much to say, but I definitely agree with Kayn and Amelia that we just need to implement like composting in like other schools and that's just going to make a big change for all of Colorado. Sorry, I'd also just like to add on. I mean, clearly you can see here there's a lot of excitement about, you know, people in the schools in Jeffco, they're ready to do all this. They're already doing it. We just need the resources to help us so that it can be more widespread throughout other schools and just more proficient to the needs of each school. And also, um, I'd like to talk about transportation. Like Odin was saying, um, I go to Rston Valley. I don't know if you guys
028have ever like taken a close look at the area around Rston Valley. I'm very close. So, I walk to school, but the amount of times I've almost like been hit by a car is kind of absurd because there's no sidewalks on my walk to school until I hit 80th Avenue. Um, so for a while I'm walking without sidewalks and it's the same going down Alkyre, like all the way up Alqaire, there's no sidewalks. Um, and so even though there's a lot of kids who live plenty close to walk, they don't. And so you get this huge backup of parents who have jobs and things to do driving their kids to school in the morning and kids are late because it's backed up so far. And you know, it's just like an awful mess. And then
029the parking lot is full. We have to redo the parking lot this year to create more spaces because so many kids drive because they don't have either the walking accessibility or the bus access accessibility. And again, that just creates more carbon emissions and health and safety of your students, I know, is your top priority. And it's just not safe. The amount of car crashes that happen in the parking lot, I mean, it's absurd. It happens every week. And it's just stuff like that. like the options for safer and more climate friendly transportation should be there. Well, board members questions. Director Kenworthy, you want to start? Um, thank you for coming and speaking to us so eloquently about the things that you are concerned about and the actions that you want to see us take. Um,
030how many of you are at Evergreen Middle? I think I Yeah, a couple folks are here. Um, and I've seen your food waste efforts in your cafeteria. What I want to lift up for folks who haven't maybe visited there is the way that um students have ownership and leadership in that program um and are also actively holding each other accountable both at school but also correct me if I'm wrong but I want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly but also to take it home and implement it with their families and in their larger communities. Is that accurate around the work that happens with the food composting and the sorting? um which I found to be amazing when I was there um because it's not teachers standing and policing participation in the program. it is
031the students holding one another accountable. Um, and that is where the learning happens and that is where the community building occurs in the work that you are asking us to do. And I think that can happen in a middle school. It can happen in a larger scale across our county. And so I'm excited about your asks for um coalescing the various programs that are happening in pockets around the county into an expanded more accessible program that people so that schools know what their options are and they're not having to make it up on their own but that they're plugging into work that's already happening and that it's being studentled. I think it's super exciting. One of my questions I have Dr. Kim is about our high school reimagine programs um that we're talking about because
032I know Evergreen Middle School is doing this amazing work in middle school. Is there a way are there pathways that we have that lead towards environmental sustainability specifically in any of our um CTE programs? There are envi environmental um sustainability pathways. Uh it's school dependent though it's not in every school. So it's a good question to be asking. All right. So there's some room to maybe expand or consider. Yeah. Some options. Yeah. What is an environmental pathway? Environmental sustainability pathway. Um so I'll give you an example. There's been one at Warren Tech and um one of the things that we've struggled with at least most recently is some of the enrollment in that pathway. Um, in fact, we just met with Green Mountain, um, the school leadership office and I met with Green Mountain because
033they have, um, a proposal for connecting, you guys remember the Ampedon algebra and the construction and geometry classes. They have a um, proposal and they've put it forward to the state of Colorado to try to scale that and make it available to everyone if they write the curriculum for algebra 2 to connect to environmental sustainability coursework within a CTE pathway. So, we have some of the courses, but embedding that in with um some of our core content would take that to a whole another level. So, we're in the conversation with um Green Mountain and the staff there who are interested in putting that together. Fantastic. I want to thank our panel also for listing local school districts that are engaged in the work also that we can partner with and have a larger conversation. This
034is not just going to impact Jeffco, it'll impact our entire state, right? Um, and so this is work that has a lot of potential to grow and expand and build out. And I hear your ask for additional resources and some really focused attention from our board by accepting an additional ends. And we don't have very many ends policies. And so adding another one is is a significant change to what we already have in place. But I think um that that your ask is incredibly valuable. And I am so glad that we have students who are coming and asking our leadership to engage in this um right now. I heard the sense of urgency over here. It has to happen now. Um and I want to tell you that I've heard you and um let's see
035if I have any other questions for you. Um who who is working on composting composting programs? All right. Um do you have community gardens or a place where does your compost go once it is coalesed? Uh that is what we're working on right now at Alamita. We're definitely just in the you know the what if stage you know talking about it with uh teachers and like a club sponsor because that was one of our hopes was to get a gardening club to help with that you know uh studentled educational aspect. Um, and slip my tongue. Uh, that's okay. You're at Alama. Yes. Uh, yeah. And we don't we have the space. We we think we have the space for a community garden. Um, but we we just we don't know yet. Uh, you know, the
036interest or anything like that. Yeah. Go for it. I've talked to a handful of my friends and stuff at the school and I've asked them if they would be interested in like being part of this club or having this stuff here and they are all like usually excited for that idea. Like they like the idea of it and they also want to join in. So, uh, so here's what I want to offer up because I only live a few blocks away from Alama. Yeah, I'm a neighbor. Hi, I'm a neighbor. Um, and I have younger kids in elementary and middle school um, in that area. And we have an articulation area crossover right along Jewel Avenue. Um, but I do know that Green Gables Elementary, which is just across um, Jewel from where you all
037are, does have a community garden and you're so geographically close to one another that I imagine there could be ways where we also have um, some multi-grade level community building that could occur. they've got a garden, you've got a composting program. How do we connect one another? And I know that there are other elementary schools that do have community gardens or there are community partners that have gardening plots for their people in their community. And I think there are ways that we can plug in, but it's just making sure that we're directing our energy and our attention to making those connections. Does that sound like a good thing for us to to take a look at? Yeah. All right. And I for me it's exciting to imagine having high school students who are showing up
038and bringing in elementary school students and middle school students into the into the work that's already happening because that itself is also a sustainability practice, right? because soon at some point you all will continue to grow and age up and graduate and we want to make sure that we have people coming along behind you who are going to continue the work because you've brought up um the um needing to work for future generations of students was something that you mentioned and I want to just thank you for bringing that up. I think um indigenous cultures here in the United States rely on a seven generations mindset where a lot of the decisions we make as a community rely on the impacts for the next seven generations. That kind of thinking and what you have mentioned
039the work that you're asking us to engage in holds that value of considering the generations of students who are currently with us and who are going to be here in the future. They'll be your children and they'll be facing different realities around climate change than even we're facing right now. So, I want to thank you for being passionate and being engaged in this work and coming and telling us what you need us to do. And I'm gonna I've taken up enough time that I would like to hand it over to some of my other fellow directors. Thanks for being here. Other directors, director, you guys did a brilliant job. Absolutely brilliant. and um and you should feel really good when you leave here and and know that you spent some of your summer vacation doing
040something really important and doing it well. So, I really appreciate that. Um I do have a few questions for you. So, we you talked about sidewalks, the lack of sidewalks and and that it is um hazardous to walk to school, near school um in some areas. And as a school district, that's actually not a thing that we do, but we can work with our municipalities to talk about the need for that to happen. So, one thing I'm hoping that you might be willing to do is not just talk to us, but also talk to your city council and your mayor. And I'm realizing that that is something I can do that I can write a letter to my city council and to my mayor as a member of the school board and say, "Hey, this
041is this is important to both of us. Our kids are our investment in our future for our cities, for our state, for our school district." Um, and so I'm kind of hoping that you might take a few more minutes out of your summer and and jot a quick email to a city council member. Um, yeah, county commissioners. Um, can I make an offer? I would like to offer if any of you want a board member to go with you to talk to city councils or municipal leaders, please just ask. I would be I would be happy to accompany you and we can go together, student and board members and engage in public comment um at our municipalities throughout Jeffco. And I would add if the board is interested perhaps we could even write a statement
042as the board that's something that if we can't be there with you you could share. Yeah. In support of that. I think that's something we can team up on together. Can I just uh step into? So um with Stober actually the city of Lakewood is working on um a safe routes to school infrastructure up update this year as well. So, that's a big project um that's happening and they're going to make sidewalks so that kids can um get safely to school. And then Jefferson County also reached out to me about um partnering on another safe routes to school grant, applying for the grant in 2026 um as either an educational um grant or infrastructure. Jefferson County obviously doesn't have um jurisdiction to change um sidewalks within all of the the cities, but they are wanting
043to partner on this because they also recognize this as an issue. So, great. Good to hear. Um yeah, President Parker, if you can just jot down a note that we would like to think about a statement that we could make jointly as a board, I think that would be great. Um I I'm wondering, Dr. Kim, if you can tell me, do we have climate literacy incorporated into our science curriculum or is that something that we're thinking about? The seal of climate literacy is a new phenomenon as as some of the students talked about in the state of Colorado and um our CTE team has been working throughout the spring to bring that to reality. And in fact, um, we have a we have a website all put together now off of the Jeffco website on
044seal of climate literacy and how to engage in that in order to get that. Um, and that will be available to students starting in the fall of 2025. I'm kind of thinking though even our core science classes um, you know, it just seems like and it has been a very long time since I took earth science. I remember rocks and stuff. I don't remember talking about climate and we certainly back when I was in school did not talk about climate change is and is you know is that just part of the core science curriculum. So there are environmental science classes that our students can take as a part of the menu of science options at many of our high schools. When you think about science, it tends to be in buckets of there's earth science,
045there's, you know, when you think about space science and you think about um, you know, as as you go through like I taught physical science, which I taught physics, chemistry and and but when I taught middle school, I did teach um, you know, environmental science and and earth science and in fact built a greenhouse and did a bunch of sustainability work back in the day. So, I'm excited about you guys being here because it's a whole lot of fun. I remember with my students going and visiting a 40 acre greenhouse that did hydroponics down in taking a huge field trip down to the state of Texas and really looking at how they were doing that work. So, it's exciting to see our kids doing some of this work. But yes, there are environmental science classes
046available to our students that do meet some of their requirements, some of their graduation requirements as as one of their science courses. Okay. I guess I' I'd really like to see that become part of basic science classes like in elementary school and are you guys are you guys learning about those things in just your regular science classes if you're not taking something special. Um if I can jump in real quick. I have noticed the high school the high schools typically do have courses on environmental science things like biology, environmental learning, um ways pollution training. I know all that. But as far as elementaryaries and middle school goes, I know that Parmy, my mom teaches there, um is pretty environmentally literate when it comes to that. They have their own garden. But in my school, I
047believe I learned I'm in seventh grade going into eighth. Um I believe I've learned about environmental sciences maybe one time. I think I learned about global warming once in sixth grade while learning about weather. It was added on. So I think that honestly more education could be implemented to help learn about environmental sciences more than we are because I know that it's in high schools, but I haven't seen it much in elementaryaries or middle schools. And I'm actually going to disagree with the point about high schools. I had to go out of my way and sign up for Jeffco Virtual Academy in order to take AP environmental science. And that is the only environmental type class that I was able to take. Like that was the only thing available to me. And I had to
048take an online class in order to do that. Which honestly in my opinion, like for me personally at least, like online classes, they just don't give me the same quality and level of education enrichment as an in-person class. So that was really disappointing. And I like I agree with what you're saying. It really should be more core. Like it should be like when I took AP environmental science, it didn't count for any of my science credits. It was an elective credit which I could have gotten from something more fun, but I I chose to pursue what I'm passionate about. Um, and yeah, it really should be something that's it it should be something that's required really. Um, and but I do completely agree about the point about elementary and middle school. I didn't really I
049I can't recall learning at all about climate change in school when I was a kid. I learned about it from outside sources. Um yeah, and also I want to go back to the thing about um going to like municipalities. That's why that's part of the reason why this incorporation of climate literacy into curriculum is so important because especially the solutions based education because like this group here we even we barely knew that we could go to our local government to like our city government in order to talk about this. If we like the people who are like we are focused on this, if we even barely knew about that, think about the kids who aren't focused on this because this should be something that every kid is interested in or like encouraged to participate in.
050But if they don't know how to go about it, then you know what's going to be the point? They should know these things like to go to your local city government, stuff like that. Um, I'm going to unfortunately notice the time. Um, we could stay here all day and I would prefer to stay here with you, but I want to make sure the other directors get a chance to say something. Do um Dr. Varta really quick. Um, but you're so impressive. It's I think we're all really proud of you. Um, I was just going to say, um, I wondered if you might think about doing something like a newsletter or something and you could put us on your newsletter list and anyone else, but it would be really neat to be able to get updates
051from you all. Um, so I didn't know if a parent could help you with something like that or just ways to to keep communicating and then, you know, we could share it with other people also. um just to give um some ongoing conversation and dialogue. Um I was I was going to I'm I'm just going to pose it um as something to think about because I think it's a hard question, but in this conversation that we have with a lot of people about climate and environment, there's always a conversation that follows it around tradeoffs. So like what? So if we put resources into this in a in a time when at the school district we are very short on resources usually we have to trade off with something that we don't pay for maybe. Um
052so I don't think that's a a question as much but I it's something that I get asked a lot about well if you're going to do that what are you going to stop doing instead? Um or what are the costs and benefits of of these things? And so it's I think convincing to say we should do it and then the implementation of it sometimes is is expensive or hard and I'm not saying that we shouldn't do it because of those things but the realities sometimes are the reasons that we have those challenges. So um I won't ask a question because we need to move on but I guess and I would just encourage you to think about that in your conversation to help convince people why those tradeoffs are are worth it. um and and
053be able to acknowledge that we do have to sometimes give things up that we love dearly also in order to do the other thing. Um so that's all. Thank you. Um well, first I'm thank you guys for coming today. I am so proud of you all for coming and for not only just coming and and talking to us, but bringing something that is actionable. Um we we asked you to do this and you showed up and you showed up in the summer. So, we really appreciate that. Um, I don't talk about it a lot, but my career is in air compliance and greenhouse gas decarbonization in industry. And so, if this is your passion, we desperately need you in industry. Don't give up on it. Um, if you want to talk afterwards about what you
054want to do with your career, I have would love to talk to you. Um, we need your voices, not only in the schools, but we really need them in the world. So, thank you for that. It's it's not easy. And right now we're in a very interesting um time. So, thank you. I'm also super proud that you built this in as a core value for the district because it is a value and it's something that when you talk about it as a value, it to director Varda's point, it helps us in those trade-offs when something is a value. So, I appreciate that. Um I do have some questions. I know Miss T. garden is working on a lot of things as she is new to our district. And I know when you presented to us,
055we talked about reductions from a 2014 baseline. And so we have a 17% reduction in energy use from 2014 and a 37% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. What I think would be great is for us to figure out what that goal should be because it's easy to say those numbers, right? Those numbers are good numbers. Um, but when I think about it for my organization, I'm thinking about it from 2021. And so when do we need to think about updating that baseline? Um, and why those are things just for us to think about as a district. How are we measuring the cost savings? I think that's an interesting point. We talked a lot about cost savings and that's how we're going to be able to justify a lot of things. So things for us to
056think about um and for our capital asset accounting committee to think about too. Um, I want to lift up that my daughter is in preschool and part of the curriculum in her preschool is reduce, reuse, and recycle. And it's awesome to see a herd of four-year-olds demand that their teacher not throw something away because it could be and I saw it literally like the teachers were like barred from the trash can because these little four-year-olds were like, "No, we can't." So, it is possible to do in elementary and it's possible to do young. And to director, can we I'm going to get emotional. Director Keny's point, you guys can teach the next generation and you are leading in a way that's really important. Um, because my daughter now questions every time I put something in
057a bin. She can't read the words, but she asks if I'm putting it in the yellow bin or the green bin because she knows. So, it is it is possible. And I want us as a board to know that it's possible and it's happening in our preschools because this district put preschool curriculum into place. So, that's that's something we should be proud of. Um, my question for you, sorry I'm talking a lot at you and I don't mean to. I I would love to. Um, as a sober parent and someone who attended a lot of city council meetings, you can do it and we will help you do it. Um, if you have any questions, Stober parents are a great resource and those kids went to a lot of Lakewood City Council meetings. So, um,
058and when you are putting a new program in place at your school, how are you teaching your fellow students about it? And how are you spreading the word? and what tools and maybe since we're out of time this is a question that we could share with Miss Tarten what resources are you guys using and how are you doing it to get that buyin at schools because we might need to use those best practices when we implement this at other schools so I don't know if we have time to answer but I will throw that out as those would be feedback items that would be helpful for us so great job thank you guys so much absolutely I mean we listened to an awful lot of presentations and you guys blew out of the water it
059was it wonderful and it was so well prepared. So impressive. I'm looking at senior capstone projects right here in the making. Um but you have our commitment. We were are going to work together on this board statement. We are going to offer to go meet with the municipalities and other government entities. Um also we will be bringing this topic up. Um I'm thinking we have um a retreat in the um August time frame where we just brainstorm what we want to do next things uh next priorities. It's a good time to talk about end statements if we are uh ready to put in an ends new end statement. So anyway you guys were awesome and we are psyched and we will be moving forward with the suggestions that you brought to us. So stay tuned.
060Thank you for your time. [Applause] So for our next study agenda item, it's to receive an update on the school safety monitoring report EL11 from Jeff Pearson, executive director of the department of school safety and Melena Deandria, senior manager of strategic projects recovery and resiliency. This specific executive limitation addresses our safe schools plan. Before the presenters begin, Dr. Kim, is there anything you would like to say? Thank you, President Parker. I just want to say thank you to both Jeff and Malena. I'm incredibly proud of this team and the work that they do. Keeping kids safe is such a cornerstone of of Jeffco. Um when you and I got to visit the Frank D'Angelus Center earlier this year, you guys got a chance to really see how their staff is trained and the work that
061they do to really um be prepared to serve kids and serve them well. And then a couple of you got to participate in the ribbon cutting earlier this year at the new dispatch center and see what a great state-of-the-art facility that was. Um and certainly watch some of our our team um and how they work to keep kids safe. um when I look at all of those screens and all the things that they monitor and the things that they pay attention to to make sure that our schools and our um facilities are safe all over Jeffco, it's it's mindboggling to see how much of that um training they go through and the work that they do to support one another. So, thank you both for for the work that you've done. I look forward to
062hearing about um updates on the safety work that Malina, you guys started to share earlier this year. So, um looking forward to hearing from both of these folks today. Thank you. Um, I don't know how you follow that group of kiddos. You know, as a former principal, I saw IB written all over some of those young men and women and also maybe a doctoral dissertation. So, I was extremely impressed at at those uh young young people, which makes what we're about to talk about even more important. Um, as you know, we have a strong passion. Um, I especially do. This has, I think, been our work for a long time and we're excited to present on school safety and some of the components that we currently have in place and some things that we would
063like to see uh down the road. So, um, thank you for allowing us to be here. I want to start and talk a little bit about um, can we go to the next slide? Oh, you have it. Thank you. I want to talk first about just some recognitions because, you know, in our world oftenimes recognitions don't come too often. We talk about the work and they dig in, but we don't get to recognize people for the work that they do. Um, the first thing I want to to raise up is our SRO of the year, as you know, the importance and significance of SRO in our buildings. This award was named after the late Arvvada SRO, um, Gordon Beasley, who was killed in the line of duty and his dedication to kids and the recognition
064of his work. Um, and that award went to Officer Thomas Steel from Westminster PD. Um we had the chief and the sergeant and the commander all with us at our award ceremony. So it was really nice to recognize him. Next we have a a better together award and that award is uh awarded to an admission partner that helps make a difference in school safety and this year if you know anything about Jeffcom 911 if you were at our presentation for the new um uh dispatch center they were a big part of helping us get that put into place and to help us find some funding for that. So, we awarded Jeffcom 911 as our better together mission partner um to help school safety. The interoperability that they offer to us and the trust that they
065have makes a significant difference in response time from law enforcement and our divisions when there is an issue at our schools. Next, we have our safety advocate awards uh which is administrators that go above and beyond to partner and ensure safe and welcome environments daily across Jeffco. This is always a really difficult decision to make an award because there's so many people that fit into this role, but this year we chose Brooke Tomach who is the principal at Slater Elementary School for her amazing work. And then also this name is significant with everything we do and that's Terry Waldererman um as a student services director. Everything she's done and the partnership she's given us over the years has just been so so tremendous. So those two were awarded the safety advocate award. And then finally,
066the safety champion award is our very own Dr. Kim Leblanc Sparza. And I will say this, under Superintendent Doran and Dr. Leblanc Sparza's leadership, I really believe that we as a department of school safety no longer are just simply the response physical mechanism that we used to be. their leadership on the academic side and and changing from operations has really ensured us to become a culture of dedicated environment or dedicated to psychological and physical safety and the delicate balance of the two. We can be great at physical safety, but we have really dug in to prevention and psychological safety and what that means to our schools and that has come a long way in the last two years under their leadership. So, we awarded uh Dr. Kim with that amazing award as as our safety
067champion for the year. So, thank you Dr. Kim. I'll let Malina kick off the next. Great. So now we are going to dive into the monitoring report. So executive limitations 11. The superintendent will develop a school safe schools plan following consultation with school and school district accountability committees, parents, teachers, administrators, students, and when appropriate members of the community that provides for a safe learning environment conducive to the learning process and free from unnecessary disruption. So, in this report this year, we've updated content. First, the emergency dispatch center redesign. There's an update in there regarding that new exciting project, the safety protocol for extracurricular activities, student voice and safety planning and management, secure vestials and visitor procedures, campus supervisors, our budget considerations for safety. So that's cameras, radios, and video surveillance and storage, visitor and volunteer
068management, community and community partner tracking, and establishing emerging technology. We're going to dive into all these a little bit deeper as we get to the compliance statement. Now, we also have new content in the report. We've added content regarding our student safety, our shared responsibility initiative, and two appendixes. one, our safe and welcoming learning environments investment report, which is appendix A, and a draft adult sector misconduct response procedures, which is appendix B. Now, Jeff is going to dive into the data we looked at from this past year. We were pretty excited about the data from the student and families that had opportunity to compete the Jeffco listens employee, student, and family feedback surveys, which took place from January 21st through February 18th. A total of 3,623 Jeffco employees responded to the surveway. Most of those
069employees, 3,68, indicated how safe they felt at work over the past week. As shown, 57% reported almost always feel safe. Now, that was a two points down from the last time we gave the the um the survey. However, an additional 28% indicated they frequently feel safe, which two two points above. So, it kind of equates to a pretty even keel when it comes to our staff feeling safe. And, you know, we take that uh I think we take that very serious because we talk a lot about student safety and students feeling safe, but we want our staff in all of our buildings, in our schools to feel safe as well. So, when we look at that, we often go back at our with our management team and think about what we can can we do
070next to enhance um how our our staff feel safe at at work as well. Next, the family survey included an overall safety topic with five separate questions. As you'll see um on the table, more than 11,500 families of students in preK through 12th grade answered the survey. 3/4 of those families responded favorably regarding their overall perception of safety, which was the same as last year. So very even. The topic ranked near the 40th percentile compared to national panorama survey vendor benchmarks. For this topic, Jeffco falls slightly below the average compared to the responses from other districts and schools across the country on the same survey questions. Elementary families reported higher favorability for the schools to the school for safety topic than secondary families. The questions with the highest favorability were around children feeling safe and
071drugs not being a problem at school. That says a lot because I get calls often um from our middle schools and our high school parents saying, "Hey, what are you going to do? This seems to be rampant in our schools." And we work with schools on what that looks like. But it's great to know that our elementaryaries are not dealing with that issue, at least from from the survey. Please note that a percentage favorable is measuring the positive responses from families. And this has come from Dr. Eaton. And this is great because sometimes when you dig into surveys, I don't understand the nuances of this. And so, um, the example, for an example, the question overall, how unsafe does your child feel at school? A large majority, so 84% of those families reported that their
072child feels not at all unsafe or slightly unsafe. And sometimes you can read and misinterpret some of that data. And it's great to know that 84% plus of our students feel ex as it said feel not at all unsafe. Mixture of words, but uh I love to I wanted to make sure I pointed that out. I thought it was very important. The Panorama survey um for grades three through 5 was administrated a second time this year. Um and for secondary students in sixth through 12 for the third time. We had 12,000 elementary students that completed the survey. uh seven in 10 respondents had a favorable perception of the overall topic of safety. Compared to national norms, that ranks near the 80th percentile. That is a huge celebration. Huge celebration for us. The items of highest
073favorability were in the lower likelihood of being bullied online or in physical fights for elementary students. And about 40% of elementary students had a favorable response for not being disrespected by others. I think those numbers say a lot about a lot of the things that we deal with and we see through safe to tell and others are a lot of these similar topics and we've got students that are willing to take a survey and they're telling us that that they're they're not they don't feel like they're unsafe in those realms. I think that says a lot about some of the culture work that we're doing with our schools um internal to the to each of the with the principles. And then finally, for 25,000 secondary students who completed the survey, a little over six and
07410, so 62% across the board, responded favorably to the overall school safety topic, a 1 percentage point increase from the prior year. If you look down every one of those questions, it's great to see either a zero or an increase in every one of those percentage values. And as you all know, as we do, we had a very difficult year. We had some severity, some some issues that came up and and they've been pretty severe this year. But to know that our that our secondary students really feel like there's a safe environment and the culture of safety is there. I think it says a lot um for what we're doing in our schools. I'll kick it over to Malina for some of the operational items. Now, as we move into our compliance statement, we're going
075to first start with the items we've operationalized. So, first with campus safety. Our campus security team is deployed throughout our high schools and many of our KA and middle school campuses. They are highly trained in mental health, first aid, deescalation, search, camera access, and intel, and are assisted by mental health and safety personnel as appropriate. Now, next, we go on to safety checks. Jeffco's emergency operation plan or EOP continues to be operationalized with modifications occurring when necessary overtime. In the 2024 25 school year, we completed annual full safety checks at every school. So this includes our fire drills, lockdown, shelter or evacuation drills, verifying our school response team member information and credentials and other pertinent information to be fully prepared for any type of incident. Now, when it comes to emergency response training, our building
076administrators and community superintendents are scheduled to complete their annual mandatory safety training for the 2025 2026 school year in July and August. and transportation secretaries, paraprofessionals and facility managers are scheduled to be trained in July and August on safety best practices and responsibilities. Additionally, cabinet and our other Jeffco public schools instant command system teams. So that's our reunification team and our emergency phone bank team are scheduled to complete large-scale scenario responsebased training in July and August. As we move on to our threat assessment model, Jeffco implements the threat assessment model identified by national best practice which requires the following instance as you can see in the report. Um but it it requires establishing a multi-disiplinary threat assessment team. All these things we've done. Um defining prohibited and concerning behaviors, establish and provide training on central
077reporting systems. Determine threshold for law enforcement intervention. Establish assessment procedures. Create and promote a safe school climate. and provide training for all stakeholders. So, those are all things in place with our current threat assessment model. Now, when we move on to community education, the Department of School Safety and Security works with school-based parent organizations to present safety best practices and to answer community questions through school-based structures. A presentation was delivered by this team at the safe school summit in April of 2025. We move on to student review team. Student re review team is a multi-disiplinary team meeting weekly to make balanced decisions regarding response to severe student behaviors. Now onto the consistent use of the district discipline matrix. All school-based administrators have been trained on the newly revised student discipline matrix and are using it
078to inform discipline decision-making. And last in that operationalized category, our emergency dispatch center redesign. The Department of School Safety finished its renovation and technology upgrade of the emergency dispatch center in April of 2025. This project was funded by almost a million dollars in grant funding from the state of Colorado's Office of School Safety. We also received $75,000 in grant match funding from Jeffco Public Schools and $100,000 from Jefferson County Emergency Communication Authority or JCA. The newly renovated center has expanded its space to accommodate growth in the emergency dispatch center personnel numbers and now has state-of-the-art technology allowing the dispatch team to provide faster life-saving support to schools in need. Now we're going to move on to our on-track items. So first in on track when we look at safety training we built capacity with consistent
079messaging and robust safety training across all divisions of the organization training to include in person and virtual online when and where available. We've implemented a safety protocol for extracurricular events. So we've trained department of school safety staff personnel, athletic directors and other key stakeholder groups and the evacuate of evade defend safety protocol. So this is a best practice protocol for an active threat at large events. So think our sporting stadiums, musicals, etc. Um we hope to scale implementation to all stadiums and school sites. Next in on track our student voice and safety planning and management. We've increased solicitation of student voice through Jeffco student leadership board and strategic decision- making around safety priorities and planning. And now we have also provided an appendix A, the safe and welcoming learning environments report. So this past year
080we developed a roadmap of safety related funding priorities in the development of this report. It's a follow-up of the 2024 alliance work um with input from our four board advisory committees and the student board. We all we got to see all of you as we went to your different committees over the past year. Following up on on track our secure vests and visitor procedures. So we increase target hardening for unwanted visitors which is basically making our schools less attractive, more secure and harder to access via secure vestules which prioritize controlled access. And in appendix B um we added in the response procedure for adult sexual misconduct draft. Um so our student safety share responsibility initiative. We're collaborating with local child safety experts to evaluate current safety practices and implement revisions or new initiatives to create
081a safer and more supportive learning environment for all students. Now we're going to move on to Jeff touching base on our challenges. Probably the most difficult part to talk about are those challenges, right? We wish we could could solve all the problems, but I want to talk a little bit about some of the challenge that we run into when it comes to some of the safety measures. Um the first I'll start with the volume of reports. As reporting tools like safe to tell grow in popularity and usage, our team has experienced a significant increase in the volume of reports, requiring monitoring ongoing and consistent timely responses. In your handout, you had some of the safe to tell data that you had asked for the last time we met. Um, I do have some data from
082last year, very similar in those five categories. um we are very consistent um either up or down in most of those categories but very similar to the 2023 24 data. Next I wanted to move on to uh campus supervisors. We're closing our 2425 school year with just 15 vacancies. Many of those were either they moved on or retirements. It's one of the lowest ratios we've had in vacancies in recent years. Despite ongoing staffing challenges, we remain committed to increasing the number of campus supervisors to ensure full coverage at every middle, K8, and high school with future consideration for elementary schools as well. Budget and considerations for safety, cameras, radio, and video surveillance and storage. Some nonFTTE school safety investments are funded centrally while others fall under individual school budgets, leaving the maintenance responsibilities to schools
083and creating parity challenges outlined in the safe and welcoming learning environments report that you've all received. When it comes to visitor and volunteer management, community partner and community partner tracking, this district currently lacks a consistent visitor and volunteer management process with some schools using systems like Raptor while others are not, prompting the exploration of a district-wide solution that will require centralized funding. I'm happy to say that we do have a project team moving forward right now um with uh the visitor and volunteer management and community partner tracking that kicked off a couple months ago. So we're in the middle of that tracking and that project is moving forward. Establishing emerging technology. You heard from TDPAC last week who talked about modernization and everything is computerized. But prior prioritizing school safety requires evaluating and effectively implementing
084advanced technologies such as emergency alert systems that activate intercom intercom alarms and notify staff via messenger apps while also addressing the challenges of adapting to the evolving needs and securing sustainable funding for adoption and maintenance. That too is included in your safe and welcoming environment. That packet which is the safe and welcoming and learning environment dives into these details with more cost estimations and the community feedback. As Malina said earlier, we went to all of the different um board committees and got some input. The safe and welcoming learning report was produced during the 2425 school year as a collaborative effort between the department of school safety and the office of strategic initiatives. It fulfills the alliance superintendent goal. School safety ends 3.1 to 3.4. for and builds on the spring 2024 alliance engagement. A key
085component of the development of this safe and welcoming learning environment was seeking input from our board advisory committees, the DAC, the district advisory committee, TDAC, TDPAC technology and data privacy, the capital asset advisory committee which is CAC, the financial advisory committee, FAC, and then also our Jeffco leadership board JSLB. There are key physi physical safety recommendations from all of our board advisory committees and student leadership throughout that report. Finally, our recommendations at a glance. All staff and students and school communities deserve environments that are welcoming without threats, bullying, intimidation, and harassment. Jeffco public schools prioritize the safety and well-being of our students and staff. We understand that students learn best when they can attend classes in a secure and welcoming environment. The district safety plan identifies security programs and measures that focus on prevention, intervention,
086and crisis response 24 hours a day. Jeffco safe schools schools plan is part of the district emergency operations which includes both school sites and our educational support sites. The plan is reviewed and revised annually. Changes and revisions are made based on best practice or shifts in protocols or school environments. The first part is to invest in people. Equipping school communities with the right staff and resources is foundational to safety. Consistent funding is needed to maintain and grow school safety staffing, including salaries, benefits, and the tools these professionals need to s to serve schools effectively. Schools needs needs vary, and flexible, reliable staffing models must be supported to address sight specific concerns while aligning with national safety standards. staffing and maintaining our school resource officers under a new cost sharing model which is now consistent with
087other districts across the metro region and across the state. Staffing school-based campus supervisors, we are finishing the year, as I said, with 15 vacancies. And it's once again extremely challenging to hire these, but we're so excited with the new expectation and training model we have in place to keep camper supervisors in the program in their schools working throughout the year. Investing in modern equipment, radios, cameras, and other essential tools should not be dependent on individual school budgets. A centrally managed system, including a rolling seven-year radio replacement cycle, would ensure all schools have access to up-to-date functioning equipment, minimizing disparities, and reducing administrative burdens at the school level. Camera and radio purchase and upgrades and maintenance would be up inclusive of that seven-year plan. investing in technology and data system. Districtwide emergency alert system would be
088a digital application that allows a staff member to initiate an alert. It triggers an audible alarm over the intercoms, but it also notifies law enforcement in any individual that we deem fit over the over the secure app. This system reflects a national best practice and ensures timely response and recovery in any crisis. Visitor and volure management system. As I said earlier, we have a team that's working on that currently. Um, the district's exploring ways to purchase and implement that uh at once sometime, but it's going to require central funding to source out. I know last week, as I said, you heard from the TD pack, but we must stay in alignment with the national best practices and modernize Jeffco safety infrastructure, and that includes required upgrades to our aging security technologies. That includes our video
089surveillance and storage. All of that is in your safe and welcome environments packet. Um, those were recommendations from those five board committees along with our student leadership board. With that, that's the end of our presentation and we're glad to answer questions. Thank you. You weren't that bad compared to the kids. Not bad. Um, we'll take not bad. Any uh questions, comments for our presenters? Dr. Part, thank you. um important work for us. Um I was curious about the campus supervisors. Why do we why do you think we have the the gap? Is it um a difficult to fill position? Um is it our pay range? You know, the challenges of the job. Just curious what you think the challenge is in filling. Yes. Yes. And yes. I will say I think it's an extremely difficult
090job to fill because oftenimes people aren't sure what it entails. And when you actually get in the job and we talk to them about, guess what? You're going to hear some of real negative things. You're going to see and be um exposed to things that kids are are going through and you're going to have to deal with that and manage that. And if you've got crisis in your own life or other things going wrong, sometimes people can't handle that from a dual fold. Um I think pay range is a part of it. I think that that's just it. That is what it is across any I think our Jespa positions is um the pay component is is difficult. Um, we were really excited that we are now able to pay individuals through the whole year.
091Um, I think that was an issue we dealt with a couple years ago and I think we fixed that. Um, has been a big deal. But we get people that get in the job and they're unsure of what it entails and all of a sudden it becomes too burdensome. And so at some point we are working on really trying to challenge ourselves to be better at upfront implementation and onboarding to try and see if we can navigate that sooner before we get a month or two months in and they decide that they're they don't want to get there. But I think those are all concerns that we try and navigate. I wonder also if um the the surrounding school community might not understand their role or importance like not just on boarding for them but
092for the whole school community to see their um to elevate their role in a really respected and valued way. Um I've just I have a friend who was a community s uh I forgot the title campus supervisor. Thank you. um who felt like maybe not as valued in the community as as as they felt they were. So I can appreciate that. We do everything we can to lift them up and elevate their work whenever we can, but I think often times they're seen as that individual that just takes care of certain things and keeps the school safe. And when we, you know, we started, and I won't get into it, but we started a leadership development program in the department of school safety last year, and this year was our first leadership program where we're
093growing our individuals up from the JASPA level as leaders. We're taking them through book studies, and we're actually doing leadership orientation with our teams to help them do exactly that, have more ownership and and be seen a little differently and hold their shoulders back and show the importance of the work that they do. Um, I was just going to say, thank you for the clarification from Dr. Eaton. Um, we should fix that in the slide. It's so confusing even though I know it. Um, I know we want to report the favorable response, but at a glance that you the question you think it's the negative. I know you said that, but um, maybe I'm just plus oneing that. Um, it's so that people don't get confused how favorable the results are. I did have just
094a question on the um, what slide am I on? seven. But the the it's the same one where we where you were talking about positively how really it's 16% only said they do not feel safe at school. 84% answered favorably. On the other hand, the first question is how often do you worry about violence at your child's school? And that one trying to add them now. 56% said favorably, but that meant 34% 44% said um that they do feel unfavorably they feel that. So um what's the uh how are we looking at those two measures differently, unsafe versus feeling of violence? Because that's a pretty different response and to me they seem very similar. So I'm curious how we got parents who feel so differently in one category and not the other. Does that make
095sense? I would say I think it's extremely difficult to deise something that says here's why parents would feel that. I don't think we know exactly. My concern with this entire survey from a safety lens is it's very subjective and it's very vague. Um a lot of things about not feeling safe and violent could be you ride the RTD to school every day. Um, I saw those young men and women talk about um their they're unsafe walking to school every day. So, a parent's perception answering a safety question could simply be their walk to school, their walk home, and not necessarily negate some of the physical safety of the issues that are going in the school itself. So, I think that's very difficult for us to really think about exactly what that's favoring. I think it's
096something for us to think about and ask the questions. I think when we get in front of our uh the uh our parents and the organizations, we often ask, you know, what do you feel? We ask parents to give us input and I think we can continue to do that, but I I would say it's very difficult, at least from my lens, to put something specific in there. And I just you've presented before, but I am so grateful for the view of the central the look at the central resources for for these. It's it's just one of those things we just should not have inequities in schools based on these budgets for safety. it's just a non-negotiable, I think, in terms of having equity across the board and highest standards um for safety in our
097schools. So, thank you. Thank you. Um so, I want to start off by saying I'm super grateful for the ongoing cultivated relationships and long-standing partnership with our sheriff's office and our municipality law enforcement. Um, I know that's not something that comes without effort and it's been an effort and a lot of um, investment over a long period of time. Um, and I I just want to lift up um, as a Lakewood resident how grateful I am for the Lakewood um, PD especially in their response recently and holding community um, as we've dealt with some difficult issues. Um, I also want to lift up I appreciate the attention given to psychological safety and cultured climate as prevention rather than just uh an an overreach into physical safety. Um, I prefer prevention rather than reactive. And I
098think it's making a difference in our county and for our students. I think that that um focus has been kind of uh culture changing and um I have lots of reasons why I think that but I won't go into it right now. Um I did want to ask you how the recruitment efforts are going for those 15 vacancies. Are we are we making any headway? Are we hoping that the summer is going to be productive? We typically start those interviews um mid July because what happens if you start too early, they say yes and then they don't start till August and they've already found another position. So, we'll wait till late July, but we'll get a pool of applicants together. We have a process we go through to get them acclimated. Mr. Gus, uh, Jimmy
099Gus, who is our emergency um, our campus supervisor manager, he and I have already discussed going into a second level of interviewing and some hands-on opportunities um, through the interview process to maybe get people more acclimated to what they're signing up for prior to putting them in the work. Great. One thing I'll add to that, a part of our culture work this past year has been really focusing in on orientation. So, how we're bringing new employees in all five of our sections into the department. And so, um, that work has is being done monthly now where new team members get to come in. And that's oftentimes our campus supervisors because that position is the most revolving. Yeah, thank you for um putting some extra effort and attention onto that. Um on slide six, we were
100looking at the employee safety data and I do want to lift up I know it's only 1% but 52 employees responded that they almost never feel safe. And so my curiosity is what is our response to that? What happens for somebody who responds that they almost never feel safe in their um work environment? I know we don't capture like the names of who responded in that way, but for folks who maybe did and maybe are listening, what how do we respond? What do we do? I would love to know as well and I think um Dr. Kim and I think any of our um chiefs in our organization would love to know the answer to that. And I even if we can get a survey that's synonymous where people say, "Hey, here's some of the
101things I'd like you to focus on that don't make me feel safe at work." I think we've heard some of it in in in public comment that have come from some of our membership um about some things that they're cons concerned about in their working conditions and I think that's probably a part of it. But we would love to dive in and see what we can do. The problem becomes when you don't know and you're unsure of what exactly is making people feel unsafe. It's sometimes hard to fix. We can surely navigate that world as much as we can and be there and be involved in discussions, but until we really know what's going on, sometimes it might be very difficult for it to help us to help fix that. Absolutely. I just I it
102makes me curious about prior to them feeling safe. Like, are they aware of what their response, what their options could be? Um, and if there's a way to if there's a way to report where they're not going to be afraid of either retaliation or being dismissed or um, it's just something I'm thinking about because 52 is is a lot of individuals who are working with our students who are reporting not feeling safe. And so even though it's 1% of our, you know, 99% of our folks are not saying that, it makes me wonder how we support them. Um, when do we plan on hearing back from community partners about our ASM practices? like when do we get to hear back their feedback? That's a great question. So, we've already gotten some initial feedback from our
103community partners reviewing our practices. Um, we've meet with the Rston House and so they've helped us initially get feedback on our current training. Um, we had a meeting with them at the end of April actually and so our working group is continuing to have that dialogue as we're developing those practices. So, it's actually an ongoing process where we're getting feedback, we're changing, getting feedback, changing. Yeah. So, there's there's exchange and it's back and forth. Yeah. Great to hear. Um, are we looking at Raptor as a district-wide service and is there an RFP process in the works or are we looking at other providers? I'm curious about that. Other providers. Um, I think the the project team is looking at opportunity of what that should look like and then there'll be an RFP to go out
104to make sure everybody has an opportunity to see what the best and most productive system cost effective would be for us to implement. Can I add to that or were you going to what I know is is both Jeff and um Tara Pena did a significant amount of homework looking into what products were available but part of in doing all of that the realization of it's not just about we do this for all of our schools but we have to have an in-depth conversation with our IT team to make sure that the supports in place that we understand how we train people what are the upkeep and all those pieces. So um July got involved with that process as well along with project management and really looking at it from a more systemic level to
105make sure if we are going to do something like that. We set ourselves up for success with it and we're really thoughtful about what does it look like to really put that in place throughout an entire district and and so it's taking the time necessary to make sure I identify all the elements needed to set it up for success. Great. I would I would lift up that we have heard from community members who are concerned about costs um related to that and I am in support of us having a volunteer and community partner management system and having that um tracking ability for who is in our schools. Um but I hear their concerns about cost and um trying to balance that. I just want the community to know that I've heard it and I think
106that it's incredibly valuable for keeping our school safe and also as a community member and a parent in the community. It's important for me to know that there are security thing um things that are in place and that I don't know what all of them are. that is valuable that I don't know and that other parents also don't have a full view of all of our safety protocols because as much as I want to trust everybody in our community, we also have to make sure that we are um really allowing our institution to keep everybody safe and not thinking that person who's okay today is going to continue to be okay tomorrow and they won't approach a school um with some bad intention. And so I've had conversations with parents where we adamantly agree disagree
107about this, but I I wanted to lift that up um that I do support us having um visitor and community partner tracking in our schools and that it's not based on SBB. Can I can I add to that really quick? Um because this this was something I was going to raise. We have had public comment about this. How would you all as the experts respond? because I I share director Kenworthy's perspective, but I think it would be helpful for those listening from the public to hear tell us why it is so important to have and for us to invest in that system consistently because I know some schools are doing to volunteer at my kids school, I had to have a background check, but I don't know that that's the same at every school. And
108so, if you could speak just from the experts perspective as to why that's so important, I think that would be helpful. Is that okay, Erin? Mhm. I would start that it's national be best practice. If you look at any national safety protocol expectation from the FBI to to any system out there, they talk about a visitor volunteer process and management system to know who's in our buildings at all times. The background checks are an additional response, right? We should know who's in our buildings, what the background is, and know if we're going to expose our kids to individuals, we should know enough about them to know whether they belong around kids or not. That's a secondary option, right? anything to do with bringing an individual from the outside in our schools, there should be an
109expectation that we not only recognize who they are through some type of a visual aid, but we've done enough to recognize why they're there and then we allow them to go to certain places we want them to be at and nowhere else. That may not sound like a safe and welcoming environment at times, but it's a safety environment that also welcomes people to protect and take care of our kids. And when you talk to national safety experts, and Malina could speak to this, she speaks all over the nation about some of this work, that is an expectation that they all have, and that's a consistent expectation across the nation. Yeah, it's a norm as we look at national trends to have processes in place where we're really being sure that we are clear on who's
110around our kids at all times and the the varying levels of access to kids. So if I'm going in to bring in cupcakes to a classroom, that's different than I'm leading a reading group alone with a group of five kids, right? And so being really clear about specific adults having access to children is incredibly important. Also, when we look at the flip side of if an emergency occurs in our building, we need to know who's in our building because our first responders don't care if it's a kiddo or a teacher or a volunteer. If there's a person at in danger in our building, they're going to go risk their life to protect that person. Having an accurate list of who's in our building at all times is incredibly important from that other side of the
111coin. When bad things happen, we have to have that response. Just want to um thank you for that. I was going to ask that exact same question and and I just want to really lift up because there is a narrative among our community, among our staff, among a lot of people that we're wasting money by spending money in central administration and that this money does not directly benefit students and keeping our students safe is like one of the most fundamental ways that we benefit our students. So, I'm just hoping that increasingly our uh people who are representing JEFCO and people who are living in Javco will kind of stop and think for just a minute. What does that central administration budget do? And why is it so important that we take this out of central
112administration funding so that we're not saying some kids deserve to be fully safe and other kids do not? So, I just really wanted to lift that up and highlight that. Um, thank you. I didn't start with that. I should jump in. Thank you. The work you do is incredibly important and I I think what you've seen is a board that passionately agrees with that. Um, I wanted to ask about the secure vest vestibules. I know we're really close. Do we have all of them done? We have one left to be completed this summer. So, the goal is to have everything completed by the end of summer. So starting that 2025 26 school year we should have all completed. So I want to lift that up. When I joined the board the my first meeting at
113the CAC I didn't realize that this was still something we were working on and that is a huge accomplishment for 155 schools. So I want to lift up the accomplishment that that is. Um I also want to lift up and I know Mr. Pearson we've talked about this that preschool causes some interesting and unique challenges in our system. And so if there are those listening and if you have questions, I encourage you to reach out to your principal about how we are keeping schools safe when parents do come into the building more than to just drop off in the hugand go. Um I know it's a question I've gotten a lot. So um I want to lift that up because I I get that question quite a bit with my daughter being of that age.
114Um I also want to just share that I was really excited to be a part of the new dispatch center opening. I think those are unsung heroes in a lot of the work that happens. Those are people up all hours of the night, high stress. Um, and so I'm really glad that we were able to give them a facility that is worthy of the work that they are doing. So, huge props to the district on that. And the D'Angelus Center visit was always super impactful and I'm I'm so proud that that's something that we have in our district. Um, I'm also interested in finding out how we make sure that that central office budget is inclusive of all of our schools. And so, I don't know how we do that. Um, but that is something
115that I'm very much interested in making sure we're funding um, from an equitable standpoint across. And I will just end by saying um, I want to lift up the Golden Police Department and our partnership there, too. Um, huge responses for us at some of our schools this year and um, it's really meaningful and as parents as a district, this work, it means a lot. So, thank you. I also want to thank you and I've really enjoyed all the um events that we've been at and the trainings that you've given. I think they've been really helpful for the community. Um and also I want to uh lift up the monitoring report that goes with this. It has so much good information and personally I get so frustrated to get an email or hear somebody talk about
116uh Jeffco doesn't care about safety. They don't care about their kids. They're not doing anything to prevent sexual abuse. And this monitoring report shows how much we're doing, how much training and what resources are there. Also, I like the links that you have, the discipline matrix. We get so many um emails from parents who say, you know, my son got slammed in the um at the playground, you know, and that that kid that that pushed him down, nothing's happening, you know, what are we doing? and just letting people know here's a discipline matrix and here's what we do and and there's levels of of risk and so forth. So I I really want to figure out some way we can push it out to more people. Um also on the SRTs the uh student review
117team how are the students identified to be part of the review? We aren't typically involved in the SRT for the most part, but I do know that oftentimes students are brought there when it's crimes of violence. Um, if there's weapons charges or significant um charges against a student that may have a victim in a school or victimization where that SRT came together and and what's great about SRT and about the threat process, people always look at it's a threat assessment. What we love to talk about is it's a threat assessment to provide um expectations but also to provide input and sources of support for students to keep them safe. It's not a mechanism to label somebody as a threat. It's a mechanism to give support so kids can be safe in school and navigate the
118world of school while still being in maybe they're going through the justice system. We're giving them resources to help support them. And so I know that SRT team does a great job of identifying individuals on where they should go, what the best next case scenario is, best place for for them when it comes to the severity of the crime or the whatever threat that they they pose to the to the school. And one thing I will add on to that, um, our threat assessment model really is a national model when it comes to best practice around threat assessment. So I want to lift up our judicial services team for the work they do every day. And that process really takes out um the questions around where do kids go along the lines. Um you'll see
119in the report in the data provided around the number of threat assessments that were started versus 88% of them were screening tools. So that means something's brought up, it's screened at the school level, it's reviewed as not a threat and it doesn't move on in the process or there's supports provided. And so as it rises up that threshold, that's when that student review team comes into play. We're really proud of the work that team does every day. I'm just going to throw in there too that when I was teaching anyway, um teachers could refer people to that. Okay, that's what I So is it like the school refers them? Typically there's there's an incident andor a pattern of behavior that they get referred to the SRT team and it is a multidisciplinary team. It is
120school leadership, it is the judicial services team, it is mental health support and SEAL team. it it's it's a number of people really looking at to Jeff's point not just how do we keep everyone safe how do we educate that student in the best way possible as well and ensure that they can continue learning also so it's it's really something looking for best case scenario for both the student as well as the school um population that they have maybe been attending with prior thank you um and two other things um one is the number of tickets that are given out to students I um read an article recently that um really shocked me and I thought I knew a lot about the the legal system, but that in Colorado um you can charge a a
121child 10 years old, you can arrest them and you can charge them with a crime, but they don't get um automatically get uh legal representation like an adult does. You know, an adult court hearing, they say if uh you can't afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. the the kids don't get that which is shocking but it concerned me because the article was talking about some kids that um you know most of them get diverted there's a program to you know make sure that they don't get a record started but if if a child and family wants to fight it and say no we're not going to admit anything then they have to go find their own legal representation so mostly I'm just saying um are we aware of that when we're handing
122out tickets. Are the um SRO's aware that these are children and that it might be, you know, more complicated than adult tickets? I I'll start. I'll just say I believe they are. We we have a started back a juvenile working group with the district attorney's office that just kicked off a couple months ago and we're going to meet again in September and we talk about those very things. what's happening with our juveniles, especially our youngers that are that are potentially finding themselves in very difficult situations with law enforcement. Our SRO's have specialized training that they have to go through through NASRO that teaches them and and gives them in compliance with individuals at a certain level and age on ticketing systems and that and they do an amazing job. I can't tell you that there's
123been any tickets written for youngers to that age. I know we had a recent one that we were dealing with. Um, what's great about our our partnership with law enforcement is we get to call them and talk through with those investigators. We have an amazing relationship where the CH crimes against children or even just investigative work that happens outside of our SRO, they're in constant communication with us about incidents that's happened. So, we can talk through and talk with them about here's our take from a school lens. We can't tell them what to do or when to write tickets, but we surely can navigate the world with them together. And our judicial services team works handinhand with that judicial system, right? So there's actually a group that meets for kids that are younger in the
124process. And so our judicial services team has a voice at that table and part of their role is to provide supports, wraparound supports for students so that um they can be successful in whatever that process looks like. Um and what I will say is when we look at SRO data, our some of our agencies like Arvvada and Westminster provide us reports on their number of contact with students and what that contact actually is. And we see the majority of contact estros are having with students is mentorship or they're giving them legal advice. Like mom and dad might be going through something with the court system and they're giving them advice on that. Um or just an overview, not like formal legal advice, but an overview of what's going on there. And so a majority of
125those interactions are not being resulted in tickets or something that's putting them into the system. It's more of that mentorship relationship. Great. And I just have one um random statement to make. I feel like when I go into a lot of schools, I get through the, you know, the first um button and the buzzer and all that kind of stuff. It's great. I get into the secure vestibule and there are so many door options for me to go in from there. I I'm just trying to figure out why we need so many doors once you get in the vestibule. Do you have any idea how doors are assigned? A true vestibule does one specific thing. When you get inside it, we get to control your next level of access. The level of access should be
126either into the main office where we have individuals that can navigate while you're there before you get access to students. The main door should give you access to students. And so best practice is to have doors that navigate either welcoming you into the building where you have access to kids or putting you into the office where you can be navigated by adults prior to you then going through another set of doors to get to students. So secure vestibules are done in a way that manages individuals so that we have better security and better I I guess resistance to make sure that they're getting access where we want them to have access. That certainly makes sense, but I'm telling you I get confused. I'm in there and don't know which direction to turn, but it's just
127random. Anyway, thank you so much for this. I'm really proud of the safety precautions that we have in Jefferson um schools. So you guys are doing a great job. Thank you all very much. Okay. Our next um study agenda item is um for the board to receive an update on the FY202526 adopted budget from Miss Brena Copelan, chief financial officer, and Brian Sammons, director of budgets. This is our final presentation before we adopt the budget next week. I want to acknowledge and and thank the members of our financial advisory committee who attended our May 29 meeting and gave public comment on our budget. I also want to thank our budget team for their preparation and presentations over the past several months. Seems like it just never ends, does it? Um, and before I turn the
128time over to the presenters, Dr. Kim, is there anything you'd like to add? Thank you, President Parker. I just want to say also a thank you to both Brena and Brian. Between, you know, the state funding process, negotiations, building the budget, the demands on them at this time of year are pretty significant. And they not only engage in that work, but we ask lots of questions during this time frame as as a as a staff team. And they work incredibly hard to be responsive and give us the feedback and the the data that we need so that we can continue to engage in many different processes. So, I just want to say thank you to both of you because I know that you work incredibly hard all year long, but this time of year is
129particularly challenging. So, thank you for being so responsive. Was almost going to forget the microphone. Sorry. Uh good afternoon board members. Uh we're excited to be here today as our concluding presentation of what's been a little bit of a marathon. Uh, a couple opening comments. Um, as we talk about our timeline, you know, I it's easy to think of this as our budget. I think Mr. Sammons and I both put a lot of our personal energy into it, but it's really not. Um, it is a compilation of budgets across probably 250ish 250 people um who are deeply invested in doing important work. So, for example, uh, Mr. Pearson is a budget owner who oversees his budget and and the budget represents his plan of what he's going to do next year. Same is true for
130our school leaders. Same is true for lots of different folks in the district. Um so I don't want to lose sight of the fact that this is not actually just one mammoth thing. It's many many um pieces of a puzzle. And so in so far as sometimes we don't have an answer about exactly what someone's plan is with their budget, um it's simply because it's too many pieces for any one human to keep in their brain um all at once. Uh budgets evolve. This is to be expected. um it reflects, I think, an attentive um budget practice that is ultimately more transparent for the public when we update our budgets. And so the reason that we come to you with a January revised budget is actually that it is more transparent to tell you right
131away um if we're spending on track or not and adjust accordingly or if something has changed in funding or something has changed in enrollment. It also creates a better starting point for the following year's budget. So, I want to be clear. Um, the goal is not to pick a number today that stays the same for every single day in the next 365. The goal is to give our best estimate and and per the request of this board, this district approaches the budget as a an estimated spend. It's not the authorization. it is what we think we will actually spend. And so we take the the sum of all the pieces and then we subtract 50 million$60 million um based on our estimate of what won't get spent, right? But that makes the whole thing just
132an estimate. Uh so I want to be clear about that. Um, so today we're going to present the adopted budget, but if anyone is tuning in late in um this minieries, they may think this is a rather short episode, and it is. That's because we've had so many. Um, today, the adopted budget formally includes by reference the proposed budget. And um, you'll recall that presentation from May was many, many slides. I actually think it was close to I don't know 680 90 I don't know anything that has changed we will highlight today but we are not going to repeat all the things we already shared and that is incorporated by reference and um I'll remind us at the end as well this is a way to visualize how the budget presentations build on one another
133and what numbers we've shared at each and how they get to today's punchline. Um, and as a spoiler alert, today's punchline is um that our new general fund budget um represents a $2 million expense increase from the current year, meaning next year we estimate that we will spend $2 million more than we are spending this year in the general fund. um because revenue is flat next year. We've shared that same projection multiple times. That 2 million becomes an additional draw on fund balance as compared to the current year's drawn fund balance. Um the rest of these kind of walk us through the evolution points. So back in March, we talked about school budgets and we talked about the fact that um our enrollment continues to decline. Back in March, our estimate and actually back in
134December, our estimate was that enrollment would decline around 800 students. Um we'll come back to you in September, October um with an update. At the moment, um we think the decline might be a little more than 800 students, but the trends in enroll are not so severe that we want to make a change to that estimate today. So, uh, when we presented it in March, we talked about the fact that budgeting fewer expenditures at the school level ultimately results in a starting reduction, so to speak, of expenditures of about 5.4 million. So, and we repeated that number in April. In April, we talked about departments. Um, I think you just had a conversation where you clarified that school versus department is not the same as central versus something else, right? There are many many departments
135whose sole focus is our students and work in schools and um we don't actually characterize all our departments as general administration or central administ. That's not what they roll up to. Um, for example, safety and security rolls up to operations and maintenance. That's um consistent with CDE standards and practices. They they don't roll up to general administration. Um, just because something is a department again does not mean that it's not focused on schools. So, I think in the department budget conversation, we talked through a series of changes we needed to make that amounted to a $10 million increase. And for example, you see that bullet below. Um existing programming deployed in schools through student success, which is um includes our special education department, uh food and nutrition services, safety and security, and general school-based activities
136were all temporarily funded andor were running in excess of their budgets. Um such that 6.5 million of the 10.2, two, that's a so-called ad um is actually just shifting funds. We have to identify a new source of funds for something that used to be in a grant fund or used to be covered by, for example, our municipal partners. In the case of safety and security, we talked in that presentation about 2.2 million of costs that used to be paid from somewhere else and is now paid for by us or will be next year. that shows up as an ad, but it's not a new activity. It is something that we're currently doing. We currently have SRO's and they will cost more next year because we're now split funding them. So, um, all of the things
137in that 10.2 did not represent new activities. They represented things that were currently doing that cost more. Um, and we talked a lot about cost overruns, etc. And you see those also by the way in our Q3 which um I'll be sharing next week. We did post it early so you could see it if you haven't yet so you can see some of those overspend trends. The most notable one is um special education. So again just to serve our students that we have and the things that we're doing is costing more than the original budget estimate and therefore we need to add budget next year. Um so that was the 10.2 to in the proposed budget. Um we talked about reinvesting what had been one-time compensation for employees as recurring and then separately we talked
138about reducing our contribution to the general fund. Typically in the past several years we've been contributing 30 million from the general fund to the capital reserve fund. At the board's direction the proposed budget shrank that to 15 million. So that would show up sort of as 15 million in savings if you were to compare this year's budget to next year's proposed. Um that line item costs 15 million less. Now the net net of um our comp increases as of May 9th. Um and that decision to defer a contribution or reduce a contribution to capital was a net reduction of 12.8. That means that um the comp increases we had offered as of that date slightly exceeded what we're paying today in onetime comp. Right? That's how those numbers all um get us to a net
139negative 12.8. Does that make sense? I can come back to it. Um, the sum of all that was summarized for you at the proposed budget on slide 22 as a year-over-year change to general fund expenditures of a reduction of 8 million. So, the proposed budget proposed a general fund expenditure line that was 8 million lower than the current year's revised budget. And again, if honestly, you can get out your calculators if you sumg 5.4, positive 10.2, to -12.8, you get to8 on a year-over-year basis. So, this is this trying to compare current year to next year and walking you through each change, whether it was a change in a school budget or change in a departmental budget, recognizing that departments does not equal central um or a change relating to compensation across the board, all
140schools and departments or the capital piece. So, those are all the changes we've talked through today. Um, the only thing that is new is updated compensation costs and a little bit of additional true-up. So Brian's team in the midst of assembling 250 teams budgets um and doing that groundup analysis and we'll talk more about this later in the deck um carefully looks at each and every average salary each and every planned FTE sums back up to make sure we're assuming the right thing about benefits and it's like a bazillion different checks and balances. Um, and they actually came up with a couple of places where we can reduce our cost estimate. And so those help offset a little bit of the comp increases that are net ads. Those become net subtracts. The net net is
141a 9.6 increase of general fund expense. So again, now we sum all those numbers, we get to about 1.6, which I've rounded to two. So that was the number I let off with. um the $2 million on a year-over-year increase to general fund expense that has showed up in each of four different presentations, different pieces of the puzzle to reach that sum. So, this is my new thematic graphic to illustrate that. Yes. Is it okay if I ask a question? So, it's hard to come back just to be sure you understand. So in all of these is there is a um reduction increase reduction increase. So I think I understand how we got to the 2 million um within there. So for example because I had asked like what's the cost of and we have
142that a little bit later. So that's not what this 9.6 is the 9.6 is a net. All these numbers are net of multiple movements but yes we have the specific number you asked for just a little bit later. I guess I'm confusing. What is the 9.6? Can you just explain it again? Yeah absolutely. It's a net of um kind of three different things and we do have detail slides because it it wouldn't be appropriate to just share one number. I was just trying to summarize it all in one place because it is it's sort of a story um told in four different chapters. Today's chapter is the 9.6 um and we will share more detail about that which maybe if we keep going um it will become more apparent. Um it is our goal to
143explain that in in detail. So, um, couple quick process notes. Um, you you have to adopt a budget by June 30th. You know this. Um, and of course, I believe, um, both sets of bargaining unit negotiations are still open. And so, um, this adopted budget, um, is just that. It's a budget that must be adopted. You must adopt one. You cannot wait. um past June 30th. And like we've always said, it's an estimate and we can revise it. So if the district makes decisions subsequent to adopting this budget that change it, okay, we either amend it and that's usually like a September time frame or we revise it and that's usually a January time frame. Um and so the board has those options available to it and we still have to have assumptions that are
144in this budget. And so for purposes of building a budget and a plan um that is our best estimate today, we've used compensation increase offers that were the district's most recent offer. That is consistent. Every other year we've done this process. We've always basically used if negotiations are still open, we use the district's most recent offer. if negotiations have concluded, obviously we include a cost estimate representing that negotiated increase. So I wanted to make that super clear. And then um secondly, in terms of the resources available to the district, you'll see this on a subsequent slide, but since we're in summary mode, um I wanted to point out that we are estimating the general fund will have a fund balance of 175 million at the end of this year. um of which 140 million uh
145at the end of this year of which 140 million is spendable. So if you want to juggle some numbers in your head as we're talking today 140 million is spendable and that needs to cover a lot of different things and again we have a different slide that goes into greater detail but it's just something to to bookmark for the moment. Um different uses could include things like school carry forward which is an assigned reserve, an operational reserve which enables us to allow for fluctuations in prices of things that is an approved activity but ends up costing more etc etc. So there's lots of different res assigned reserve uses that are part of the total appropriation but are ultimately showing up in reserves. So again that 140 is available for all those uses as well as
146a subsequent year's budget. Yeah. If the So the 140 is after we spent I couldn't find the numbers. The 39 million deficit that we have in this year's budget. 38. Yeah. 30 38 to 39 something like that spent it. Yes. And so this is the leftover before we are approving the $40 million. That's correct. Addition. Yes. And and again those details will be in here. We supply a forecast um of the current year so that you see both current year revised budget, current year forecast, next year's budget because I think obviously um in taking your role very seriously around what are the resources available to the district, we want to make sure you have our best guess for what resources we will start with on July 1. Okay, good afternoon everybody. I'm here to cover
147um the FI2526 adopted budget revenue and expenditures. Okay, so just to kind of ground ourselves a little bit in the slide deck on the top right we have either no change from proposed budget or revised from proposed budget. We tried to spot that in the beginning but I will be referencing it too as I talk through the slides. So here we have the FI2526 general fund revenue. Um general fund revenue budget for this next fiscal year remains unchanged from the May 9th proposed budget presentation. It is projected to remain flat compared to the revised 25 2425 budget. Total program is set to be around 728 million reflecting a modest increase of approximately $1 million over the current year. However, this increase is fully offset by a projected $1 million decrease um in the FY25 revised
148budget and all other revenue sources which are expected to total $254 million. Okay, so here are the final general fund revenue assumptions. Um these again are unchanged from the proposed budget um from May 9th. So as shown, the district is forecasted to decline approximately 800 students and overall membership. Current projections estimate the funded count at around 64,800 when we use a 5-year average and then 64,300 using a four-year average. The atrisisk student percentage is expected to drop by about 1% while ELLL and preK enrollment remain stable. Special education enrollment has increased 300 students from this current year utilizing the December counts. Um, please note that the total program funding will be calculated using a combination of a fouryear and five-year averaging as outlined by the CDE. And I want to ask a question on this
149slide because I was confused what a 64 64.1 is. Is it 64 million? What? It's in thousands. It's in thousands. Um because this is a new format. I am not used to seeing 64.1. Um we can um make that correction and just note at the bottom that it's in thousands. Yeah, that would help. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. So, for fiscal year um 2526, the district's general fund expenses are budgeted to increase by $2 million compared to the revised budget for this fiscal year. This also reflects the increase of approximately $10 million from proposed budget that was presented on May 9th. On a per student basis, the district plans to spend $15,565 from the general fund. It's important to note that compensation related costs continue to be the largest portion of the budget, making up about
15084% of the total general fund expenditures. This FY2526 adopted budget includes a total compensation cost increase of 28.7 million from FY252 revised budget. For comparison purposes, u we added 78.7 million in total compensation costs from FY24 revised budget to FY25 adopted budget. Where are those numbers? I was just trying to follow. Um, excuse me. He is uh citing um the the the requests that you had emailed to us. In terms of where they're in here, um compensation shows up in the salary and benefits accounts. A different way. You said it so fast I couldn't even see them. So, I'm just going to repeat myself. So, and the 2526 adopted budget includes a total compensation cost increase of $28.7 million from the 2425 revised budget. And then I said for so then we so for comparison
151purposes kind of help you over year we added 78.7 million in total compensation cost from 24 revised budget to 25 adopted budget. I I want to say too, I don't see that number that you're talking about, the 24 million, the 28 million. Yeah. So, um I do want to clarify, we had to finalize this presentation and submit it on Friday. I I do respect that. Um the question came in, so I tried to make sure we had the number to share. if you would like us to um subsequently amend this this deck and include that number, we are absolutely happy to do it. And so just to clarify, the current proposal, the latest proposal for negotiations totals 28.7 million. That's all of the new um cola benefits increases, all the costs and everything like that.
152Yes. 28.7, right? Yes. Okay, excuse me. Um, so we've already reviewed the uh budget by expense account type. So here it is by program type. Um, so this review also reflects a $2 million increase from FY2425 revised budget. Um, with the increase of the $10 million from proposed budget, the largest share of program funding are now directed towards general instruction as part of education instruction. Okay, so here's the details of the $10 million increase in proposed budget. Um, in May, several key updates were made from the FY26 proposed budget. On the compensation side, an additional 1% uh COLA was offered along with an increased employer contribution to medical benefits on top of the original.5 COLA and $10 per employee per month increased employer share. Additional pay was also offered for um particular positions um mutually
153agreed upon positions enrolled. Altogether, these changes resulted in a $12 million increase in district-wide expenses from the 26 proposed budget presentation on May 9th. Other updates included a detailed groundup analysis, as Bren mentioned earlier, um of full-time positions and average salaries to finally tune all the contra expenses and better align them with trending actuals. Additionally, the district increased its transfer to the insurance reserve fund to account for self-insured retention amount of up to $2 million. now up from $750,000 for district liability. These addition these these adjustments contributed to a district umwide expense decrease of $2 million. These updates total around 10 million increase from the 26 proposed budget presentation um resulting in a plan use of 39 million from the general fund reserves. Mr. Sammons, remind me the compensation updates. Is that just for JCA?
154That's not just that's everyone. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Yeah, we have to budget for everyone. Well, I I know. I just didn't know if this change was tied to one or the other. Yeah. No. Um I think we made the offer to both units and um we have a consistent practice of budgeting um a comparable increase to um nonbargained salaries. Thank you. And I have a question too for the administrators. For instance, the JCAA um group um they don't bargain um but they usually get the same thing or comparable. Do we estimate is are there increases included in this 28 point? Yes. Thanks. Okay. Yes. I'm not going to start with I'm sorry because I think this is why we're here. I feel like saying that. Um so just so in this so
155you said the to I just want to make sure that I understand how we're um offering negotiate uh compensation. So this is costing us a total of 28.7 million um and the addition of the 1% cola and the new contributions to medical cost 12 million. So, prior to that, the 0.5% cola plus 10% per person um was 16.7 million total. Super super close. One tiny change is this second bullet, additional pay for certain specific mutually agreed positions. So, there were some ads that we already knew about as of May 9th that we had offered and they had said, "Yep, great." Um there were some new ads in that category. So the 12 million it's primarily the additional cola and the additional employer share on medical and then a portion of it is also those additional
156additionals. I think what is um unclear to me the 16.7 million that remains of that 28. Yes. Why is that so expensive if it represents a.5% cola and a 10% employee like the 1% cola is costing less? Sure. Where's all that? Where's all the other expense to this? Is this making sense to the 16 million coming from in the offer of the 5% cola and 10% employee? Yep. Absolutely. Um $10 per employee per Yeah. So the original offer was steps lanes.5% cola and plus 10 per employee. So all those things were in offer numero uno. Got it. Okay. And so um maybe it wasn't uno but I think it was. And so the incremental part is as you said a 1% cola a slight shift in medical but um we already had the plus 10
157per employee out there so that was already part of May um and we already had some of the specific ad pays but we had more I shouldn't call it ad pays because that means something different but um additional compensation elements for additional roles and qualifications were some of them were already in it and some were The majority of that was is is made up of that step and cola that right the 16 million and that that's correct and the others added on top and just to clarify the steps and co sorry steps and lane sorry um is not negotiable in our we don't negotiate that that's automatic increase in our district no there have been years that the district was unable to award steps so I believe Miss Reed was here during one of those
158um in the first year of the pandemic um we didn't provide steps. So in the first year that um Superintendent Dorland started um she gave two steps instead of one and um that was to make up for a year. But it I don't think it's appropriate to call it automatic in part because that is one of those terms that for a budget person makes it seem like the budget is a foregone conclusion and no one can obligate the district in that way. Well, sure. I guess from a negotiating conversation when we are negotiating with them we assume the steps and lane I'm am I is it steps and lanes or step in lane steps and lane um right so so what we're really going back and forth with them on is the addition to what
159we're assuming is the steps and lane I think two things um one we steps and lanes always get put within the compensation offer as something very explicitly stated because it's never been a foregone conclusion there. It I would say 90% of the time yes it's that's what we do but there are times when state budget state revenue things like that have occurred and districts have not awarded steps as an automatic and so districts want to do that as long as there is not something that prevents them from doing so. I would say overall people expect it and yet it's still something that both um both our bargaining team as well as our district negotiating team specifically speak to steps and lanes as something that is a part of compensation. I think the other side of
160it it also depends on school districts and and what their um salary schedule looks like. So, if you've got a salary schedule that your steps are 1 and a half to 2%, you're much more likely to be able to say, that's an automatic yes, we're going to do that. Versus a school district that a step would be four and a half or 5%. That's a huge number. And a district can't say automatically yes all the time. We're always going to do that. And so I think in the first year or two um that Superintendent Dorland was here, the association as well as the district had an interest in creating a new um salary schedule that made it much more likely that we could say more often than not, yes, we can automatically assume that a
161step would happen. Sorry that I should have been more emphatic than that, but did did that did my logic make sense? No, I mean I remember being on the board when when we learned that like it wasn't assumed every year. I thought as a district we kind of normed that that it would be so I didn't realize it was so negotiable still or I just thought it was more of a norm. I guess what my what I'm trying to figure out is how much do does that more normative maybe just not it's not set in stone. I get that and we can change it at any time. and it's part of negotiations, but how much we're negotiating or spending on top of that because that seems to be what we negotiate. Um, so I'm I
162was I'm always curious what that base increase in steps and lanes costs us and then to talk about the compensation on top of that as the additional and at this point it's the 1.5 plus new medical addition on top of that. So that's what I'm trying to to figure out. Right. Right. And so steps and lanes plus the 1.5 as we're trying to figure out overall what our budget needs to look like is that in a sense of roughly 4% increase in terms of what people will get differently than what they got the previous year. Sorry. having having been through this um you know like when there was the economic downturn in 2010 um all of this was frozen and it was frozen for quite a while and and that has very long-term impacts so
163for individuals. So yeah, it it absolutely can be removed and that was a negotiated process. um the district did work with the associations and with everybody to try to figure out how to recover from that particular financial crisis. Um and I think the other thing that sometimes people uh lose track of is that the the steps that are added are a percent to whatever people are making. And so as we increase the amount of money that people make each year, the cost of a step goes up. There's, you know, sort of some understanding sometimes that that is a costneutral thing. And it's actually not because you are adding it onto higher salaries than you did the previous year. Great. So I just want to pause before uh Mr. Sammons continues. Um this is the primary
164slide in the deck that explains the ch the changes since the proposed the net ad of 10 which is a net of a plus 12 and a minus2 and the minus2 is a net of a larger minus and a plus one around insurance. But I I don't want to leave this slide until folks feel comfortable that we've been transparent about changes to the general fund expense because this is really the meat. It's a boring slide. It's the meat of the whole deck. Okay. Yeah, please. Um, I guess you use the term overspend trends. I don't I and I I know you related that to our special ed as an overspend trend. Yes. And I just wonder are there um is that a is that a thing across other departments? like do we keep track of
165I haven't I don't recall hearing the term over spend trends before and I'm curious how do we track the trends um sure across our district and where they are. Yeah, absolutely. So um so I'm going to go back to one of my framing comments which was the budget that you're being presented to approve is a cost estimate. Um, in in our student success department and special education, we carry a vacancy assumption of savings because folks said, "Hey, we you you know, you know, you're going to have vacancy, we know you're going to have vacancy, don't count that." So, we carry this negative assumption. Um we carry other negative assumptions which are to say we give everyone budget to pay their steps and their lanes and their colas for every employee and we but then separately
166we centrally estimate turnover savings right and everyone knows there will be some amount of turnover savings. We differ on how much but that's fine. Um so there's another negative assumption in there. Those are still just estimates and assumptions. So some of um special education overspending their budget was because they don't have as much vacancy as we estimated. Um they have filled more positions than they did in prior years. So this trend is partially you could call it overspend. It's overspend in comparison to the budget we share. It's not overspend in comparison to what they're authorized to do. Um it's a reflection of a changing dynamic in the workforce and our ability to fill positions. That's part one of special education. Second part, um, contractually they have to provide services to more students. Those students got
167identified as of a December count. They weren't necessarily fully budgeted for. It is what we're planning and carrying into next year. And that's part of why we said um this is a real expense increase because this is a real count increase. Third part, costs like placement out of district, which are well beyond our control and well beyond our ability to forecast, have increased dramatically over the past three years. Even though we knew they were going to go up some, and we made an adjustment to the special education budget for the current year, as we've been watching the trends in that one line item, which we spent a little bit of time in April talking to you about, we said, "Okay, we need to further increase the budget to reflect the actuals that are coming in
168on that line. You'll see it in the quarterly. You'll you saw it in our April presentation. So when I say overspend, that's just simply the actuals are hitting higher than the budget estimate. But there can be lots of different reasons for that. And then what it sounds like is um our deficit because I'm what I'm curious about is like what where can we cut from our the deficit spend? And what you're saying is it's a very complicated formula of increases and decreases and you know spend here and and cost savings here. It's not just because we're negotiating new salaries. Um it's more complicated. On slide four, you show how complicated that is, the ups and downs. So that that's where I've been um increasingly wondering like you know it we're not there's no cost savings
169that have happened even though we see some cost savings on here overall because of increased spend across different things compensation being one of them different departments spending in different ways. So, just that narrative that the $40 million deficit comes from a complicated mix of of our the way we spend our money. Yeah. All all of our spending um is a mix of things. And I will say uh the all the puts and takes in a year-over-year process. you know, we talk about it at a level of detail here in Jeffco that I'll be honest, not every district does. Um because um the more you talk about it, the more confusing it sometimes gets. And so I think a simple metric is um think about the pie, think about the the distribution of how we spend
170money in general. And so one way to think about our deficit is to just say on a per rata basis 85% of that relates to people and 15% of that relates to purchase services, materials and supplies and other things, right? Because each dollar we spend as a district is divided 85 cents towards people and and you know whether it's a compensation increase or a base compensation or how many FTE there's a lot of different pieces. Um, but I think it's fair to say that each dollar we spend is kind of divided between those uses and the management decisions we've made about how many staff to have and how much to pay those staff. Those are key, right? And they drive a huge chunk of the budget. Um, in a year-over-year moment in time when we're
171really focused, hyperfocused on that year-over-year, there are series of decisions that get made that then build out the the scenario. and we tend to only focus on the changes. But of course, everything is a conscious decision. Continuing to spend the first 1 billion20 is a conscious decision. So all the decisions factor in and I don't think we I I hope you don't hear Brian and I trying to oversimplify. We are trying to consistently represent how does the district spend money? Um what are we paying for, right? what are budget decision makers doing in terms of their FTE staffing that's something we cover in March around schools and we try and speak to around departments as well. Um so I think it it is a complicated answer and then maybe it's also a simple answer just
172because we are a people business and so um people in one way shape or form drive how we spend. Yeah. Could I suggest um that we keep going because I think some of the expense questions and that's that's kind of where my is is coming in the future slides. So if if the board is amanable. Okay. So moving forward um here's the 2526 general fund summary by account type. Um so the general fund summary outlines both revenue and expenses. Um, for FI 2425 revised budget, the budget of fund use is $38 million. It also includes a year-end projection for 2425, which remains constant with what we shared in the proposed budget presentation on May 9th. Um, for current year, we anticipate revenues to come in approximately $985 million, about 3 million higher than the revised
173budget. On the expense side, we expect cost to exceed the revised budget by around 4 million. As a result, the projected fund use is approximately $39 million for FY25. The adopted FY2526 budget includes the revenues of 800 982 million and expenses totaling 1 billion22 million resulting in plan use of fund balance of $39 million. Can you give like some examples of what the purchase services are? Absolutely. Um, do you mind if we do that later? That's fine. Okay. We have a list in the illustration section that kind of breaks down a little bit of what some of those are. So, that would be very helpful. That was a good question. Beatness to the punch. Okay. So, then here's the um general fund summary by program type. So, broken out by program. Um, so here it
174shows both the revenue and expenditures by program types. Again, it shows the revised budgets, the FY25 year end projections and the FY26 adopted budget. I'd like to highlight that during the FY25 revised budget process, we increased total expenditures by 6.5 million to reflect spending trends that we were observing at the time. Since then, our current year-end projections for 25 are coming in even higher than the FY25 revised budget. Given the district's new budgeting methodology where the budget serves as an estimate of actual expenditures, we anticipate this trend may continue coming in. We may come to you again in January 2026 with a request for additional general fund budget authority. Okay. So, the capital reserve fund, there is no change from the FY26 proposed budget presentation from May 9th. Um the adopted budget will include $60
175million in budgeted capital renewal investments. The funding sources um are from three areas. Approximately 29 million from the cap reserve fund balance, around 16 million from sale proceeds and other sources, and $15 million transfer from the general fund. With the adoption of this budget, and in light of future capital needs, the board is effectively removing the planned use of the 2018 capital improvement plan funds. Rather than allocating those funds towards construction of two new schools, they will now be made available to the general capital improvement projects in the upcoming years. The adopted budget res resolution will formally um have this change in the plan use of funds and will be brought forward for the board's vote. I have a question on this slide. Um when it says the proposed budget includes 60 million in budget
176budgeted capital renewal, what what does the renewal mean? Um it it just means typically we're improving stuff we have capital we have but it also may be finishing projects like Fletcher Miller that is more of a new so renewal of existing as well as small construction of new. I guess I'm still unclear. It's renewal. It's It's different than it was in a previous budget or re replenishing or I just don't understand the renewal. Um maybe if it said capital improvements, would that make sense? Yeah, for me it would because I'm used to seeing improvements, not seeing renewal. We can make that change. I I also want to ask on this slide and I'm saving kind of some questions for the end so I apologize if it's going to be jumping around. The $60 million that
177we are not putting towards the schools that is not showing up on this slide. Is that correct? The 60 million that we're not putting towards schools. Oh. Um the 100 million in beginning fund balance for next year includes the 60 million. That's what I'm trying to find. resolution clarifies that that 100 million no longer includes a planned use of two new builds. It is it is still there capital and it is part of a reserve and it is in the capital reserve fund which is always how it's been but it is no longer planned towards those two things. So while we don't see a change in the number necessarily, there is more money in that fund to in theory go towards other you've you've assigned it a new planned use which is um capital improvements
178over the next three years. Thank you. And what this is showing us is this is not sustainable to have an only a $15 million transfer in. I mean, we quickly get down to 4.1 in there. Um because that's including the transfer, right, of the 15 million in each. So that number um I know you said the board requested this. I I just remember it changing, but um clearly that's not enough. So, I mean, we'll get to that, I guess, later, but it's it's almost a crisis. I don't I don't disagree. And this is a decision that we've made for 2526, which you carried through in out years, right? That is something that could be That is our best guess of out years once the decision's been made. But we could always decide next year to
179fund the full 30 million. Sure. If And when we get to the multi-year, um, remember that we're continuing to assume this 15, right? So this slide will connect to that multi-year. Um, and so you'll see what happens in the outy years, assuming no substantive change to what we're doing. Um, and and you could determine whether there's resources available in the outy years to reinstate that. Okay. So, the um other funds um the budget expenses for the other operating funds remain unchanged from what was presented on slides 35 through 41 on the proposed budget presentation. However, there is one update to note. The inflow of funds to the insurance reserve fund has increased by $1 million as reflected in the update on slide 10 of this presentation. Okay, I'm gonna hand it over to Miss Copeland
180to present the multi-year section. Do you want us to ask questions on next year before we head into the multi-year or would you prefer us to save them to the end? I think in the interest of time um because the board did ask for these illustrations. I have a multi-year section and then I have the illustrations. I want to keep going. Um, this is a different way to present content that we presented in the proposed budget. In the proposed budget, we quoted statute. Now, we have a process diagram and this is designed to articulate the intention of statute. What's the obligation of the district? So, I'm going to just quickly walk through this. We have established at this point a proposed budget for 2526. We shared that in May. Um, in a decision tree type
181approach, does that budget use fund balance? Yes. Okay. No. Okay. Um, no, doesn't apply. It does. So, we're on that path. Um, we have to prepare a multi-year. That's part of our statutory obligation regardless. That's true. Even if we don't use fund balance, we still do a multi-year. Then you ask, does the multi-year persist in using fund balance? Right. Um, are there expenditures that are recurring in the outy years? If the answer to that is yes, then statute says you must create a quote unquote highle plan of action and include that in your resolution. It may not, right? There are situations where a district may say in a given year we want to use our fund balance but it's one time in nature and it doesn't create a recurring use of fund balance in which
182case they don't have to articulate a high level plan because it's not there in the outy years. Okay. So the reason um and again this I don't have the citation but we did list it in the proposed budget and I can give you that slide number if you want it. Um, the reason we drew it this way is we just wanted you to understand why the multi-year you're about to see is it's a hypothetical. It is an important step in the process to determine whether if we just keep doing what we're doing, we do or don't kind of write the ship. Okay. All right. Brena, last year when we passed the 2425 deficit budget, do we don't have a high level plan of action to address that? That's correct. Because it just we because we
183didn't ask for it. No, it was um it was my mistake. I had it in the prior years, but um it got away from me last year. um multi-year forecast, no change to district operations. So again, this is not a proposal. This is more of a if no change to district operations. This does not mean Mr. Sammons and I are attempting to suggest that this is what the district will do. Um so please don't misconstrue this. This is a hypothetical illustration of the multi-year forecast if the district makes no substantive changes to its programming and operations. So, as you can see, um carrying forward um some so we have attempted to forecast revenue increases. We've used uh what we know about the state's formula. We've used what we know about continuing trends in our own
184enrollment. Um, we do believe that we will continue to lose students in both 2627 and 28 2728. My hope is that that levels off at some point. I don't think it's in the immediate future. So that $1 billion is still an increase over the 982 based on a whole lot of different moving pieces. Um, and then the 1 billion point, you know, 1 billion11 million is also an increase. So, we're forecasting some revenue increase. Because of that, we're also forecasting some expenditure increases as as we always would. We're also forecasting some expenditure reductions. Um, I get frustrated sometimes when people suggest that we aren't um including the expenditure reductions. We are. We are recognizing that when we lose 800 students, we do stop staffing certain positions. Of course, we do. we we don't have those
185800 students and we are giving ourselves credit for those reduced expenditures. It is in next year's budget. It was in this year's budget. It is in all these outy years. Um so with all of that um you can see that the expenditures continue to increase those. Do these expenditures include assumed compensation increases? Yes, they do. Specifically, they include steps and lanes plus a cola where the two things combined equal to CPI. Okay, but as you all know, CPI does not equal to total revenue increase. That's our total revenue increase. CPI is higher. So when we're when we're doing that computation, we're trying to fit into what's a common kind of management expectation approximately. Um does it always happen? No. Right? But th that's what's assumed that we don't have to do it that way, but
186we have to establish a set of assumptions. And honestly, we've used the same set of assumptions for the multi-year in terms of like what's changing, what's not to the best of our ability every year. um because that makes it reliable. Um nonetheless, let's talk about uh the reserves um because I do think the board is concerned about um understandably, you know, what resources are available to the district. So the 175 that we forecast as an ending fund balance for the current year um would become 136 at the end of next year and that's based on spending down the 39. How is that divided? So everything below 136 is a categorization of 136. So all those little numbers actually add up to 136. 31 million is TABER reserves. That's unspendable. We cannot touch it. 16 million
187is school carry forward. That's what we allow schools to spend in a subsequent year that they underspent either in the current year or a year prior. Ultimately, that's any under spend of the district shows up in reserves. Allowing schools to spend reserves or allowing them to spend under spend means we're designating a portion of reserves as a management decision for their use. What do they use it for? Um, they use it to help them cope with declining enrollment so that when they have fewer students in October, they don't have to make a mid-year change to staffing. So they use it to quote unquote true up in October rather than take a budget hit in October. They say I'm going to deploy my carry forward and keep this teacher. So it creates stability in the classroom.
188Um and so it is an important mechanism. Um, I feel very uncomfortable with the 2627 forecast which includes no school carry forward because I don't quite know how our schools will navigate um a negative October adjustment because we do not have a good mechanism in this district to do mid-year layoffs. Um, and I don't know how we could do it to be honest. Um, so I wouldn't recommend that. um operational reserves. You know, while um we're going to appropriate about 20 million, this is so we don't break our appropriation has to do with timing, etc. We would not be able to do that in 2627. Um I would not feel comfortable attempting to manage to our total appropriation without any appropriated reserves given our budget methodology. If we were doing a different methodology where the
189budget was the approval to spend as opposed to the actual estimate of spending then I would feel more comfortable but because our budget is an estimate of actual spending it's only a guess people are authorized to do things and bills come at a moment that none of us have any control over you know I just had a conversation in purchasing when are these laptops going to arrive when the expense hits depends on when the laptops arrive and I'm talking about these little minuscule things which honestly is not a great use of my time or purchasing's time but that's because we're all trying to figure out exactly when something's going to hit. Is it this year? Is it next year? And multiply that by about 50 for all these different parts of the organization that are
190encumbering funds and trying to get what they need. We cannot slow down the schools and departments and athletics and everyone's ability to get what they need simply because oh no, no, we can't receive that this year because we will break appropriation. So I'm not comfortable managing with zero appropriated reserves in our current budget methodology. Um designated for future year. That's a statutory requirement. If you anticipate in the subsequent year to use fund balance, you must assign it. Right? That's your resolution next week will effectively be assigning 39 million of um your fund balance towards expenditures next year. That's what you're doing when you're authorizing the use of fund balance in the subsequent year. So again, that it may seem procedural. It's not. Um if we're actually going to spend fund balance in the subsequent year,
191we must have that available and your appropriation will designate that as the use. Does that make sense? So um in 2627, we have several zeros, including one at the board policy unassigned reserves of 4%. um in 2728 it's I don't need to walk you back through it. Um it's it's worse. Um it is actually unmanageable. Um the designated for future year is now zero. So it assumes that we have no use of fund balance in 2829. Um so we're making a presumption about what does happen in that year. It's okay. This is a hypothetical. This is not our plan or proposal. We do not think it reflects the direction or intention of the board. It is a step in the process um to then continue additional steps in the process. Thank you. So in May
192uh we shared with you a highle plan to align revenue and expense that is very similar lang language to what you adopted two years prior in a similar not quite similar situation but um and that is to generally speaking reduce expenditures in future years adjust programming or optional services reduce staffing services and contracted expenses. Those are basic categories of what we spend on. Um, avoid or limit future cost increases. So that's a management decision where we have the ability to make management decisions. These would all be parts of a plan to explore. Um, they are intentionally worded at a high level to give the organization the opportunity to develop specifics. Right? This is language that goes into a resolution. It commits us to further pursuing this, unpacking this, turning it into a viable line item
193plan. This should not be a line item plan. This is a highle plan. Um, a second part of the high level plan would be to potentially seek voter authorization for general or special purpose mill levy overrides. Um, again, not committing or um this is not the same as you saying you will do. It's part of a planning process. Again, this is the exact same language we shared in May. Also, in May, we shared a more detailed timeline of what next. What next in terms of turning a highle plan into an actionable plan that changes what we're doing in 2627. So, um, multiple times this spring, you know, Brian and I have talked about how far in advance we need to plan and make changes so that, um, when we're making promises to families who want
194to enroll their kids in November and December or when we're sending out school budget allocations or helping departments understand their starting point, um, we need to make any big decisions in November for the upcoming year. Um, and that's what this district did when we did school consolidation. When we did school consolidation, that November decision effectively cut 20 million in spending, right? And we can point to the very specific things we stopped doing by virtue of that. Now, we also started doing some other things and we um did compensation, we did other things. You don't see a net reduction of spending of 20, but I can point to the specific positions that we no longer carried, the specific expenditures we no longer carried. So that was real. It was real savings on a net basis. The
195number still grew. I understand that. But we did have $20 million worth of stuff we stopped doing, but we made the decision in November for the following year. Um this final section and I'm trying to accelerate just a little bit. Um is a set of illustrations and scenarios prepared for the board. Um at your request we have illustrated three numeric approaches to reducing expenditures that are designed to give a sense of scale to the effort but do not represent specific proposals. Um these are the the basic illustrations. We've rounded a few numbers just to keep things a little bit manageable. So, um what what's our target? We have to identify a target. Well, um that target roughly is a recurring 60 million in expense in excess of revenue. 40 million of which I realize that's
196rounded up from 39. Please forgive me. It's just easier to talk about and me keep straight that way. Um use of fund balance as part of our FY26 adopted budget. 5 million of recurring costs that are covered by specialurpose short-term grants in FY26. We shared some detail about that back in April when we were talking about special education and the cost overruns and that we were going to deploy special purpose grants that were short-term in nature that would eventually need to be replaced um with general fund dollars. So, we're trying to signal that in advance. and then 15 million in recurring capital contributions that were suspended for FY26 that becomes part of it's still a need. The need is there. Um so we need to try and solve for it in so far as we're
197trying to identify a target. So the target is 60 in the upcoming illustrations. The illustrations demonstrate what does it mean to cut 6% of total general fund across the board proportionate to budget category. What does it look like to cut 6% of total FTE across the board proportionate to employee group? And then the third one is how do we get to 60 million with variable cuts? Right? 6% across the board is probably not what we want to do. So what would it what would it look like to cut more in certain areas so that we can cut less? Um and when we get there, I'll I'll share a couple more thoughts. All right. So here's illustration A, a 6% across the board universal reduction in total general fund expenses presented by account category. This illustration
198shows how much would need to be reduced from each account category to achieve the $60 million reduction. Due to the nature of our organization, this would result in approximately $51 million in reductions from salary and benefit accounts. Okay, so here's illustration A uh but presented by program u of a 6% across the board reduction in total general fund expenses. Um it shows the level of reductions each program category would need to achieve the $60 million overall decrease using this approach. U please remember that each program contains salary, benefits, service accounts, materials and supply accounts. All right, illustration B is a universal 6% reduction of uh by employee groups across all position types. This illustration shows that this methodology would reduce all staff by around 564 FTEES. Please note that this approach would not reach a
199targeted dollar amount. It wouldn't necessarily reach a $60 million target. It's a it's an FTE um universal um reduction. Do we know what it would reach? It depends which FTEES you choose and we weren't attempting to preconceive which ones. So we did want to just show for order magnitude or scale what is a 6% reduction look like to to FTE. So that it was just an illustration. Okay. Then illustration C. Um this the last illustration um presents a four tiered approach to budget reductions at levels of five, six, eight and 10%. This is designed to minimize the impact on general and special instruction. Um also aiming to preserve staffing levels as much as pos possible. As the percentages of reductions increase, the approach becomes more selective applying deeper cuts to instructional um non-instructional or discretionary
200areas. Right? So the matrix shown organizes the reductions by expense type rows and program types columns hopefully providing a clear view of how each tier affects different areas of the budget. The following slides will translate the percentages reductions into dollar amounts. So I do the next slide um says what purchase services are which I know was a question from earlier. So since we've introduced steeper cuts into both service accounts, which is purchase services, and material supplies and capital outlay, we wanted to tell you what some of those things are so that you would know what we would be steeper cutting. All right. So here's where we clarify uh the types of expenses that are included in our service accounts, materials, and supplies, and it's organized by the program category. So for instruction, special education and
201support programs, service related expenses include curriculum and IT software. Contracted services such as athletics and special education support. Material and supplies in this category consist of school purchase instructional materials such as art supplies um and chemicals for chemistry, curriculum resources, uh onetoone student devices, and career and tech educational supplies. In the general administration category, the major majority of service account expenditures are tied to IT software, IT maintenance contracts, and debt service payments. Material and supplies here are primarily focused on the IT infrastructure of the district. Finally, in operation and maintenance of transportation, service accounts cover all of the district utilities, third-party transportation services, school security contracts, and facility related contracted services. Material and supplies in this area include field service, general maintenance supplies and transportation related fuel and parts. Okay, so here are the dollar
202impacts um by the program account category for illustration C which applies a variant reduction ranging from the 5 to 10%. Um, we do like to note that this approach does meet the overall target of $60 million in total reductions. Of that amount, approximately 49 million is attributed to adjustments and personal related accounts. When looking at the reductions by program category, just program category, about 39 million comes from instruction, special education, and support programs. This illustration provides a highle illustration of how the reductions could be distributed across both account types and program types. Okay. So, I want to just go back real quick. Um, the the heat map here shows that bumping up to a 10% cut. We could run it again for you at 20%. Um, because you're cutting something small, it doesn't do much.
203You don't reduce your cut over here where we spend the bulk of our money by very much, right? We went pretty high in some of these areas and honestly I don't know how we are going to cut IT software you know software as a service is a thing right and both curricular software for our students and software that runs the organization costs money not exactly sure what we would stop paying for it's not I don't know this is not a plan um but because um and I mean this kind of tells it Where are the dollar amounts? We've ordered this rank order by dollar approximately. If 475 million is in general instruction to take our to to to vary up reductions, we still have to reduce that because we will never get to 60 million
204by cutting 10% 20% from general admin and school administration. And by the way, most of general admin is IT. It's not central admin, it's general admin. Most of that is it. So I think the illustrations should hopefully help provide um scale and some sense of what is the hypothetical number of impacted individuals. Again, this doesn't exactly add to 60 million, but it's a hypothetical. What what are hypothetical reductions? What what would we need to identify on a percentage basis to stop doing? Um, obviously, you know, utilities is a big part of our service accounts. That doesn't mean we're going to light the lights one day out of 10, right? Or nine days out of 10, sorry, for a 10% reduction. We we will heat the buildings every day. Um, so there's just certain things that
205get really sticky and are difficult to reduce um unless we're going to change our footprint. The reason we were successful in um reducing 20 million in recurring expenditures that I can specifically point to was because we stopped operating at 15 sites, you know, and that made it possible to eliminate positions that we no longer needed. It made it possible to not condition those spaces, etc., etc. So, one more final note. We incorporate the May proposed budget by reference. Thank you. Thank you for that depressing presentation. It's much more fun to talk to the kids. They were much more optimistic. Um, but of course, they didn't get into budget stuff yet. Um, I appreciate the scenarios. I do. I mean, at least it's something to start thinking about. For me, it showed where the money is.
206Not that I didn't really know it's all in salaries, but um uh makes me feel a little better because I just kept seeing all these slides that had 000 zeros in the out years and thinking, "Oh my god, when are we going to start talking about how to um address it?" Because up to this point, we just kept saying, "Well, we'll never do that." Like, "We won't do that." But then the question was, "Well, what will we do?" So, I do appreciate that. Any other questions, comments from Yeah, I do think um when you when you look at the distribution of spending in the district and how little you get in savings from the things that are not related to people, we've got to prepare our community for the fact that there are going to
207be significant reductions in force and um and that's going to be unavoidable. And so I just think, you know, the sooner we start talking about the fact that that will happen and the sooner we start talking about how that needs to happen and where that needs to happen, probably the better. I agree, Director Reid. I think this is a powerful presentation and I I think it's something that we need to own and address. Um, and I recognize the majority of the spend is in salaries and benefits. And I also recognize that because of the way we're thinking about it, November is the time to act for the future year. I am interested um I've used my Disney Plus analogy. I'm going to use it again. Where are because I think there is um before I
208was on the board I did not understand the law requires us to do certain things. I kind of knew it but I didn't know it in numbers the way I know it now. And so I think when you look at things like sped and you understand that the numbers of of people who are identified, children that are identified are increasing and that requires resources that we are legally obligated to provide and we should provide. I am really interested where and and this is maybe a question um a request not necessarily before we approve the budget but I I do think it's something we should we should talk about um with you Dr. came in superintendent is what are the discretionary spending spending within our control and I recognize they're small I do recognize they're very
209small um and in the world of a home budget Disney plus is 15 bucks a month so that's also small um but are we considering policies so I I also pull my personal my work life into this if we have a budget shortage in my department at work I am not refilling positions I am limiting travel for my employees. I am minimizing consultant spends. Are we putting policies in place that say, and I realize the schools have their own budgets, so this is largely affecting the central office. Maybe not. I I don't know. Um, are we planning to put those cost-saving policies in place next year to help? I know it won't make a dent in $60 million, but I do think it is an important commitment to make to the community to say we
210know we got to tighten the belt. And I think the work that um will be done, there was a quick slide on it talking about working with the community and getting stakeholder engagement to say these cuts are coming. They are real. 550 people is what I saw. That's a lot. That's a heavy heart moment for me. Um, so I would love to know what policies we're planning to put in place in the short term that while I know they won't make a $60 million dent, I do think it's important to show our community we are tightening the belt and I agree we need to be talking about a mill honestly with our community. We need to talk about the fact that it costs money to fund the district and I think as a lot of
211directors on this board have said isn't funding us adequately. We might be fully funding education, but it is not meeting the needs of our children. And I'm also interested to see if there is a possible way, and I recognize it may not, to minimize the impact to our kids in classrooms. Couple of thoughts. Um, I'll start with I know Director Reed started kind of talking about this. Those of us that went through um the times that we had to make significant reductions back whether you talking about 2007 to 2012 at various in in various districts, everybody had to come up with processes for how you do that. I believe Superintendent Dorland talked at the last meeting with you all about asking two board members to work with us this summer to establish some of that
212criteria to really think about, you know, if if our number one priority is keep it away from students and student needs, that's begins to set some criteria to say, okay, how do we start to identify what are those things that that we look at? To your point, when 85, 86, 87% of your budget is people, you could cut everything outside of people and you still wouldn't have enough. I mean, that's just the math. And so, as we look at that, yes, we have to do some of the Disney Plus conversations. And that to me is part of that conversation with board members to identify, you know, where do we take some of those smaller savings from and the larger scale stuff that has to happen goes through and at least in experiences that I've had
213because you know three plus decades in education you've been through some of these downturns. You do know that you have to involve stakeholders. You do know you have to establish criteria. You do have to take feedback and input from people. You do have to educate people on what are all these categories and what's in all those categories. Much like you talked about tonight to get to that place of what's the undesirable, what's the absolutely no. What's the undesirable and what's the gosh, I wish we didn't have to do this, but this is where we are. And and you do have to consider with a very heavy heart that every decision you make is people, and that's not an easy decision to make. Yeah, I I appreciate that feedback. And I am looking forward to what
214this group comes up with because I think we as a board have to make some really tough decisions. Um because I will speak for only me, I'm very uncomfortable, as Miss Copeland shared, she is uncomfortable also with spending our reserves to that level beyond this year. I mean, I'm I'm uncomfortable with this, but I understand the timing we're at. And so I'm really excited to hear the things we're going to do in the short term and recognize that we have tough decisions to make in the long term. Um I'm I am uh sorry that you weren't supported uh to make a highle plan for last year and I think what we're talking about is supporting finding the right way to support you and the team to do that this year. Um I do have a
215question about the high level plan and our need to vote on this almost right away. So it needs to be in the resolution. The resolution will have to be vague, right? Because of where we are in timing. So if um what can we put in the resolution that is I don't want to say sufficient like um because we need to get so much more detailed and is the resolution is it sufficient to include include something that says um the board will give direction to the district or support whatever is helpful um around where these reductions and cuts and savings um we'd recommend they come from. Is that good enough for this resolution for next week? How much can we edit it and change it as we learn and make recommendations? Um so thank you for
216that. I I am happy uh I'll work with um probably Lisa to send you some links. So, I'll send you a link to the resolution language that Jeffco um adopted back in 23 for the 2324 year what the highle plan was. It's very similar to what you saw up there. Um I can also send you links to other districts um budget resolutions. When I say high level, it is very high. And it is not about um the board or the district or pretending that those are different entities like we're actually all the district. Like it is about the district as a whole plans to do the following to ensure that this is not a recurring use of fund balance. And so we're not committing to which things. We're committing to doing some combination of these
217things to ensure that the commitment is really that we will make changes so that this is not a recurring use of fund balance. That's what the statute's looking for and that's what folks are trying to articulate. There's some districts who make it super generalized. Um it's a statement in some cases the district will ensure that this is not and I I find that a little too superficial. So um so again what I've proposed is high level. It it it becomes a public statement of what we know might be necessary um so that all of us are on the same team working towards something more specific. Um well def and definitely we need to hold ourselves right to to the specifics and um I I do have a few thoughts on on going forward. But I
218think it's really important that us as as a board help to um give that direction and guidance around these priority areas. I really I really do agree with director Applegate that I think showing any small effort at this point that we are um tightening the reigns I think you said or something like that um is important even if it it's um not a dent at all but just to show that our practices are just mimicking our understanding of the kind of desperate place that we're in um over the summer with this I think two board members could do this I also think the board needs to just have much sufficient input into this. Um it would be a lot for two people to just try to figure this out. I do find it I don't
219see the role and you know like this is going to sound weird coming from me because I all I say is we need community input. I don't really see the role for community input in this discussion at this point. Um I don't think that they are close enough to this community. I mean maybe it depends on what we're talking about with community school communities and our and our people who are managing these budgets are quite close to it but an external community it just to me is just not a match of of community. We need to make sure that the people that we're asking to help us with this have the resources and tools and skills and knowledge to help us. And I'm just not sure I I'm just struggling with that plan a little
220bit and it's and it's requirement especially since we very much um we need to figure this out by November is what I'm hearing you know or get close enough to that. So um anyways just I'm discouraged a little bit discouraging a little bit which is probably the first time in the history of anything I've said publicly to not have as much community engagement on that. Um, and I hope that makes sense. Um, and then I think as we talk through this, I think what would be really helpful is um, getting a little bit more clarity. I know we've talked about this at the FAC on what amount of money is possible with a mill um, like dollar amounts. And I I'm sure it's as complicated as everything else. And then bringing it in so we
221can do scenarios that have really I'm asking for something even more complex I think but like the topline changes that might be possible along with the reductions along with the scenarios to compensation that you know we have as in there as an assumption. What if we what if that was lowered? What if that was hired? So, I don't know that we can do all of that by November, but um I think that would be helpful because then also what I'm hoping is that by the time we're asking the voters for a plan or for support around a mill, we're able to be very specific with $40 more million dollars in a mill. I don't that probably is very high. I don't know. um you know, our plan is to be able to do this with
222these kinds of reductions and this kind of strategy going forward in compensation and how we want to show we value our employees, you know, so really putting together the narrative with all the complexities in there. um because we will have to do the reductions and to to be honest from someone who comes from an industry where we like a lot of us are doing this right now. I I we do it quickly, you know, and so um this I I the system here is so much bigger and so much harder to move that I see why we need to take this time to do it this way. But um every organization that I'm affiliated right now with is making cuts. um other boards I'm on and things like that. So, this is a real um
223kind of I think thing that a lot of people are going through. So, I just I'm hoping that we can kind of take all of those things together and then include the hard work of the the reductions in here as well. And I would also like to me um second the priority of keeping as many cuts out of the onetoone contact with kids that we have. Um, I completely understand that it is part of teaching kids. Um, I I think we all do, but that um that contact with kids in classrooms, I would like to of course I think we would all like to keep that um as a highest priority as we make these kinds of decisions. But thank you for bringing these forward. I I know I I was very pushy about getting
224these here and I know this is just like very basic math, but um I do really appreciate this and I really do want to support you on this. I just want to echo my appreciation for the scenarios. It's really really helpful and I know that takes a lot of effort. So, thank you very much and I will also thank you um for the scenarios so that we can begin to wrap our head around it. Um the considerations about how we approach this. Um I think the three three different scenarios that you brought to us are a great starting point for us to consider the realities that we're facing and for our community to understand the reality as well. Um, I am hopeful that we can have, you know, not community engagement in the decision-making process,
225but we we need to do some public education around the situation that we're facing and why. Uh, and so that's these scenarios while they're not proposed plans, I want to underscore that. I think um provide enough gravity that you know some of our other community leaders and community partners can also review this ask questions and join us in some problem solving and some thought process around that. I'm sorry I have one more question. Um if we if we are talking about reductions then does that mean let's say just to understand how the the money flows the school budgets would decrease right um to make those reductions if they were in the schools um does that mean does our SBB stay the same would we be reducing the SBB amounts okay and that's the that's a
226choice choice that we make as a district. I understand how we add to it with additional state funding. But basically what we if we were decreasing the school budgets, we would be decreasing our per pupil pastor spend. So So it kind of all comes down to SBV how much we spend and then can reallocate that money out into the schools. Um so our school budgets represent somewhere around 500 550 million of our general fund budget. And so you can think of um we we carefully design the SBB formula and we calibrate it each year to try and preserve purchasing power in schools so that they can continue to buy um an FTE at the right average salary for what the average salary. you know, there's all these things we do and then, you know, we
227wait the formula so that a smaller school can afford a minimum staffing. So, we run all these things before we pick the dollars to make sure that they pay for what we say they should pay for. Um, and so um this would involve um working with our partners and our school leaders and our staff and our teachers and whomever else. Um, and I I want to be clear, I don't I don't know exactly what community engagement plan you're talking about. I do know that um the commitment I think we want to make is um to talking to a whole bunch of different stakeholders. We think that stakeholders include students, staff, families, some of our partners who we support some of our partners financially and it may be that that has to change or something. So,
228but I don't want those changes to not involve input from folks. I think you do too. So I think I don't I don't know who else you know I'm not talking about like polling you know everyone and that's not it I do I think of community sometimes and maybe I'm using the wrong word as like school communities and um but maybe that's not the right way. So we can be more specific um the the I forgot what I was saying. Hi, just talking. Oh, I think you answered. Oh, wonderful. Can I insert one thing real quick? You know, you asked it in and your processing about community and at least in the 2008 2009 time frame, part of the discussion with community was as families, what do you value that we offer? whether it's um
229you know if it's um enrichment activities, if it's if it's you know you're paying for part of I don't know whether it's you know certain fees or whatever the case may be as we engage community it was like how much um do we reduce and how much does our community help to um contribute toward their their kids ongoing costs of whether that be supplies and materials, whether that be activities, whether that be athletics with that all the things and we didn't go out and do we cut this or this but it really was a educating the the the community around what things cost and that certainly helped us to understand what they valued and I don't know if that helps any but that was at least what my experience had been that that helps I
230was just referring to at our last study session when uh superintendent Dorland proposed the next steps plan and there was community engagement the two board members and so I guess it wasn't well defined then So that's what I'm was um reacting to. I think educating is it it's like the crux of almost all of the um ways we can fix all kinds of things. So well it doesn't fix it but it helps. So I think um I think my my interpretation when we were talking about that was that two people over the summer would talk about what community engagement look like. You know is that stakeholders? Is that whatever it is? Um, I've mentioned this before and I could and it might have been during that economic turndown that we actually put something on a
231on online for um, anybody that wanted to do it could. It was like a sliding pie chart and you could decide, you know, we're going to cut this. What does that do? We're going to cut that. What does that do? and not so much for the input piece because you don't want everybody saying I want this this but it does help with the education for people to understand sometimes you know there's just things that people are sure that if we just cut Disney Plus we won't have to cut anything else and we kind of have to show them that if we cut Disney Plus and we cut Starbucks um you know great that's going to get us 2 million of the 60 million that we need or you know whatever. So it can help. I
232think I just hope as one of their practices we should say we are not going to spend money to try to figure out how to save money. I just would love that to be one of those things that we are demonstrating. So maybe we can use the old scale slider. Um I also think we obviously going to include our associations when we start doing this too so they are aware of um like these scenarios they can see them and they can think about them and well talk with them. Um also I know that we talked about the two other or the two board members to help this um summer and at that meeting it was um Paula and me that that volunteered unless someone wants to really wrestle for it. I'm happy to help. I
233would like to help. Um I I do also think all of us should have input on this discussion. These are this is a this is our this is one of our primary jobs. Um and I think that two people are good enough, but we might be able to do better and we can figure that out later. Yeah. Okay. Um well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. And it is now 6:18 and we're going to take a 20 minute break. [Music] Down. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] As a school board, we're responsible for overseeing the district's budget. Every dollar matters when it comes to providing the best education possible. We carefully allocate funds to support teachers, maintain facilities, and improve student programs. It's our job to ensure financial transparency and accountability while balancing the
234needs of students, staff, and [Music] taxpayers. Heat. Heat. [Music] School boards are advocates for students, teachers, and schools. Whether at the local, state, or even the national level, we work to ensure our district's needs are heard. This includes pushing for adequate funding, better resources, and policies that benefit our students and our community. Advocacy is a critical part of making certain our schools have what they need to succeed in providing the educational experience students deserve today. You can view our board legislative agenda by visiting jeffcoubschools.org/board. O RG slashboard. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. [Music] Community engagement is at the heart of what we do as a school board. We represent the voices of JECO families, students, and all of our community members. We hold public meetings. We listen to concerns, and
235we encourage everyone to share their thoughts and opinions about the district. Your feedback helps us to make better decisions for our schools and shape our district's future. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] As members of your Jeffco school board, we help set the vision for our district's future. We work closely with Superintendent Dorland and her staff to ensure that our goals align with our community values and the needs of our students. Whether it's improving academic achievement or enhancing school safety, we are committed to Jeffco's mission of providing a world-class education that prepares all Jeco students for bright and successful futures as local and global citizens. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] One of the most important roles we have as a school board is hiring and evaluating the superintendent who serves as a district CEO and is responsible
236for the day-to-day operations of our schools. We provide the support and guidance they need to effectively lead and evaluate their performance to ensure progress towards our educational goals. [Music] One of the key responsibilities of the board of education is policymaking. We create and adopt policies that shape how our schools operate everything from curriculum decisions to policies that ensure every student feels a sense of belonging. Our policies help ensure consistency, fairness, and excellence across all district schools. We work hard to ensure they reflect our community's values and serve students best interests while following state and federal laws. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hi, I'm Mary Parker, a proud Jeffco school board member. Do you ever wonder what a school board does? We're a group of elected volunteers who help set the direction for our district.
237From shaping policies to approving budgets, we ensure that every student in our community has access to a quality education. It's our job to listen to families, students, and educators to make informed decisions that benefit everyone in our school community. For more information about the work of our board, including our meeting schedule on how to connect with us, please visit jeffcoubschools.org/ oorgg/board. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] As a school board, our focus goes beyond just today. It's about the future. We are committed to the long-term planning that ensures the district's continued success. a thriving district where all students can achieve their biggest dreams. From updating facilities to integrating new technology, we consider how today's decisions will impact students in the years to come. Our focus is on sustainability, innovation, and growth for the future of education in
238our community. [Music] down down down down down down down down down down down down down [Music] We believe in accountability and transparency. As a school board, we prioritize thriving educational experiences for students as our primary focus. This commitment requires systemwide accountability to make budget and policy decisions that align with the board's goals, also known as our board ends. We ensure that the district operates with integrity using taxpayer dollars responsibly and adhering to state and federal laws. We review data on student performance, graduation rates, and more to track progress, and hold ourselves accountable for delivering the highquality education your children deserve. To view our board ends and the district monitoring reports that help us track progress in these important areas, please visit jeffubschools.org/board. [Music] As a school board, we are committed to ensuring equity in education.
239That means making sure every student, no matter their background, has the resources and support they need to thrive. We develop policies and strategies to close achievement gaps, support diverse learning needs, and create an environment of safety, belonging, respect, inclusivity, and encouragement in every school. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Get [Music] down. Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. [Music] N. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] and welcome back. We are continuing with our study agenda. Next, the board will receive an update on monitoring report 2.2, which states that district employees will actively engage community resources for the benefit of students, and monitoring report 2.6,
240which states that the district will partner with students, parents, guardians, and the community in a mutually responsive, honest, straightforward, and considerate manner. Tara Pena, Chief of Families, Schools, and Community Partnership, will be presenting this update. Before turning it over to Miss Pena, Dr. Kim, is there anything you'd like to say? Thank you, President Parker. Um, I look forward to this monitoring report. Welcome. Um, Tara, Nate, Rhonda, and Jim, thank you for being with us. Um, you know, family and community engagement, as you all know, is is sort of a deeply core um value for me. I think it was a little over 10 years ago that I wrote strengthening the connection between school and home and it's been really exciting to see you guys and the work you've been able to do with all the
241tools and the innovation and the creativity that you uh you all have approached community engagement and parent engagement with. So I'm excited about how you'll share your work with us this evening. So Miss Pena, thank you Dr. Kim. Good evening board. It's always a pleasure to spend time with you this evening. I am Tara Pñena, chief family community partnerships and I am very honored um to have members of our family community partnership leadership team joining us this evening. Um and we'll start with some introductions. Good evening board. Uh Nathan Cabrera, director of family community partnerships working with our family response service team first. Ronda hata okay you do. Okay. Rhonda Hover, director of federal programs. Hi, good evening. Jim McKenna, director of family community partnerships. All right, just a quick overview of how we'll spend
242some time together this evening. So, we will um review our board ends 2.2 and 2.6. We will look at our interpretation, our context, our on um on track and our challenges. So board ends 2.2 and 2.6 2.2 states district employees will actively engage community resources for the benefit of students. Board ends 2.6 states the district will partner with students, parents, guardians in the community in a mutually responsive, honest, straightforward and considerate manner. So as you all read um in your report um this is a new report in how we've actually combined two board ends together. So over the last two years we've reported on monitoring uh excuse me onboard end 2.2 and this year you are getting a combined report newly added is 2.6 and so um as we were writing the report see really
243strong alignment of these two ends and really excited to provide you an update this evening. So bordens 2.2 and 2.6 six. Um, we interpret these ends to mean the district is responsible for building and sustaining strong collaborative relationships with families, students, and community partners to support student success. It also requires ongoing transparent communication and respectful engagement that honors the diverse perspectives and experiences of those we serve. And then finally, through these efforts, we create a shared sense of purpose, increase access to critical supports, and ensure that all students are equipped to thrive. This is measured by quite a few things. Um you had a pretty meaty report um this year and just really excited of all the different ways in which we have been able to demonstrate um the the the the ends as you
244have asked. And so there were a lot of things that you'll hear updates on that have been year-over-year. And there are things that are new with the addition of of board ends 2.6 um that you'll see as as new um to the report this year. But we use multiple tools and tools and initiatives to measure our progress, including the family school relationship surveyed and SAC surveys, tracking community partnership and volunteer engagement tracking, summaries of family engagement events and updates from the family response service team, efforts to support multilingual families and newcomer wraparound services, and then new in 2025, the impact of our mobile welcome center and strengthening family engagement systems. So these measures help us understand our strengths and where to focus next to deepen partnerships and to strengthen equity. So to kick off our
245presentation this evening, we'll start by sharing some celebrations and bright spots from this year. So here are a few pictures from some of the exciting moments and successes from this year's family and community engagement events across Jeffco. From the back to school bash um that you'll see, which you know you read about in the report, we welcomed over a thousand families. So exciting. um to the safe student summit and beyond. These highlights showcate the energy, connection, and progress that we are making together. So, celebrations and bright spots. For 25 years, Jeffco has ha has used a family and school relationship survey to better understand how our families experience our schools. In 2023, we transitioned to Panorama Education Platform um which now allows us to benchmarks our results against national data. This year, 11,529 family members
246participated in the survey. About a 20% response rate, which is consistent with previous years, though it's still slightly below the national average. We'll talk about that a little later this evening. Um we did see a onepoint increase across three of the four categories assessed. School climate now at 71%, school fit at 68, strategic plan alignment 62%, school safety remained at 74%. These are the positive. Yes. The the percentage favorable. Correct. Yes. So within school climate, we saw gains and perceptions that schools value the diversity of students backgrounds and that children enjoy going to school. Respect between teachers and students continues to be rated favorably at 79%. In the area of school fit, the strongest results were around cultural fit with 81% of families saying their child's school is a good match. There were also positive
247shifts in how well school activities align with students interests and how comfortable students feel asking adults for help. under the strategic plan category, we we're encouraged to see families increasingly feel their child's strengths are recognized and that district communications are applicable to their family. Finally, school safety has the highest favorability score at 74%. This is attributed to much of the work that we heard about earlier this evening to, you know, the executive limitations 11. And while families report high levels of safety overall, including 84% saying their child feels safe at school, there is still room for growth when compared to national pairs, especially on issues like bullying and online safety. So in your report in the appendix, you will see um all of of the data that disagregated. And so just wanted to make sure
248that you know you reference where that is coming from. Continuing on with celebrations, this year we took intentional steps to elevate family voice and expand authentic engagement across Jeffco. Our focus has been on moving beyond random acts of engagement towards strategies that are timely, relevant, and responsive to the needs and hopes of our families. As shared in the previous slide, the feedback we're receiving from families is affirming to the work we are leading to engage families and create cultures of safety and belonging for all. To that end, each year we aim to increase the diversity of respondents in our family survey so the voices captured reflect the richness of our community. To ensure accessibility and robust participation, we promoted the survey in schools, online, at events, and through multilingual outreach, offering it in 15 total
249languages, both online and in paper form to remove barriers to participation. um year-over-year this has been a goal for us and really excited tonight to bring to you that this is an on-track goal, something that we will continue to monitor and prioritize and um seeing statistic statistically significant increases in the ways in which we are engaging our multilingual families. Um we have these efforts that we just shared earlier have led to significant gains since its initial administration. And we have seen an 8 percentage point increase in participation from families of color and a 7point increase among families with students receiving IEP, multilingual learner or free reduced lunch supports. Another really meaningful celebration is that responses were collected in 11 different languages which is a promising step toward greater inclusion. We're especially we're especially encouraged by
250the survey results from Title One schools as well, where favorability ratings improved across key areas and outpaced district-wide averages. School climate rose by three points, school fit increased by two, strategic plan alignment rose by one point. These gains reflect growing trust and connection in communities that have been historically underserved. A celebration that we should feel really proud of. We also kicked off the school year with our first ever back to school bash, welcoming over a thousand attendees and more than 50 community and district partners. And I can attest to you, we served over a thousand hot dogs. It was two trips to King Supers and we wiped them out. So Ron and I both took took a trip when we knew we ran out of hot dogs. You know, planning an inaugural event, you have
251no idea what to expect. Um, and so I I took the first trip, loaded up my SUV, wiped out one King Subers, and then Rhonda went and and cleaned him out of the rest. So, sorry, sorry, the city of Lakewood, there were no hot dogs in the city that day. Um, but from bounce castles and face painting to meaningful conversations from local organizations and Jeffco teams, the event was full of joy, connection, and energy, the kind of highquality inclusive family engagement that sets a positive tone for the year. We're excited to bring this event back on August 9th, so save the date to start the new school year with celebration once again. Finally, in April, we hosted our first safe student summit at Weidge High School. Nearly 150 participants joined for an afternoon of learning,
252reflection, and action around student safety. The event featured two rounds of breakout sessions, a robust resource fair, and wraparound support like childare dinner and interpret interpretation services. topics ranged from online safety and recognizing predatory behaviors to youth mental health and family communication strategies and the feedback was clear. 93% of attendees said the event met or exceeded their expectations and 100% said they'd recommend future events. Um, I mean, it's been close to two months now since we've had that event and probably has not been a week that's gone by that that event hasn't come up in a community engagement or family conversation about the impact that that safe student summit has had. And so, my team and our actively planning and doing outreach with our community partners who were there, who also gave us the same
253positive feedback, how meaningful it was to meet our community with they are to address and come together around really important issues um together as a community. And so we do look to host um um some learning series that we'll offer regionally throughout the year um starting next year. And so just really excited to see that momentum continue and do expect that the Safe Student Summit will become an annual event. So this year we transitioned from hosting superintendent community conversations to adopting a new approach that enabled superintendent Derland to visit more schools and participate in a broader range of community engagement events. The shift was designed to foster deeper, more authentic relationships and allow the superintendent to be more organically integrated into the daily life and culture of our schools. It also reflects Jeffco's commitment to
254authentic engagement, inclusivity, and celebrating excellence by meeting families and community members where they are while shining a spotlight on the incredible work happening across our district. With support from school leaders and community partners, Superintendent Dorland visits throughout the year included 48 instructional walkthroughs, 30 family community engagement events, 57 staff engagements, 26 leadership and government functions, and 11 internal organizational events. Each visit was intentionally aligned to the purpose and context of the moment with connection at the center. Highlights include enjoining students um and community for a veterans breakfast at Green Mountain High School, which is a photo that you see there. I had the privilege of being there for that event. And our veterans um were just so wonderful and delightful. It was a super snowy day. Um and I wasn't quite sure we were going
255to have the turnout that we did. It was an early breakfast and they were there and they were they were early and this was already their second breakfast and I think the breakfast started at like seven. Um, but they were so grateful. Um, we had students there in a choir performance, but it was probably one of my favorite events of the year. Um, in addition, as you'll see here in the photo, um, another one of those authentic engagements, um, is Superintendent Doran supporting Coline High School's Day of Service by helping students make blankets for diialysis patients. Um, and these are just a few of the examples of the many ways she engaged directly with our community. I had the privilege of joining Superintendent Darland for many of these engagements, and they were genuinely wellreceived by
256families, staff, and students alike. To further share these moments, Superintendent Dorland launched an Instagram platform, providing a window into the daily life of schools and helping build district-wide connections through real-time storytelling. We're going to continue with a couple celebrations related to the work that we're doing as a division. This year, Jeffco launched and expanded several key family engagement initiatives to support specifically our newcomer students and families, strengthening trust, um access, and responsiveness across the district. Two of those areas include uh first off, the mobile welcome center. the mobile welcome center, no pun intended, but hit the road for the first time, attending over 25 events to bring resources and enrollment help directly to neighborhoods, overcoming transportation and access barriers for our families. It's a 17 passenger bus that has been retrofitted. The the seats within
257the bus have been removed. It was a picture highlighted earlier in this deck. Uh the seats were removed and it was converted into a fully equipped family resource center on wheels. It has Wi-Fi, heating and air conditioning, laptops, and we always try to keep it stocked with a variety of things that families might need from clothing, books, hygiene, um, hygiene products, and even real-time interpretation equipment. The mobile welcome center offered assistance at a variety of different events and activities from back- to-school fairs, enrollment events, newcomer family workshops, parent teacher nights, and community nights around the district. And this initiative represents an equity centered approach by meeting families where they are and providing culturally responsive support. Another area of celebration is our family ambassador team which provided wraparound support to nearly 900 families at 100 schools
258connected to 1,438 newcomer students across the district. The family ambassadors help families feel empowered and connected to their child's education when they may themselves be very unfamiliar with the US education system. The team uses a tiered support model uh from outreach to newcomer families to navigation to intensive case management. They're ensuring that families get the right level of assistance so that they can be fully equipped, engaged, and empowered in their child's education. Hopefully in this report you had the opportunity to read a few of the impactful statements from families and students in the appendix. It's always the stories more than the numbers that point to the impact. Um and I would say on a personal level it was it was an honor to work alongside this team. Uh they received a Jeffco Thrive's values award
259this year for the recognition of their impact in the district. I'm very grateful for them. Uh I do also want to acknowledge you. I want to acknowledge and thank the board for their timely investment in these resources. Uh last year we experienced an influx of newcomer students and families arriving in Jeffco. We knew we needed to respond. The investment proved to have a significant impact in creating a culture of belonging for some of our most vulnerable students and families in Jeffco. So thank you. The family response service team is in its second year of implementation. Um it serves as Jeffco centralized call center staffed with culturally competent bilingual members handling concerns from enrollment to transportation and beyond. Um and this year at the time of this report we had responded to um over 1500 calls
260or tickets that had come through our space uh and actually getting resolution on many of those well within um 48 business hours. Um, and we also really focused on and trying to become a little bit more well known across Jeffco as continued uh continued challenge, but it's just such a big district. But we made it to over 120 different community outreach events this year. Um, kind of building upon some of our outreach from last year and looking forward to continuing that moving forward about our multilingual supports for families. So, Jeffco saw a major increase in schoolwide use of multilingual communication tools, removing language barriers and creating more inclusive real-time communication and connections with families. Language Lang on demand up there, as you see, is a phone-based interpretation service. We saw 134% increase in usage that
261reflects the rapid abdop adaptation or adoption across schools. Um staff used this service system for over 6,400 calls and for over a totaling 63,159 minutes in 52 different languages. The the dramatic increase in use since its inception in February 2020 2024 saw that schools are pri prioritizing immediate accessible communication with multilingual families. As you can also see talking points up there. That's a two-way translating machine app. It was adopted by 85% of our title one funded schools that helped staff and send thousands of timely accessible updates to families in their preferred language. Earlier you heard about the strong family perception survey data results from our title one schools. Our inference is that these language just justice tools are increasing the belonging and safety for our multilingual families. This is something we will explore further next
262year. It's also important to note that 84% of our elementary and K8 schools, 100% of our middle schools, and 66% of our high schools use the Talking Points platform for over sending over a thousand messages this year. It truly removed daily communication barriers, enabling staff to build more consistent language accessible relationships with families. We saw a huge impact um with talking points and all of our stakeholders say, "Please, please continue to use it." And we are So, I'm really excited. I'm going to be turning over this slide um to a minute here to Jim, but before I do, I want to take a moment to celebrate a really big milestone. Um so, one of our key areas of focused acceleration over the past two years was identifying a solution for community partner and volunteer tracking.
263And I know that is something that is getting um just lots of conversation, lots of engagement, um a lot of curiosity, and a lot of urgency within our community. I know we heard that a little bit earlier from Jeff and Metalina's presentation this evening. Um and we're proud to share the progress that we made. Um really excited to bring and and um to be able to state that that this um priority over the last two years is moving to on track tonight and really excited to share the progress um that we've made in the celebration that it is for Jeffco. So in August of uh 2024, we launched Jeffco Partners in education or Jeff Go PI uh which is a powerful platform streamlining how we engage, track and collaborate with both community partners and volunteers.
264The Jeffco partners and education platform created a centralized accessible system for individuals and organizations to connect directly with schools. I know as a former bu former building leader and and in this current role centrally that that hasn't always been easy for our community partners. The system enables secure requests and offers. So think of an a request coming from a school or department out to our partners and an offer coming from our partners into the school system or into departments. So PI support um so it it offers those requests and offers helping to match school needs with partner resources, volunteer time or career connected opportunities. Jeffco supports tracking of engagement data as well including hours served, contribution types and alignment with district priorities. There's a whole admin user console that provides a ton of data tracking
265around all that activity. This has been a crossf functional partnership um which has been some of the best part of launching it is that this is work that we're doing alongside our postsecondary workforce readiness team and our IT department as well. In its first year, Jeffco has already built a strong network. Currently, a as of the um publishing of the monitoring report, we had 822 active community and industry partners already with partner profiles within Jeff Goi and an additional 193 registered volunteers. Throughout the course of this past year, 20 schools and 12 careerhub coordinators have been trained through a phased roll out with training and support sessions. Their involvement has provided essential feedback as we continue to think about training and resources to roll this out systemwide. Having the partners in education platform will also
266further strengthen other family and um will also strengthen other family and community engagement initiatives such as school connect which you have read about in the report. We're going to move um over and Jim's going to talk to you a little bit about what the platform looks like. But what I really appreciate about partners in education is two things. One is the ways in which it's allowed us to really strengthen the relationships and the trust that we have with community partners. My first year in this position um had um really meaningful outreach from many um long-standing community partners in Jeffco that just stand ready to help and they did not know how they were really trying to find their way or the right entry point and a lot of times it was kind of who you
267know or who was willing to invite the community partner to the table. And what we realized is we really did miss a technical system or a technical solution to solve a really adaptive problem. And that adaptive problem was the lack of an infrastructure was hindering um one the full benefit of community partnerships but was also um detrimental to the relationships. Some community partners were able to access partnership through anou process. Others had no idea what that looked like. Some were really welcomed in schools. others weren't even sure who to call and how to navigate. And so having one a central place um on our public-f facing website and a really transparent and accessible way to volunteer to sign up as a partner to get connected to provide a resource or a service um is just
268going to really allow us to um live up onto our commitments of both 2.2 and 2.6 in this report. And so it's it's serving both a technical and adaptive need in a district this size. And I believe that we're going to continue to see the impact of this tool on the partnerships and the trust that we have within our community. And I I would build on that with a couple of things. One is the silo effect within schools of we're all school leaders are often pulling their hair out to figure out who's out there to support us. This breaks down the silos of who our community partners are. And it does provide an um an extra level of safety to know that these are partners that Jeffco can uh that Jeffco is aware of. And
269so when principles and schools are trying to figure out is this a a trusted partner by nature of being within the system, we can um essentially approve them centrally to say, "Yeah, we know this mental health provider is aligned to our priorities or yeah, we know that this athletics and activities partner um has been vetted and um so the people centrally that have the um the subject matter expertise are able to give clearance to those partners. parters before schools um have to engage with them or get to engage with them. So what what you see on this slide is two screen grabs of Jeffco partners in education uh the platform. Um there's so much more to it and I'd be happy uh to find additional time to to walk you through the system, but what
270you see on the left is how schools like Hackberry Hill and Patterson Elementary School have posted real time requests. Again, a request is what a school needs and is putting it out into the system. they may know that partner that's going to pick up that request and they just may be casting their netwide saying who can fill this need for our school, our students or our families. Um everything from bagels and backpacks to guest speakers to work-based learning requests are able to be put out there by schools. You can see in both screen grabs as well, all that information can be filtered so that schools and partners can find the locations and school areas that they're they're looking to provide that partnership. On the right is a very similar looking image, but on the right
271is what it looks like for active offers from partners being put out to schools into the system. from internships to resources for students in schools. I think back to being a principal and people showing up with things that they think the school needed. Unbeknownst to them, that was actually the school down the street that really could have benefited from that. And this allows that that um to allows us to avoid that. I do want to highlight one great example of of how this platform is is finding success early on in in real life examples. So um um the city of Westminster had posted multiple internships directly through Jeffcoai helping place students across departments from public works to communications. One student even found a golf internship uh with the support of of their teacher and Jeff
272Copai helped make that connection possible. So whether it's um again work-based learning opportunities or school uh support for schools, it's it's we're beginning to see it bear fruit. This tool is also um this tool is already sparking new opportunities for students through job shadows, career fairs, and work-based learning. It's a key step in helping us bring the real world into classrooms across Jeffo. It also allows schools to efficiently collaborate with their neighborhood faith, business, and civic partners to meet the needs of their students, staffs, and families. So, while we could spend all evening sharing celebrations, um we'd like to shift gears now and talk about where things are going well with compliance and the challenges we're focusing on solving as we begin planning for next year. So, since launching this report in 2023, we're proud
273to share that many of the initiatives prioritized have moved to ontrack status. As you heard earlier, several of these efforts were lifted up as bright spots and they reflect the real momentum we are building in partnership with families, schools, and community. So, here are key areas on track. Diverse representation of voices family school relationship survey. So, we increased participation from families of color and multilingual households with survey responses collected in 11 different languages. Community partner tracking through the Jeffco partners and education platform. Jeff Coat now has 82 active partners, 193 registered volunteers supporting meaningful community school community collaboration across the district. Equity centered family engagement and community partnerships. So intentional strategies are in place to build family capacity, strengthen trust, and ensure inclusive access to both school and district level engagement opportunities. Multilingual family outreach,
274so the use of language line increased by 134%. Talking Points continues to be a powerful tool for two-way communication. Our newcomer wraparound supports the family ambassador team supported over,400 students and 900 families across more than 100 schools. Strengthening school family connections through first. The family response service team resolved over 1,500 support tickets. And I hope that in your report you saw all the different ways in which Nate and his team are using that disagregated data to inform um their decision and their support and engagement. Um, and it's I mean it's really robust. They use the Jeffco help system and it generates a lot of of really helpful data. Um, when Nate spoke, he was also really humble. He talked about ticket resolution within 48 hours. And there are some tickets that are a lot more
275complicated, many of those that come across your desk or into your inboxes. And those take a little bit longer. And while it, you know, some might take about 48 hours for resolution, um, they responded to 100% of tickets in 24 hours. And usually it's like 20 minutes, 2 hours. So that means when a call comes in, an email comes in, a help ticket comes in, the team responds in less than 24 hours. That is a really big deal when we talk about leveraging the tool and our responsibility to families to ensuring that they're asking and reaching out for help. We've created an infrastructure to allow them to do that. And we're actually responsive and respectful in our follow-through. And so just really proud of of the team and what they're doing. Um, so this progress
276reflects not just systems change but a shift in how we center families as essential partners in student success. So continuing on with our challenges and opportunities, while we've made meaningful progress, important changes remain alongside powerful opportunities to deepen trust, improve access, and strengthen um family partnerships across Jeffco. So, as you heard this evening, Jeffco has made important strides this year in family engagement, including an overall increase in family school relationship survey participation and a six-point gain in responses from families of color. These improvements signal growing momentum, but we still have critical ground to cover. With overall participation at 20%, we remain below the national average of 25 to 35%. and families of color and those experiencing poverty continue to be underrepresented in both response and perceptions. While the gains are encouraging, our data reveals an
277endearing challenge, inclusion. Only 40% of families report that their child's individual differences are seen as assets, a metric that has remained stagnant year-over-year. This perception gap underscores a powerful opportunity to ensure every family feels that their identity, voice, and lived experience along with that of their child is truly seen, valued, and respected. To address this, we are deepening our commitment to lean in to listen and learn and bring solutions. This includes district-led empathy interviews, school-based listening sessions, and targeted outreach in collaboration with our district accountability committee and our school accountability committees. We're also partnering with the Equity Accountability Committee to co-create strategies that build stronger, more trusting relationships with our families of color. We recognize that advancing equity and engagement also means increasing who has a seat and a voice at the table. Jeffco is
278focused on elevating the leadership and influence of historically underrepresented families across advisory committees, SACs, and decision-making forums. We are also expanding opportunities for co-design where families are not just participants but true partners and shaping engagement strategies, setting priorities and informing policy from the beginning. Guided by the principle nothing about us without us, we are working to shift from transactional engagement to transformational partnership where every family feels seen, heard, and empowered. As we deepen our commitment to authentic family engagement and community partnership, we recognize the need to strengthen the systems that support access, communication, and collaboration districtwide. This means aligning tools, building shared understanding, and ensuring equitable inclusive engagement practices are backed by responsive infrastructure. So, next year you will um hopefully you read about and I'm really excited to talk about the phase launched of
279academic partnerships. So research shows that key transitions kindergarten, 6th grade, 9th grade are pivotal for student success and family engagement. Beginning in the 2526 school year, Jeff Cole will will roll out academic partnership workshop in phases to support families during these critical years. These workshops will provide targeted learning, practical strategies, and developmentally appropriate resources co-designed with families and educators to ensure relevance and impact. Visitor and volunteer management alignment. So with the launch of Jevco partners and education platform to better track community partners and volunteers, we identified the need to align visitor management procedures to ensure safety and streamline processes. An RFP has been or will be um in the near future initiated to find a cohesive solution that integrates volunteer coordination, background checks, and secure visitor management consistently across all schools, balancing safety with equitable
280access to community engagement. And then increasing awareness of first support. Feedback from district operations survey survey shows that some schools lack clarity about the family response service team's role limiting the first team's impact. To address this, we will increase outreach. So on top of the 120, we're going to ask for a little bit more. So thanks Nate. Um we will increase outreach um through updated onboarding, targeted briefings, and a stronger presence at district and and other school-based events. This will help schools fully leverage first as an equity centered resource that strengthens family partnership and access to to timely supports and resources. And to that end, we turn it over to you for questions. Thank you board members questions. Um, thank you. This is a lot of work, but it's really important work. And I will
281tell you as someone who has got to come to some of the events, especially the kickoff, um I don't think any of us really knew what was going to happen or how many people were going to show up and I remember pulling into the parking lot and being like, they came. They all came. Same. We had a little bit, you know, the night before, are they going to come to our party? Yes. So, yeah, they did. They did. And so, it's really exciting to see the bright spots and um I appreciate that we know that there's still work to do. So, thank you for the work because this is hard, heavy work um with our hearts and it's also really important to the future of our district. So, I appreciate it. Um I have just
282have kind of two quick questions for our listening public who may or may not actually be listening. How can people get um tuned into PI either as a volunteer or as a partner? Y it'd be easier to just walk you through it, but we don't have time for it. All you really have to do is go to the Jeffco public schools main web page at the top. Um I'm not quite sure the the it term. There's a bar at the topam purple bar. Yep. Says community. One of those is community. You click that and pretty much every link within there with under partner and um volunteer connects to Jeff Gopai. And so it's as easy as it's um we we're in a partnership with a company called Reatrix. Um, and so everything's plugged in from
283the Reatrix end onto that community site. It'll bring you there. It's as simple as filling out a short profile and you're in the system. Awesome. Thank you. Um, the the response to the survey, as you identified, is is something that is an area where we aren't hitting kind of the national average. Do you have ideas? I know you mentioned kind of trying to get it out there and get it into schools. Um, have we looked at best practices and other areas that maybe are getting better reception to those surveys to think of new ideas or ways we can get response? We have. So, we have a really strong relationship with Panorama Education and just really grateful for their leadership and um the work that they're providing around providing this culture and perception survey to to
284districts across the country. So, they do have a toolkit that really offers some um um really creative and innovative ways. Um we actually just had a Panorama um in culture survey committee meeting today and we have talked about um finding different ways to incentivize the survey and maybe not incentivizing it in a monetary way but incentivizing in a way that brings some some celebration and excitement to schools um that really brings some you know be you know get 100% at your school and you know I don't know you'll get something really awesome. Um so obviously we have some work to do to develop what that campaign is. Um but similar to the momentum that we saw around the Jeff Co shows up campaign, when we work together as a community and align our efforts to
285bring um a really meaningful message um in alignment together, we really believe that that we can get more family engagement. I think the other important more participation um from that survey. The other thing that we need to do and we started by doing that um over the course of the last few two years is letting our our community know what we're going to do with the actual survey responses. And so it's not enough to just collect that feedback. We have a responsibility to close that communication loop with our families. And so as um hopefully you saw in a community update, we did provide the responses from the Jeff Kiff listen surveys and let them know that these are some key areas especially around um the strategic plan and students feeling that their students um strengths
286are viewed as assets um increasing that diverse representation. School safety while school safety at favorability is 74% we're still only in the second quartile when it comes to our you know our national comparison. And so we still have a lot of work to do. So, we have a responsibility to let our families know what we're actually going to do with that survey feedback that they give us because if they know that we're taking the time and we value their input, um I believe that we'll get some continued engagement. Also really grateful for um the FEP, the family school community partnership subcommittee on DAC. Um and so and also grateful for Jim and his leadership who helps um facilitate that committee. They have set some really good and timely goals on how they might encourage and
287empower our SACs, our school accountability committees, which each school is responsible to have. And we know that one of the key responsibilities um and opportunities on DAC and on Sachs is family engagement. And so that is a really really meaningful time and a meaningful opportunity um for them to leverage that you know while they're organizing to also help you know make certain that that you know survey is more accessible. So, we have a lot of work to do and some a lot of creative ideas and a lot of brilliant minds and so um really hopeful that we'll continue to see increased um participation. Well, thank you all again. I'm going to take every opportunity I can from now until I'm no longer on this board to highlight that when people say that this district keeps
288spending money that's not directly in schools that you know why are you spending that that doesn't help kids. I want to point out that none of these things are school-based spending and that they are helping hundreds, often thousands of kids and families. That we are getting outside services like Talking Points. That's an outside vendor, the the vilified terrible outside vending that is killing us. um that uh the Panorama survey which is guiding so much of the work that we're doing and helping us figure out what we need to fix, what we need to work on, what's going well. Um again, an outside vendor. And I'm not saying that we can't cut those things back, that none of them are Disney Plus. Um I'm not saying any of that. But I do I just think we
289need to highlight the the assumption that this doesn't directly help kids when it so very definitely does. And so that's just going to be my my hobby horse for the next few months. Thank you, Director Reed. Um I want to also share the back to school bash. Amazing, visionary, effective, and super fun. I really want to help paint faces if you will let me. So, we have your chair all ready to go. Awesome. Um, I also wanted to I for thought for the board um because we there are lots of tents with community partners. It has occurred to me perhaps we have a board tent. Ask a board member, meet a board member. I don't know if you want to put yourself out there that way. Maybe dunk dunk a board member might be kind
290of more fun. Um anyway, it's a great it was a great opportunity to engage um because I sat with the deck um at their tent and had really great conversations with families that I wouldn't have otherwise engaged with or met. Um and so I I just wonder about how we can engage in a in a way that um will be positive for everybody who's involved. Um the only other thing and I love first I tell people about it. I want to spray paint it on the side of my minivan and drive around announcing it throughout Jeff Co. Um I think that our families will continue to be responsive. It's that they need to hear the stories of other families who have engaged um so that they know it's not um meant to prop up the
291institution, but it's actually meant to serve them and help them resolve issues that they're having. Um, so I'm hoping that that's part of the storytelling that happens is that you have some families coming alongside and helping to share. I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I think the most powerful way that something kind of grows is through word of mouth. Um, and we have had fortunately, knock on wood, several positive experiences for families. I mean, I think something that we're strategically doing for next year, just thinking about, we've we've been tracking all the different schools that we've actually been able to to get out to, and there are still some schools around the district that we haven't really engaged with. So, we're going to prioritize in terms of we're we're a fivep person team, so
292we're going to prioritize in terms of getting to some of those schools that we haven't yet to have that that touch point um that we wanted to have yet. um as well as you know the first year when we were kind of being integrated into the system there was a much larger communication presence um across some of our social media platforms for the district and things like that and and that's worth doing again. Um it's something that in the second year we didn't focus as heavily on because we're like okay we did a big push last year we're going to focus on on some other things this year but it's it's worth revisiting that again as well. Awesome. Yeah. I just want to um share how effective and supportive I think that that is in
293ways that some of our families may not expect that that's the level of support that they would receive and we just I want us to tell our success story about that more and more so I'm going to do my part and I hope everybody else does as well. Um, also in the report, the actual report that you all sent, and thank you so much. It's great information in there on page 12 under board member town halls, I just wanted to add that I did have a town hall on November 11th at Bear Creek High School, that was not included in the count there. And I just wanted to make sure that Thank you. And my apologies for that oversight. So, thank you. It's okay. That was added in. And also, some of us, I know
294I'm not the only one, did some student town halls as well. um if you wanted to toss those in there. Um I did two at Evergreen, one at Bear Creek High School and one at Cardy Middle School, which was really super fun to talk to middle schoolers about being on the board and hearing what they're concerned about with the district. Absolutely. Thank you for that feedback. And as we're preparing this report for next year, we'll make certain to reach out and get all of your engagements because that's an important reflection of us actualizing our board ends is is the role that you all play in family community engagement. and so we'll do a better job at making certain that's more accurately reflected and more well-rounded of the role that you play as leaders in our
295community. So, thank you. Thanks. Um, thank you. I had just a couple of questions. Um, I think it would be helpful to see the data from the survey by um, demographic categories. I was hoping it would be in the report. I understand why it's limited on the presentation, but and with the increase in representation across those groups, I think it's even more important that we start doing that because then we can see oops obviously all the differences. So, um I think that would be really helpful. And in the in the presentation, you mentioned a finding by a category. So, I'm thinking it's somewhere. It's just not in this report. So, absolutely. So just to clarify um the the power of Panorama allows us to disagregate data in many ways. Um um for families um we
296could um disagregate it by family type. Um so it's mom, dad, stepdad, caregiver, grandparent, so to speak. Um we're also able to um break the data down by language. Um but also by race. And so we're able to break it down by each individual question. We can also break it down by construct um which are those those bands that you see you know school climate strategic you know alignment all of those things um and so there's there's some really interesting ways in which we can disagregate that data and so I can play with that alongside Dr. Eaton to figure out what's going to be um the most um friendly way to share that so you don't get a you know another 50page report from us um but but happy to share that um with you
297at a later time. Okay, I'll follow up with that. I think it's something we kind of ask for a lot is the data disagregated by these different groups and and don't get as much as I think we ask. So just saying that because I think it would be really helpful. Um I can't find the table in here but I wrote it down but for the newcomer counts and I and I verified it when I was looking at the table. It was for this last year correct just one year. Mhm. The count was 941, which totally surprised me. And I wondered how that fits into I don't have Brena here anymore. Uh our declining enrollment. I didn't realize we had such an increase in student count. And what does that mean? Do did we actually lose
298twice as many? Did we lose the 800 kids? Say um I'm sorry, I'm not gonna get all the numbers right. Plus 941 and this replaced it. So I was just curious, I don't know if you know the answer. Well, one important distinction when we when the family ambassador team considers we're we're working with newcomer families, the CLLDE, culturally linguistic and diverse education team who works with our multilingual students. They have a a very firm definition based on US uh the department of education guidelines for the definition of a newcomer. So that includes limited English proficiency and uh a year or less within the United States. What we realized early on is that that just because um you may have been in the United States longer than a year or just because your student may be
299have a higher proficiency level in English, that doesn't mean that you still might not be newer to the US education system. And so we've intentionally broadened in the in terms of how we're identifying families to be more inclusive of a family that for instance may have moved here 5 years ago but just now has a child in in Jeffco public schools or in the US education system. So our numbers don't um perfectly align intentionally with those tighter numbers that are coming from the CLLD. So, we don't have a total of 1,400 um by definition newcomer students in Jeffco. I would have to pull that number for you. I don't have it off the top of my head because we're intentionally going broader in the support that we're looking to provide our families and and our
300families can opt into this service as well. This is account of students using the service not new to the district. So they are fitting that CLLDE definition of newly arrived in the last year. Um so by all intents of purposes they are new to Jeffco. So they are a newly enrolled student. Yeah. My question not not really the definition although not very much but like just are those 941 new students that added to our enrollment because that I don't I haven't seen that accounted for in like a budget presentation for example. I'll get Brena to verify in terms of how that impacts our declining enrollment numbers and how we calculate that. The one piece that that jumped out to me when you said that is October one is sort of that date that we count.
301And when we think about newcomers, they come in all year long. And so, Annette, if if you remember two years ago, maybe three, when um there were many school districts advocating at CDE saying, you know, we've gotten this influx of lots of students that we want to serve. We want to welcome them in and we're not getting any funding for them. And there was a change done at that point in time to try to support schools in recognizing students are coming in not just at October one, but throughout the year. And there was some adjustment made there, but um I would want Brena to speak to how those enrollment counts come, but I know all of that factors in because I remember that part. Yeah. And also, not to say that's not important, I'm just
302literally wondering about the counts. I understand all the staggering of the funding and all of that, but I just hadn't heard about an increase that high of an increase because we hear about what we're losing. And I I would just add one other point of clarification is in year one of this program um we were building the plane while we were flying to some degree. In subsequent years we'll be capturing newly registered newly uh enrolled and registered students beginning in 2025. But in this first year, um, once we were able to get that first wave of connected to that first wave of families that were registering and enrolling in August and September, and we began to get some stability in our workload, we began reaching back to families from last year and even prior years
303to say, "Hey, we know you're there and we're here for you if that's something that you need." Also want to uplift that, too. Um, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about the technical, you know, infrastructure that's needed to do the adaptive work and this is one of them. So not only are we providing this service um to creating inclusive and safe environment for our newcomer families, but it's required a lot of infrastructure. And so that's training with school secretaries, it's creating um you know an enrollment form so that we can be flagged. We have a newcomer dashboard um you know language data within Infinite Campus. And so they're pulling lots of different data to make certain that we're identifying all of our students and families. And it like all things um you know
304requires a lot of collaboration and a lot of time. And so I feel really good about where our data landed at the end of the year. But but Jim is correct. It required um you know a lot of work in the beginning to figure out how are we going to identify these families um to ensure that you know none of them are you know getting lost in the system. So really proud of the work that happened. I don't know if that was fully reflected in the report but a lot of work that happened. I'm really proud of it too. Thank you. Thank you again. um echo um Jim's sentiments from earlier, but truly you've heard me say it before and I'll say it again. Thank you so much for this investment. I mean, we knew
305um you know, this time last year as we were we you know, we had you know, the resolution and we were really looking about how we were going to support our newcomer students and families and we had no idea what awaited us in, you know, the fall of 2024 and in January of 2025. And if we think about the role that our family ambassadors played in creating safety and belonging for the most vulnerable students and families in Jeffco, um it has been a significant and powerful investment um that I know our communities, our schools, and our families have been incredibly grateful for. So sincerely, thank you. I just have one last thing. This um on the question about the individual child's differences viewed as assets. I know this is a national survey and all but
306I when I read that question I think as a parent that is a very difficult question to answer. Um I will just say I wonder about the reliability of the question meaning like when people are reading it are they all interpreting the question to be the same thing and I I I don't doubt that and I I'm if that is happening then I'm glad you called it out as a challenge and something to work on. I also wonder if the the question is worded in a way that makes it really difficult for someone to answer. Um and it's and it's making the data look like that. Um because it it I think it could be perceived in a a few different ways. Absolutely. I mean there are we do get constructive feedback about the ways
307in which um the questions are worded on a panorama or just the fact that it's the data is responded fa is responding um reporting favorability. Right? our brains don't always kind of want to interpret data in that way. Um, and we just um as part of our our committee meeting earlier today did talk about and Panorama is actually looking to simplify some of their language without one changing the readability or changing the overall intent. Um, because I do think that there is some inongruence when we think about one of our constructs of school climate and school fit being at 81%. um if my child's strengths aren't seen as assets, but yet my school is a good fit, you know, there there might be a little bit of a disconnect there. So, it's really great that
308we have lots of robust data and, you know, we're asking for families in lots of different ways, their experience in Jeffco. And so, that's one we'll continue to pay attention to and we have lots of other data around how we've operationalized name, strength, and need with students and families that um you know, prove a little bit otherwise, but we'll continue to pay attention. Thank you for that feedback. This has been wonderful. Um, you got even closer to the kids uh than the safety presentation. Thank you. It's a high compliment. Anyway, thank you very much. Um, this is this is wonderful to know about and um the only question I have for you is um from the first team. Um I I sometimes wonder if you roll your eyes at some of the things I pass
309on. Um, how are you feeling about the the questions that you get forwarded? I will say it's never a dull day and uh and there are some things that we're like we are surprised about with the importance that uh individuals sometimes place on on different things but at the end of the day I think it really comes down to they just want to be heard fully. And so that's how our team's always approached it and that's how we will continue to approach it. Yeah, I think it's so helpful. It helps me as a board member, I know. And I think the community soups must love you as well because they had a a tough job when they were the escalation path for parents. So, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have
310a good evening. Okay. For our next study agenda item, Ed Bowich, a partner at Bowich and Cassell Public Affairs, will join us to provide a recap of the 2025 legislative session. Mr. Bowich is joining us virtually this evening. I hope there he is. Um, and before he begins, is there anything you'd like to say, Dr. Kim? President Parker, before we begin with Mr. Bowage, we have skipped an item on the agenda. We need to go back to policy update. Oh, we did. I thought that was next. If you want to get back. Yeah, I think we should. Should we let Ed? Yeah, let's go with Ed. Come on back, Ed. Thanks. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Bowitch. Um, I'm excited for him to give us a little bit of a summary. Um, some of
311his work uh reminded us back to I think Dr. Varda and um our new chief of schools, Drew Coleman, and I got a chance to go out to Lucas Elementary School, and watch our fourth graders get really excited watching the governor sign three bills. Um he signed um the school finance bill, the um dyslexia screening and and redact bill, and the education accountability system bill. And there were lots of folks there from many different districts. It was, you know, it was a neat day to see the energy there. And um the students got to sit all around and watch him because I guess they had been earlier in the year to the capital watching some of the legislative process and this gave them a chance to see it at the end and watch him actually
312sign something into law. So it was a great opportunity to to see our kids, you know, get excited about learning a process that was really authentic. Okay. And you're up. Okay. Good evening everybody. I apologize for not being there in person. Um the legislative session ended about three weeks ago. Um maybe four weeks ago. Losing track here. The governor has until Friday to do final action on any bills that pass the legislature. So we're seeing lots of press releases, um signing ceremonies, um as was just mentioned, um and then signing bills administratively in his office. So those will continue through Friday. Um I did uh a brief uh report that I think is um been posted. Um starting off with school finance um as we've talked a lot about this year. If you think back
313to where we were in November with a very um significant potential loss in funding due to the governor's proposal to eliminate all multi-year averaging. In the end, as you know, we moved from five-year averaging to four-year averaging on July 1, 2025, but that was part of the school finance bill that passed a year ago. So, really, there was no change in this year's um school finance act with regards to enrollment averaging. Now the house bill 1448 the new school finance act was is being implemented on July 1 at 15% of its level rather than the 18% as originally anticipated. So a slight reduction. Um, one of the other things that happened with school finance was a late change um, Senator Kulker um, from um, from whose district has a big chunk of South Jefferson County
314as well as Arapjo County. Um, he sponsored an amendment to create a Kids Matter fund into which a portion of state federal of state a federal taxable income will be transferred and those monies will be used for total program funding and categorical funding. Um, I haven't seen a kind of an accounting on how this will work. I think that will change with each revenue estimate. So, I will keep the board up to date on how specifically um that program will work. The other thing about school finance I wanted to mention um is that this year's school finance act created two new working groups. one and both of these have not been um gotten going yet um not started yet. One is looking at the concept of a smoothing factor. So instead of talking about multi-year
315enrollment averaging and do we average three years, four years, five years, what about looking at it as a smoothing factor that could be applied to um district budgets for districts that are experiencing any sort of budgetary um upheaval or significant change. So there'll be a working group to put that together. Then there's also um the school finance act created a working group to look at the charter school alignment with house bill 1448. As you remember 1448 provides the district average funding to each charter school within the district regardless of the types of students enrolled in each charter school. So this working group will consider alternative models to to that. how how should charter schools be recognized for the students that they have enrolled? So, that's just a brief summary of the the school finance um
316portion. Um moving on um to some of the bills I've listed then and in this next section the bills that where Jeffco took a formal position and the position for all of these was support that first grouping students from restraint and seclusion the library materials the social and emotional pilot program and this dyslexia screening those have all been signed by the governor. Next group where I said pending consideration by the governor, the comprehensive black history and culture education and the trauma-informed school safety practices. Those bills have since I prepared this report, they've been signed, I believe, yesterday and today. So, they were also signed by the governor. Um, the one bill that we took a support position on, but it did not make it through was Senate Bill 123, the education curriculum on genocide against
317Native Americans. Um, I believe this was kind of because of a split among some of the Native American groups about whether this was was needed. So, I'm guessing that will be back next year um that u for consideration. Um, I've listed all the other bills that were kind of on the tracker this year. Don't necessarily need to go through all of them at this point. Um, but just uh have them listed there. Um, and then, you know, if there aren't any other questions on bills, we can take questions at the end as well. Always, you know, the legislative session may have ended, but we're always already looking towards the next one. um January 14th, I believe. It's going to start a little later next year. Um the the budget issue really dominated everything this year.
318Um the legislature was able to make a bunch of permanent budget reductions to close a big chunk of the gap, but at the same time, they also did a number of one-time changes just because they had to. So that means those one-time budget reductions are going to be up for reconsideration this in 2026. So they'll be back to cutting more things. This year's cuts, you might say, were the easy cuts, the first round of cuts. I'm worried about what next year will look like. We'll get a sense of things on June 18th. That's the next quarterly revenue estimates. I'll send a report to the board and then in September as well. Um, also the 2026 session will be the last year of the Polus administration. Will the legislature challenge Governor Polus more in 2026? Governor
319Polus vetoed a number of bills this year. There was talk about possible overrides on a um internet safety bill and a records act bill, but those did not happen. Um, so next year would we see more pushing back on the governor? um all the House members will be up for election and half the Senate will be up in 2026. So it will be a more politicized environment. So that concludes my my formal report, but happy to to respond to any topics. Thank you. Um board members, questions, comments? No, just thank you Mr. Badich for all your work this session. I know it was a a busy one and we appreciate your your efforts for us. Thank you. It is a pleasure to represent Jeffco. Super great to see you again. Um my one question and
320just cur pure curiosity the safe to tell handle with care notice bill died. Can you give us an insight into maybe why or what some of the concerns were about that? It's I think I will have to Yes, I think I will have to get back to you on that. Okay, that's fair. As to why that one did not make it through. I'll put that on the list and I'll I'll send an email out to the board. Appreciate it. Um the only other question or thing I wanted to bring up was we had discussed after having um a session where Tracy came down and I was there and we met with some of the legislators in the area. You and I had talked briefly about maybe having more regular check-ins during the legislative session where
321we would be present and I just wanted to follow up on that idea. I I can speak to that. Um, Dr. Kimworthy, those are actually on the board calendar that you all approved um on last meeting. So, they are set I think we worked with um Mr. Bowitch to set them uh per his guidance each month um when the legisl legislative session starts. So, the great news is they're already noticed. And so, um, you all will be when once we get into the fall and you all appoint whoever is going to lead on the legislative the board's legislative agenda, you can also plan those those sessions and more details. So, maybe right away with your um legislative agenda this year, you all can just go ahead and put the dates you'll be at the capital
322um so that folks will know that. I appreciate it. That's fantastic. And I I can't see. I think that was Lisa. Um I do want to compliment her because a couple of days ago she asked me a very important question. Which bills that passed will recall will require action by the board requiring new board policies? Um so I sent her a list um as well as the the the the legal council. Um, I also talked to Casby and Casby said that because I wanted to double check the list I had with CASBY, they will be getting to each um, CASBY member um, model policies for boards to consider in the next few weeks on all of these. But I thought that was an excellent uh, question from Lisa there. So, thank you. Great. Um, I
323have a couple of questions. the um financial literacy graduation requirement. I see that it was signed, but it says requires all students to complete or wave FAFSA. So, is that somebody's like um compromise? I know there was a lot of comment over whether that was something that they should be incorporating or requiring. Yes, that that bill generated and that specific portion of that bill was the one that got um the most attention because the um the financial literacy portion having that as part of the as part of a course. I think a lot of people already do that. A lot of districts already do that, but putting up the FAFSA requirement where Colorado um is we do not have as many students completing FASA as other states. This was seen as a way to address
324that. Students are leaving money on the table when they get to higher education if they haven't completed FASA. However, many districts said, "Do not put an additional graduation requirement. we don't want to work with students. We do all this work. The students are really trying. They get to graduation and we say here's one more hurdle. So this was the compromise that it is a requirement but it can be waved by the school. Um so it's a a soft requirement or a quasi requirement or not really a requirement at all but a a strong suggestion you might say. Great. Thanks. Also on the HVAC requirements in schools, did that like it hadn't been signed yet according to your list, but is it something that would cost us money as a school district? Um I this one
325passed last year and was vetoed by the governor. I think this year's bill was scaled back a little bit and I never heard much concern about it from case um or CASBY. So I don't think that it's a a major burden. Um this was um Representative Leer from Jefferson County was one of the um primary sponsors of this again. Um, so I it wasn't wasn't something that really rose up on people's concern or list of concerns. Okay. And the last one I have a question on is the protect civil rights immigration status and it says it makes many changes to Colorado law and requirements for local governments and school districts. Do you know what it would be requiring school districts to do? Um, on this one, I will send you a more comprehensive response on
326that, and I apologize. I'll add that to the list as an email followup. Um, because this one was changing throughout the process as well. A lot of it was um was about data sharing and what data could be shared and restricting that. Um, um, but I don't think um, but I I will send a more comprehensive email summary and I apologize. I should have looked at that um more closely before tonight. Sounds good. Any other comments, questions? I hope you have a nice summer, Ed, and have some time to relax and um we you know, it is not a bad time of year. Yeah. Well, we really appreciate your work down there, too. I think you've been um really helpful to us with our questions. So, thank you. Well, I appreciate that. and I will
327do a follow-up email on those two points. And I hope people will stay in touch over the summer because I work year round for for Jeffco and as things come up, people can reach out to me. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so now we'll go back to um the policy update that I skipped. And so that is for the board to review updates to policy GP12 related to background checks for board members. This information will be presented by board members director Michelle Applegate and director Aaron Kenworthy who following the fe February 13, 2025 presentation on student safety, our shared responsibility, agreed to represent the board or yeah in updating our policies to include this important precautionary measure for our district. These updates to GP12 will appear on our consent agenda next week. Dr. Kim,
328is there anything you'd like to say regarding this? Just a thank you to director Kenworth and director Afflegate for leaning into this work. You have the floor. Well, I'll start by um saying thank you to Miss Ru for your help with this um and helping us to find language that's consistent with some other um districts and um helping us to draft some standard language and really taking the pen for us. Um, if you'll recall, this really came up when we were talking about background checks and who is being background checked and it I think director Kenworthy volunteered that she would be happy to also be checked and then I raised my hand as well. And so what you'll see in your board docket information um is the additional language and it's included in GP12 which
329is our board member financial disclosure. Um, it was amended to include background checks. And there's a pretty simple paragraph at the end that just covers that within 30 days of election or appointment, the the member of the board will submit to a criminal history background investigation for the purpose of potentially limiting exposure to schools and students. Hi, Erin Keny, uh, board member. Excited to be here to present to you. Um, we we want to align Can you repeat your name and and get closer to the mic, please? My name is Aaron Kenworthy. All right. So, um, we wanted to align ourselves because we have access to schools and because we do school visits um to address our interest in making sure that everybody who has access to our students, including board members, have a background
330check and are vetted. the reasons that somebody would not access a school um will be similar to what would be looked for or vetted in our in staff background checks. Um and so we're holding ourselves to a similar standard as the staff that currently work with our um with our students. And my hope is that most board members who are willing to run for this position are are willing to submit themselves one to this check and also um you know will understand the outcomes because it is now in here and they should know before they sign up to run for this position. So I'm very happy with the language that's here. It's a simple um but important change and I also think it helps our board practices align with what we expect from the rest
331of our staff and our volunteers that are going to be in our buildings. We will now entertain any questions from the board. Thank you. Yes, go ahead, Dr. Garda. I am surprised we weren't background checked when we came in. This is new news um to me, so I fully support this. Um, I also remember when running for the campaigns that some people background checked me um probably interested in who's running um from a public perspective um but also like um working for questionnaires and Girl Scouts, you know, some of us who work with kids now too get background checked a lot. So, there should be no problem and I fully support this. And I have a question. Does the background check include fingerprinting? And do we have a service that does that? Okay. And and
332do we have to go somewhere or somebody come here? Uh we do not do an in-house. So you So we there's a um uh locations that we send folks to. Well, and I I would like to clarify um for understanding that within 30 days of the election or appointment. So, this is not for every candidate. This is not a requirement before somebody agrees to run. It is once they are elected just for timing purposes. Okay. Well, can I would you entertain a something from the gallery? I I do want to say is something that you guys could do at the legislature next year. New Jersey actually has a state law about who can serve as a board member. Um, and if you have a criminal background and you get elected, you have to, um, that
333you can't serve. And so, um, it may be something you want to ask the legislature to consider. Um, but it there is I I looked deeply into that law as we as we were doing research. So, is something to maybe look at too for next year. Thank you so much for that. And I really appreciate your support too in getting the language in here and you've been incredibly helpful. Thank you. Thank you for your time tonight. Yes. Thank you and have a nice evening. Okay. So now on our next agenda item, the board will hear a preview of upcoming consent and action items on June 12th meeting agenda. Dr. Kim, the time is now yours. Okay. On the list um that you can find in this agenda item um that the list was updated this
334evening. Thank you to Kristen. Um approval of the minutes from board meetings on May 29th, June 3rd, and June 4th. Um the SRO agreements. One of the things that um I'll point out is that we have some of them, but not all of them yet. And so there may be a need to approve a group of them and then approve some more later because they're still working through some of theou stuff. Julie, do you have any additional input on that that you want to offer? We just had a new one come in today from Lakewood, so I think we may only be lacking Jefferson County, but Okay. We'll see. And you'll recall before we just had an informalou with our law enforcement partners that just informally explained kind of what everybody's role is. But because
335we're now going to be paying because there's money involved, we have to have a formal intergovernmental agreement, hence the need for board approval. Thank you, Julie. Um the updates to the GP12 policy that our guests just presented um will come on the consent agenda as well. You might need to take that off. It'd be separate, you know. We'll leave that to the board. Um election resolution the uh to approve the resolution authorizing the 2025 election and approving um appointing Jodi Lang um as executive assistant to the superintendent as the designated election official for the district. Um and then there's renewal of the contract the voice license and contract re renew I'll say that again renewal uh vendorm it is a cost of 1.8 8 little overish uh million dollars over five years. It is a
336decrease um but it is our phone system and it's a five-year contract as far as that and if there are any questions I'm grateful that Miss Ibeck is here to be my phone a friend. um approval of contract um Windows devices, DHE computer systems. That one is a a $2 million purchase investment, the use of Windows devices to um this is more targeted at CTE programs and labs, not the onetoone device program. So, um and you can see the 5-year window contract there as well. There's a donation from Michl John PTA for $69,000 to support PAR's classroom budgets, technology, and instructional items and training. You'll see renewal of the district fuel purchases contract for diesel and gasoline, $850,000. Approval of the contract of the um ERP data conversion partner contract. Um estimated cost $834,000. This
337is something that was a part of the larger approval by our board earlier in the year. Um, the district selected and I'm gonna say this really bad, Proivviti. Did I say that right, Jill? Okay, good enough. As our data conversion partner because of their workday practice um and um looking at the conversion from peopleoft to workday and their ability to engage in project work to avoid delays and keep us on on um on track. employee benefits, health and well welfare wraparound. Um the board will vote to approve health health and welfare wraparound document which consolidates all of Jeffco's benefit offerings into a single comprehensive resource. Um let's see. And then Shelton Elementary has their PTSA has a um a donation 145,000 um for a new inclusive playground. And then upcoming you'll see a June 12th
338our June 12th meeting and in that June 12th meeting we will be looking at cell phone research report Q3 financials adoption appropriation of the budget that which you talked about this evening and CAC engagement with the board and I have friends with me if you have questions any questions or comments and the wrap document was no money associated just that's my understanding as well right Kristen Thank you. Oh, Julie. Yes. Um, yeah, this was recommended by our outside council technically because each of our health and welfare sort of benefits programs. There's medical, there's dental, there's life there. Each is considered a separate plan with its own reporting disclosures plan document. And she said, "No, no, you should take them all and put them in the the same uniform wrap document." So, it's all the existing
339programs that you guys have and plans you've approved. It's a simplification sort of administrative tool, but you all need to approve it. Thank you. And I might have missed it. Did we skip the endpoint protection? I think it makes sense. I just want to make sure. I think that's the one that in the updated document that Kristen provided us at at the break. That one was removed off of the agenda. Got it. Thank you. Okay. So, moving right along. We're getting to our final item. And um before we get into it, I do want to make an announcement. Um we have two semi finalists for the Colorado Teacher of the Year Award. One of them is a Red Rocks Elementary School teacher, Kevin Brown, and the other is a Drake Middle School teacher, Leon Vasquez.
340And I think they were just uh notif notified today. So this is um hot off the press and very very excited. All right. And um so our final item of study um is the board engaging in dialogue surrounding current topics. Um we did identify a couple of them that are listed in the um uh agenda and those uh items were budget which I believe we have had a lot of time to discuss already um removal of library books and the mama's pilotas and the establishment of a permanent food committee in Jeffco also if we have time um we can uh add to this and I do have an interest in adding one thing which um I sort have alluded to earlier is just addressing the JCA um letter. Um so this is a discussion time
341that the board began adding to its study sessions following our February retreat. The time is for the board members to engage with one another. We do not involve district staff members in our discussion or ask them questions, but you're welcome to listen and write down anything you think of. Um, uh, and the assistant to the board, Kristen Harper, does keep notes for us on the items that require followup. And at this time, I'll ask Miss Harper to start a 30 minute timer for us. And you can alert me when we have two minutes remaining. So, the items that had been identified, um, I think we have the library books. There are some attachments which I want to thank um uh Miss Ru and Miss Harper for putting onto the um agenda. So the any listening
342public who wants to look more into the um information that we have, they can get it there. So um just going in order um who would like to start the discussion on the library book topic? I I sort of feel like we got a lot. Um I guess my hope is that if anyone uh any of our DTLs who has had a chance to review this feels that it is incomplete or um doesn't fully represent their their concerns that they will let us know. Um, I was just wondering, you know, what are we doing to consistently make sure that we're not just pulling things because somebody just decides, I don't think high school kids should have access to this or, you know, um, that we're overriding decisions being made by professionals who know what they're
343doing. So, I felt like this gave me a much more clear understanding um of what the criteria are, the having two or more scholarly reviews, that they're age appropriate, that they hold value, that um you know, that they can't have been there for a long time without being checked out. Um you know, I I felt like it answered most of my questions. I don't know if anybody else had others. I will say that from the emails we were getting and phone calls um I did feel that there was a sense that um a policy was removed and then changes were made to other policies but they didn't know they were not um apprised of that before it happened. So, it might be an area where we just want to make sure that um the people,
344especially the DTLs, the librarians are aware when some changes have been made. Well, and maybe even that they have input, you know, if they feel like a change is being made that is detrimental to uh to them doing their jobs or to students having access to information. Do we need to and I'll fair full disclosure, I have not read the policy since last week before they're blending Um, and if others have, do we need to address the current policy or do we feel like it is upholding to what the state law now is and um addressing the concerns of our details? I was just going to say based on what you just said, we could get feedback. I guess we did in emails and public comment, but that's a certain kind of feedback. I think
345we're thinking about more formal input. If we want to review it, we should engage then in the way you just described. I think director Ree, which I would be open to hearing um the DTL's thoughts on our current policy. That's helpful. Miss Ru, it looked like you were going to say something. I'm wondering if Casby has recommendations on this as well since that's something that's changed. There are new. So since that p the policy was written or updated there has and and Miss Tollison can speak to this but there's been another up the legislature updated it this year too. So there is a plan and um to to reook at the policy. It's something we have to do. So yeah but I've already swapped emails with some of our DTL folks that are interested in
346the issues. So good. Well, I think we're we'll start maybe with the CASBY model um and see if we like it, but kind of socialize that and see where we take it from there. I'm I'm just hopeful that I mean, it was obvious during public comment that our DTLs are concerned um and that there have been some things that have happened that have not felt good. And I just want to reiterate that I hope that the conversation that comes um is deeply collaborative and that we're not showing up with a prescribed response, but that we are engaging them. We're hearing what their concerns are um and making sure that we're addressing what some of their concerns are with some transparency, especially for our community. I think um I remember talking about this when I was
347on the deck that there are some groups in Jeffco who believe that they can just wave a finger and point at something and say I don't like that and then it's supposed to be gone. And we have to have transparent processes. We have to have um information and steps that people follow so that we don't have groups who are claiming to have influence or power that they actually don't. And it's it is something that we need to lean into and I want our DTLs really to help inform those processes that we use um because they are the experts and I think we need to value their professional input. Um so I'm I'm hopeful that those conversations are somewhat restorative and also really productive. Okay. Um well, we'll keep um apprised of it especially whatever changes
348have come with the the new legislation. So um the next thing we had on um the um pre-aggenda topics was the Edgewater um school food pilot um uh permanent committee. The food was it just food? Is that what it's called? ad food advisory. Um anyway, um I do want to appreciate the the presentation and all the time and effort. I mean, it was just it was amazing how how much work they've done. And we've got the um final report uh list in here for anyone to look at. um these uh moms, mothers, mamas have really taken this to heart and some of us have had the opportunity to go and actually test out some of their um their menu items and um I think this is a wonderful next step for them. I am concerned
349about um the budget and our ability to go further than we have gone so far. But um all this work and and um planning could set us up for when we do have the money to to increase it. I um I feel like we can still get input even with the budget constraints. And so I don't necessarily I don't necessarily think we have to wait to have um the input of like to to put in a a food um what what were we going to call that again? Food advisory group. Yeah, the food advisory group. Um the group itself doesn't have to cost anything. So but we could co go to them and say like here's here are the issues that we're facing. here are the supply chain problems, here's the what's in season, what's
350not in season, and here's how we're thinking about solving that problem and having input into um you know, like maybe we're going to go and we're going to say we have these three possible solutions. What do you guys think? Or they would come to us and say we think that you're not leveraging these possibilities. So, I think you can have the advisory group even if you don't have the money to make everything perfect. So, I would really like to to seriously consider getting this in gear next year. Um, so I I am appreciative of the work that that community has done to have culturally relevant meals um and scratch cooking for our kids. And oh, if we had the budget to do that across the district, it would be a thing of beauty. And we
351have some very real constraints, especially coming from a federal level, whether's, um, pulling of funds for using local produce and the types of things that we rely on for the pilot program. So, um, when it comes to the advisory committee, I will tell you one of the things that occurred to me as we listened to the testimony and as we were in the listening session is one, I get concerned when we just start creating a bunch of ad hoc additional committees um, without some intention. Um, I want to honor their ask, but I also want to see if there's a way to to align it with other things that we're already working on. And I know we had our students here earlier today talking about sustainability and a lot of things attached to the food
352pilot program are also attached to um growing local food and uh food waste concerns. And I think there's a way also then to engage some student voice along with um mom's community partners if this is if this falls under an umbrella of sustainability um because I think that's a good place where we have we're stating values and considering a board end um and that then a food pilot would fit under that if we're going to have a sustainability committee at some point in the future which I think has been an ask from some community members um and I know that um Miss Tarten is considering that and and has a process that she's thinking through around that. But similar to DAC, if we have a sustainability um committee that then we have subcommittees and that
353a subcommittee in there would be a a food a food account a food group. Um just to think about around some structure rather than us getting into a habit of where community has a concern and they want us to create another ad hoc committee and we have nowhere to put it, right? Um we already have a structure with the sack at the DAC CAC TDPAC right we have we have our groups um but if we because of our um considering of a board end on sustainability I think that a food pilot group would fit really well under that umbrella and so I wanted to propose that as an idea um so that so that we have a little bit of intentional process around this rather than just creating committee here and a committee there and
354a committee over there Um, so I just present that for your consideration. And so I am wondering um who in the district would be starting that effort uh if Miss Tarden is already starting this sustainability. Maybe we can ask her about it. We had talked about her sorry uh director Verda. Um we had talked at one time about her because of where she sits under Mr. Gatlin being kind of a subcommittee of the CAC and I know now we're talking about subcommittees under subcommittees um because I I really appreciate what you raise which is these are interconnected groups right and they do feed off of each other and in the same way we have asked DAC to address some things that are broad um I would I just wanted to raise that there's there's that
355connection back to the facility side and the capital side and so I don't want to necessarily discount that completely. But when you think about the infrastructure to director Reed's point of getting food, having a kitchen, needing central locations to provide it, that also trickles back up into facilities. So I guess also though, alternatively, it could just be at the level of CAC. Yeah. So I I wondered if we if we end up with this as an end that's pretty high level more less of a sub of something. So just to elevate it or prioritize it. I'm not suggesting we do. I'm just saying it's I don't know what the process is of creating a new board advisory committee. I don't know how the ones that we have became and I don't know the history of
356that. So yeah, I'd also be curious to understand the interconnectedness because I I don't disagree. Um but I think we will face a time where there's solar panels are a great example. There might have to be a recommendation from one committee to another to be assessed for us to assess it because not every roof in our district is is appropriate for solar panels. So there's um I'm open to all of these ideas. I just think we're going to have to when we appoint committees, we are going to have to recognize that for some there are there are crossover and there are ways that they're going to have to work together, which is also kind of beautiful, too. So, okay, we will Yeah, I will add I want to support Director Reed's initial idea is that
357this group could certainly coalesce right now and and we find a landing place for it later. I just think it's an important consideration because when you do this for one group then I think it opens the door for lots of people to go oh you know what I would love to advise about um the color of the walls in the bathroom or whatever you know and so just yeah so um just so that we're intentional and we're thinking about it but certainly I don't want to I don't want to um delay the work that these moms are interested in in continuing. They've already started it. They want to continue. Um so I certainly think they could coales and and be awaiting sort of assignment um under a specific umbrella. Yeah, I take that point too.
358They have presented us with so much information, so much work already and that was their ask for the next step and I know um Beth Wallace was in the last listening session we had too. So I'm thinking maybe it's appropriate to go through and actually Tara Pena was there as well and she seemed interested. So maybe we can reach out to one of those two or both of them and ask their idea on how to get it off the ground. Perhaps we could also get some advice from the district just on how these committees have historically been set and why. And um because I do think having forgive the engineer sitting over here criteria to say this is something that is elevated to a board level policy and then dictates a committee. I think that
359will help prevent some of the potential that director Kenworthy is speaking to, but I I also support let's get them going and after some direction and guidance maybe from the district to understand better about that. I just had texted Miss Ru and said we probably should check at least in some of my past experience policies within the A section or B section of board policy will oftent times give direction on what policy what um committees do you recognize as formal committees and if you want to add any to that what do you do um and I don't know whether our policy has that in there or not but that'd be the first place I would look to see if there is guidance within the policy that says nope we only recognize ES and the rest
360are like informal or whatever or ad hoc or whatever or here's a pol here's a process and we can check there first. Okay. Um we did have budget on here. So I do do want to ask if anyone has comments that they want to say that they didn't have or didn't say earlier today. I mean I'll just it's just beating a drum, but like I am it's I'm I just will be really honest. I'm so uncomfortable approving a $40 million deficit budget. It's just so difficult. Um, so I think that this work to figure out the resolution and the plan for the future. I don't know if we can balance a budget by 27. It might need to be 28, but just needs to be our top priority. That is why I keep saying like,
361sure, two of us could do it, but like five of us need to really push hard on this. Um, I know you all feel the same, but um, I don't feel good about adopting that budget and I it's just tough. So, I I really think that we need to be really supportive of this process to get on track. I would like to add um there's a part of me that's just really interested in um having a similar presentation for some of our other local electeds at the state level and um so that they truly understand the window into what it is that we're facing with our budget. um if they are interested. I mean, I think it would be an invitation to come and take a deeper dive while they're outside of their legislative session
362and maybe they have a little bit more bandwidth. Um because you know any any one of us could get called into a phone call or a conversation with somebody and try our best to explain all of the nuance and intricacies, but I think um if any of the five of us tried to present what Brena presented tonight, it's not going to be the same presentation. I'm just Right. Okay. Yeah. And so I I would rather have our electeds also hearing the same information from the same person so that they have some context when their constituents are reaching out and complaining or have questions that they become partners and supporters of us not just in the hard decisions that we need to make but also in the asks that we may need to make of the
363community in the future around um mill levy overrides and bond issues. So that's that's just something I really wanted to do. My I love that. Um I would ask that maybe we invite them to stay for dialogue and discussion afterwards so that we can have some meaningful because I think it's powerful to hear it from Rena. Totally. And I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to be like and here's how we see that. Yeah, I I think those are excellent suggestions and I think that the um uh legislative um reps and senators from Jeffco are very interested in that as well. They're and they're very supportive of um public education. So, it's good. All right. Um I'm just going to add um the the topic that I had mentioned earlier, too, and that is the
364JCA letter of no confidence. Um we've all received lots and lots of emails. In fact, um they're still coming today, tonight during the meeting. Um and I am um I'm so concerned. I'm so distraught actually, as I mentioned in our last meeting too, with our associations kind of um facing off against each other and and um seeming to be in in conflict. Um, and I said last time and I mean it again, a house divided against itself cannot stand. We cannot address the hard hard things that we are facing if we're not on board. And especially if we want to go for a Miller v override. I mean, it broke my heart to see um Jespa and JCA um negotiator team members saying, "Well, I'm not going to go um support it. I'm not going
365to go work for It's like, oh my gosh, if you're not going to, I mean, how in the world, what kind of a campaign can you have without their support? So, um JCA listed a lot of concerns they had and then we um got emails um on that side of things with um concerns they are serious um and um must be addressed um and we have to find a way to um rebuild the trust and um collaboration that we we need to be successful. We've also received an awful lot of emails um uh in support of our superintendent um and uh those emails, they list a lot of accomplishments for our our district and the really good work we've been doing. And um I want to make sure that we keep in mind both sides
366of it, that we don't just fall into line with one or either side that that wants to discount the other. Um, I feel in my three and a half years on this board right now, I want to make statement. I'm going to say that I am in strong support of Superintendent Dorland. I am very um happy with the work that we have done with her as our leader and um I want to continue that work. I I believe in the um Jeff Jeffco thrives. I believe in um high school re-imagined, the magic of middle school. And when I started writing down some of the accomplishments that we've had over the last three and a half years, um we came in, three of us, with a a a declining enrollment that was shocking that led to
367the closure or the consolidation of 21 schools. 21. Um we also instituted this change of start and end times which um that uh parent group had been working on for four or five years. It's another example of things being pushed down the the the road, kicked down the road. Um, and finally, we've we've addressed them. I am particularly excited about the standardized literacy and math curricula. I got a lot of feedback. All my school visits, all of them are are um happy that they've got uh resources being given to them by the the district. They don't have to go find their own. Um, I also love that we realigned the community superintendent now so that they're um aligned with articulation areas. I love the first team. I cannot tell you how much I love the
368first team. Um, we restructured central service support for um the schools especially around the area of HR. Um, we added uh vice principles to the schools with center programs. We have the mobile welcome center. Um, and we have given significant compensation increases. was the three of us that came on the board that was a priority for us. We did it and we can see that we did it um to the point where now we are facing a big deficit. So it's one of those tensions you have your priority you have your what you want to champion and you go for it and then you have to see the the results of it. So, um I am very aware of the um challenges that we have both budgetary and culture and climate, but speaking for myself,
369I'm committed to working with the superintendent and our associations to address the serious concerns that have been brought up um in our emails and our public comments. Um, I'm gonna ditto that. I You were sitting there and writing it all out and I was sitting here thinking that I should sit down and and write something that that does exactly that. Um, I think when we look at at what has been done for students in this district, it's been profound. And um I have a very very long history in this district and I've never seen this kind of alignment. Um I've I've heard people say they've wanted it for decades. I've listened to middle school and high school teachers squabble over who's teaching what and whether or not they're adequately preparing kids for the next level
370up. And um and so um you know that's huge. Listening to everything that we've done for our newcomer families and for our school and community partnerships just today is so heartwarming. And um and these are all things that profoundly impact kids as do our educators and their relationship with our superintendent. And so, um, building a positive relationship and having a really concrete idea of what that looks like because it can be really squishy, right? It can be really like I don't know what does that look like? Um, so so I just want to I want to add my support for what you just said. I think that we can do the work of making sure that uh our communication back and forth is affected effective, that our um that our educators feel respected, that our
371um people who support our educators feel respected and that we look at what we're doing for kids, which is amazing, and that we don't I've been through seven superintendent. So, and that's just as an educator. And every time you get a new superintendent, you get new jargon, you get new whatever the curriculum is, you get a new evaluation system, you get everything changes. And um and we went through this crazy period where it was one after another after another after another and it just didn't stay the same. and you felt like you were chasing this constantly moving target and uh I don't think it's good for kids and I don't think it's good for teachers. I don't think it's good for support professionals. I just it's not good for the district. Um so I want
372to I want to start off by saying that I'm honored to serve on this board. um and that we can have very different opinions and still maintain respect. Um and that we each have arrived here in these seats with very different lived experiences and perspectives because the community put each of us here. The community put us here. They elected us to represent them. And so that is what we are doing as we sit here. We are representing a variety of vast different opinions coming from all directions. Um, and I want to I just want to lift up that nobody has the entire perspective ever on a situation. We have our version of events. We have our versions of understandings. We have our examples that we give and other people have theirs. Right? I think one
373of the reasons that I am sitting in this seat is because I am able to hold multiple people's opinions and relationships with people who don't always agree with me and and allow people to hold those those differences and still value them. Um, but also know what my own experience is, what my own concerns are, and and also not be fighting for a win or a loss or a specific outcome, but trying to hold all of the different information that's coming to us. And then we are the stewards of making um decisions or asking for people to perform in a certain way. Um we are people who hold accountable account accountable the leadership of this district and there are valid concerns. There are things that need to be addressed. There are there we all have growing
374edges and nobody is perfect. There is growth that needs to happen from multiple adults who are at the table around this community of children and students that we are trying to serve that we are trying to elevate and we are trying to model for them how we can disagree respectfully and how we can hold difference and how we can be critical thinkers. Um, it's been it's been a rough two weeks and I want to say that um there is continuing mistrust. There are valid concerns. There are valid questions. There's valid support for the work the superintendent has done and for the work that all of the staff across the district have done. Um to see the incremental gains that we have. There are opinions everywhere and anxiety is super high. Um, and I'm not going
375to lie, I've had my own physical responses to some of the anxiety just because of the um, intensity and the flow at which it's coming in our direction right now. Um, I am cons I'm concerned about our students. I'm concerned about stability, but I'm also concerned about culture and what some of our employees are reporting that they've experienced. Earlier tonight, we saw 52 employees in this district responded that they don't feel safe at work. That's just one data point, you know, and I don't even know what those stories are, but that's a reality that we had presented to us this evening. Um, and I think it's it's important that when we receive that kind of feedback that we are responsive to it and that as a board that we share that feedback. It doesn't mean
376that we are being critical. It means that we are trying to bring the voices of the people that we're representing to the district leadership so that we can all be responsive. And I will own that sometimes giving critical feedback has been a challenge because it's not always received or um acknowledged. And I know that other people have had that experience. People who work in the district, I know that there's fear. There are people who don't want to share feedback because they're concerned about retaliation, which happens in every industry, not just in education, not just in this district. It happens everywhere. But I we need to have leadership that is sensitive to to building relationships and maintaining relationships and not allowing relationships to atrophy to the point that we become divided in the manner that we
377are right now. Um we all hold ownership of the anxiety that our community is feeling right now. Um, every single one of us, the people on the board, people at district leadership, the people in our associations, the families who are weighing in and sending us emails, we have got to do better for our kids. We have got to respect one another. Um, there's no space for hating one another because you have a different opinion or you don't 100% agree or you're not validating an echo chamber. Um, that makes people feel comfortable. If we're all a little unhappy and a little uncomfortable, then perhaps we have arrived at a reasonable outcome, right? Yeah. And I I just want to lift up too um that I am committed to considering information and making decisions not because of
378who my friends are or who supported me in the election or who donated money to my campaign. I'm up here to do what's best for students and to use my own critical thinking skills and my own understanding and my own perspective to make the best decision for this district. And that's that's where I'm going to end. But I I am frustrated right now with the adults. It is always adults who get in the way of the success and the experience of our students. and my patience for it is very limited. And my hope is that we have leadership that rises above ego to address real concerns and issues together in a collaborative manner. And I will end there. Um, a mentor of mine, some of you will know this saying, always talked to me about
379the messy middle. And she called it that because it's this weird space where it's not option A or B, it's the whole alphabet. That's how she always said it to me. You think you have option A and B, but what you really have is the alphabet soup in front of you. Um, and it's not clean and it's not easy and it's challenging and I it does it forces us to be uncomfortable. I appreciate that you use the word uncomfortable. Um, but she's always told me that in order to get to the right decisions, you have to lean into that and you have to have hard conversations and you have to challenge your own assumptions at times. Um, and that said, I think where we are right now, Jeffco is super unique. um just like it
380was when three of our current board members stepped in. It was I mean unprecedented times and I feel like now we are looking at a new set of unprecedented circumstances. Um and I keep saying these are once in career type of things but man I don't know I think there's like five different once in a career type of things that we're um experiencing and from a leadership side too right. Um, I have young children and Brave is a um favorite movie in our house. And for those I don't know that anyone is listening to us at this late hour, but if anyone is listening and you don't know the story of Brave, um, a young girl and her mother don't see eye to eye. The young girl makes a wish and the mother turns into
381a bear. And until they can mend the tapestry, the mom doesn't change back into the bear. And I'm an analogy person. It helps me think through complex situations. And for me, that is where we are. We have a bear. We don't have to have a bear. There's a lot of opportunities to fix the tapestry. And everyone in our family in Jessco has a thread. It's how I'm thinking about it. I want us to come together and build the tapestry because I don't want the bear. And I think we can. Um, I am convinced that this is a room full of powerful women. And I'm going to say it because right now it is. And powerful men and thoughtful people who can do this. And our associations can do it. And we all can come to
382together with our threads, which is lenses and experiences and situations that all have validity, and we can rethread the tapestry. Um, I also have looked at myself a lot to see what role I played in how we got here and what role I play in moving forward. And I go back to my values, which I know all of us up here do. And I think a lot of us share the value that kids are the center of what we do. and lifting up this district for the kids will take adults from all of our different factions of our family to come together and sit side by side and hear and hold accountable and put differences aside. And I think we owe it to our kids to do that. Um my mentor and the messy middle,
383she she said it was the great unknown because there isn't an easy answer. And I think once we can accept that there's not a quick conclusion or an easy answer or we're going to like walk out of a one-hour meeting and figure it out is not real because these are complex, challenging, hard issues and it's not binary. I think that's the thing that I keep coming back to. Superintendent Dorland tells us a lot two things can be true and I think five things can be true. Um, and there's truth and there's hope and there's feelings and there's frustrations and there's lived experiences that all can be true. And so that is um I appreciate the feedback. It has been a lot. It has been um overwhelming and I think something as a public figure, you
384never know what that feels like until you're in it. And to get emails and phone calls that challenge who you are is is hard. Um and I know that nobody had a harder night last week than our superintendent. And so, um, I agree with President Parker and Director Kenworthy. We have a lot of really, really good things and we have areas that I think we really need to lean in on the culture side and work together to fix because we will not be successful as a district if we do not. And so I am committed to doing the hard work um because I believe in this district. I have a kindergartner next fall. So y'all are stuck with me in this district for at least the next 12 years. Um and I think the more
385we work in that messy middle together and hear each other, that's my hope. Um, if we come with binary right and wrong, good, bad, we lose every single time and our kids lose. And so there are more meetings and there are going to be meetings because we have to come together to figure it out and we have to be adults in the best interest of kids. So thanks guys. Okay. And I do assume we've um used up our half hour. So um that brings us to the end of today's agenda. We will stand adjourned. Our next scheduled meeting of the board is a board meeting scheduled at 5:00 p.m. on June 12th, 2025 here at the Ed Center. Good [Music] night. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]