Jeffco Public Schools BoE Live Stream 3/13/2025

001No. No. I would like to call this meeting of March 13th, 2025 to order. Roll call, please, miss Reed. Miss Applegate. Miss Kenworthy here. Miss Parker here. Miss read here. Doctor Ryder, an executive session has been notice for today's meeting. Pursuant to CRS 24 64024A and CRS 24 64024B to confer with an attorney for the purpose of receiving legal advice regarding arbitrator findings and recommendations in a JCA grievance filed by the purpose of engaging in discussion regarding the transfer or sale of vacant real estate. Is there a motion to convene an executive session? I move to convene an executive session pursuant to CRTs 24 64024A and CRS 24 64024B to confer with an attorney for the purpose of receiving legal advice regarding arbiter, arbitrator findings and recommendations in a JCA grievance, followed by the purpose

002of engaging in discussion regarding the transfer or sale of vacant real estate. Is there a second? I second. Any comments? It has been moved and seconded that the Board of Education will convene in executive session. Roll call please, miss Reed. Miss Applegate. Miss Kenworthy. Yes. Miss Parker. Yes. Miss Reed. Yes. Doctor. Rada. The board will now convene an executive session in the Ed Center seminar room, which is closed to the general public. The Board of Education will reconvene an open session at approximately 5 p.m.. On. This. Date. We. Do. Hello, everybody. Thanks for coming tonight. My name is Tyler VanderMeer. This is the Columbine High School Rebel Jazz band. Say hi, everybody. Features musicians, grades nine through 12. And we're here just to spread some love and some music today. Hope you like our program.

003This first tune is going to be on Green Dolphin Street. Here we go. Oh, Duke oh three. Oh! Two. Of the. One of the things. We in my. Life. I'm. Learning to find. Awesome. Thank you so much. That featured Duncan Clement and Max love on tenor and alto. Thank you. All right, this next chart is going to be called emergency stopping only. It's super fast. It's super upbeat, super fun. And it it's, very heavily focused on the saxophone. So we hope you enjoyed this tune. Okay. Too deep for you. But, Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh, my. I. You know, I. I, I love. You. Yeah. Well. No no no. Goo goo goo goo goo. Oh. Oh, oh, I love. You and I love. You. Baby. Baby. Oh, my. Like. Hum, hum, hum hum hum hum. I

004don't know. I. Do. You boo boo boo boo. I'm. I'm. You know. I'm not. I'm. Not. The. Thank you. That featured Jackson Jensen on the drum. Segura for Jackson. Also featured one Tran. Trumpet. And also Duncan Clement again on tenor sax. So give it up for our soloist. All right. Our last chart is going to be called Work in Progress. It's a nice little swing tune. It's a lot of fun energy and a lot of soloists. So hope you enjoy. Thanks for having us out tonight. I may, you know. Don't. Move. The. Finger. But I know I'm. On the. Right. Oh, man. Oh, I'm getting ready for. Some. Oh! Baby! Oh. No. Oh! What the. You know what? I'm. Oh. Oh. Oh, I. Love. The, Oh! Whoa! Oh! I'm going. Oh! Baby! Boom! And then.

005You know. Oh. Oh. I ha I have. My my. Oh! Oh! Oh. I don't know, father. I'm going for. Oh, wonderful. For everything you want for. A little, you know. Oh, no. Oh, I'm for, wonderful. Brand. I'm. Wonderful. And you know. Oh, no. No. Yeah. No. It's talk about. Thanks, everybody. Really appreciate your support of music education and Columbine jazz. Thank you. Have a great day. Keep. In. I would like to call this regular meeting of March 13th, 2025 to order. I would like to call this meeting of Just Keep. March 13th, 2025 to order. Thank you to our live simultaneous Spanish interpreters for joining us tonight. We are also live streaming our meeting. If you're here in person tonight, you got to hear the wonderful Columbine High School Jazz Band that joined us to

006showcase these selections. Let's give another round of applause for them. They have been working hard with the support of their music teacher, Tyler VanderMeer. It's always a pleasure to connect with students and see firsthand the extraordinary student experiences going on in the community, and it's a wonderful way to start a meeting. Roll call please. Miss Avada here, here, here, here. Would you please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Is there a motion regarding tonight's meeting agenda? I move to approve the March 13th agenda as presented in board docs. The second second. Is there any comment or objection? It has been moved

007and seconded to approve the agenda of March 13th, 2025 as presented in board docs? Roll call, please. Miss Zavala, miss Applegate. Yes, miss Kenworthy. Yes, miss. Parker. Yes, miss Reed. Yes, doctor. Vada. Yes. The agenda is approved as we start the meeting tonight. I'm excited to share that as part of our honors and recognitions, we will be honoring 13 Jeffco schools. Yes, that's right, 13 schools for achieving significant growth or increased high graduation rates during the month of January, the Colorado Department of Education released the graduation rates for the class of 2024. I will now name the high schools that will be recognized for increasing their graduation rate. I ask that you hold your applause till the end, and then we will be handing out individual, certificates to all the schools. Those schools are Chatfield,

008Columbine, conifer, Devlin, Doral. Academy, evergreen, Golden, Green Mountain, Jefferson Academy, Jefferson Junior, senior, McClain, Ralston Valley, and Wheat Ridge. Now let's give all those schools around the. And to recognize the first set of high schools, I'd like to turn it over to Director Varga. Thank you, President Parker. The Board of Education is pleased to honor the following high schools for achieving increased high school graduation rates for the class of 2024. As I call your school and announce your award, please come to the front of the room to receive your recognition. Our first school is Doral Academy with. Their award is for increased high school graduation rate by 95% or higher. Would miss principal Charlie Blanco come to the front of the room? She here tonight or someone from Doral? Okay. Sorry to miss, Doral tonight,

009but real proud of them as well. Okay. Our second award is to Jefferson Academy. Increased high school graduation rates of 95% or higher. Mr. Statler here. There you are. Hi. I just. Okay. One more. And our third one, Ralston Valley High School. Significant improvement and increased high school graduation rate by 3.7%. 95% or higher. Would miss Breunig come to the front? Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. For our next, next high school recognition this evening, I'll hand it over to Director Applegate. Thank you. Doctor Rada, the Board of Education is pleased to honor the following high schools. As I call your school. Please come up to the front and receive your recognition. First one I have is Golden High School, which is significant improvement in high school graduation of 3.9%. And the principal is John Graham,

010who. Is our next high school is Jefferson Junior Senior with significant improvement. High school graduation rate of 5.2%. So, Mr. Ricardo Esparza, please come up to the front. Then we have Lakewood High School with significant improvement and graduation rates of 2.5%. So, Mr. Josh craft, please come up. And I finally get to recognize Wheat Ridge High School for their significant improvement. High school graduation rate of 2.5%. So, Miss Mehanna, please come up. And before I give up the mic, I just want to tell you how excited we get for these. These are really moments of joy and what we do. And we really appreciate all the effort because this doesn't happen without a lot of hard work. So thank you. We finally have our photographer here. So if Micah and Tim are still in the

011audience and you want to come up and have a photo with Director Vada, that would be great. And if you're not here, that's okay too. But I know Director Vada would appreciate that. Thank you, doctor Kim. And for our next set of recognitions this evening, I will hand it over to Director Parker. Thank you, Director Applegate. The Board of Education is pleased to next honor the following high schools. As I call your school and announcer Award principal and community superintend. Please come to the front of the room to receive your recognition. I know not all of the high schools are here today, but we will be getting them there. Their awards for school is Chatfield High School for increased high school graduation rate 95% or higher. Principal John Thanos. Columbine High School significant improvement and

012increased high school graduation rate by 2.5%, 95% or higher. Principal Scott Christy. And Connor for high school. Increased mile high school graduation rate 95% or higher. Principal Greg Minear. And I think I got a swing and a miss on this one. We will be taking these, certificates to the schools, for our final high school recognitions of the evening. I will hand it over to Director Kenworthy. Thank you, President Parker. The Board of Education is pleased to next honor the following high schools, as I call your school, and announce your award. Principal and community superintendent, please come to the front of the room to receive your recognition. Devlin. Junior. Senior. It has increased high school graduation rate 95% or higher. Principal Josh Shapiro, come on up. I know I saw you there earlier. I know you're

013in here. Evergreen high schools and increased high school graduation rate 95% or higher. And it's. I think it's higher than 95%. Schuyler, artist. Principal. Come on. That's good to see you. Green Mountain High School increased high school graduation rate 95% or higher. Principal Megan Madsen, come on up. And McLane High School. Significant improvement. High school graduation rate up by 2.7%. Principal Nicky Barlow, please come on up. For our final recognition of the evening, I will hand it over to director Reed. All right. And I'm especially proud of this one, because, this one is going to JCA retired, and I'm actually a member of that organization. And very proud to be. So our final celebration of the evening, the Board of Education is pleased to recognize JCR. Which by the way, is the Jefferson County Education

014Association retired Group, for their donation of $300 to Lucas Elementary to purchase books for their library in honor of Rita Cross. America Day and Lucas's commitment to celebrating the joys of reading for over 20 years, will Lorraine Balin, representing JCA, retired, and Michelle Laughlin Lucas. Lucas, Elementary Digital Librarian, please join us at the front of the room to receive the our community, our legacy recognition. JCA retired, provides the opportunity for National Education Association members to continue their membership and involvement while retired, to bring about positive support for public education in Jeffco, we stand firmly committed to promoting literacy as the catalyst for our students future academic success, their preparation for America's jobs of the future, and their ability ability to compete in a global economy for right across America. Our elementary, middle, and high school

015teachers and leaders have scheduled literacy focused events that welcome community members and guest readers to celebrate and build upon the joy of reading. In the words of the mission of Lucas Elementary, we value our strong partnerships with Lucas teachers and staff and the broader Lucas community. The teachers and staff at Lucas Elementary build positive relationships with all our students and support them in reaching their full potential. Please join us in celebrating Jackie, a retired for championing Read Across America programs and initiatives that build community and create opportunities for Jeffco students to thrive and be prepared for bright and successful futures. A sincere thank you to all of the schools recognized tonight. It's our pleasure to honor you for your achievements. And also to GCA retired. And I think I've learned that you're never really retired

016when you're an educator. Now we will turn to our board proclamations. The board publicly recognizes special events and significant issues by issuing proclamations in the month of March, we are commemorating National Read Across America Day, which was March 2nd. National School Social Worker Week, which is March 2nd through eighth, National School Breakfast Week March 4th through eight, and National Women's History Month March. We encourage you to read the Jeffco School Board's proclamations. Items 5.01 through 5.04 are presented in board docs as proposed proclamations for the month of March. Do I have a motion regarding the approval of the proclamations? I move to approve items 5.01 through 5.04 on the Actions Proclamation section, as published in board docs. Is there a second second? It has been moved and seconded to approve the March proclamations as presented

017in board docs. Roll call please miss Avada. Miss Applegate. Yes, miss Kenworthy? Oh, yes, Miss Parker. Yes, miss read. Yes, doctor. Vada. Yes. Now we will turn to public comment tonight. We've reserved the first 20 minutes of public comment for our association's ten minutes for Jasper and JCA each to address the board regarding their negotiations, process and interest. Following these associations, the board will listen to public comment on any topic. The time allotted for total public comment at this time is one hour. If more time is required, we will have a second public comment at the end of this meeting. This is an opportunity for the community to share their thoughts with the board during public comment. The board does not engage in discussion with or respond to individuals. There's a three minute time limit

018per individual speaker. If there are four or more people who sign up to address the board, they will have ten minutes to collectively present their group view. I believe that we have representatives from JCA here tonight, and, I'm not sure of Jasper, but I if there is anyone from Jasper, you will have a chance. So, we now invite JCA up to the podium to speak for ten minutes. It's welcome. Everybody. Please give us your names. Hello, I am Michelle Mellis from JCA and Green Mountain High School. Hello, I'm Richard sanchez. I teach sixth grade social studies at Bell Middle School. Brooke Williams, art educator and JCA president. All right. So, thank you, directors and superintendent, for having us here tonight to speak. We are here tonight to share an update on bargaining, and we're going

019to be focusing our remarks on, the three areas have been discussed at negotiations up to this point, which is speed language article eight, which is workload and, class size caseload and an update on benefits, which we have been co bargaining with our sister union, Jasper. So on January 30th our teams convene to discuss article 18 specifically 18 seven eight, which charged the central Sped collaborative committees with studying caseload and workload issues to develop a caseload model that will best serve students and prevent burnout. The teams jointly presented survey results from the the Sped Collaborative Committee, though notably there were no caseload recommendations brought forward. JCA then presented and we brought forth a workload model that had been introduced last year. It is a caseload model based on student service minutes and needs. This would replace

020the current system of caseload based on student counts. This is the most equitable manner to assign a manageable caseload so that provide quality services for students and prevent teacher burnout. Special education providers are struggling to balance at school workload things like testing, progress monitoring, observation and school collaboration, IEP meetings, etc. versus the amount of work they do outside of school report writing, emails, progress reports, planning for instruction and accommodations. Another area that we looked at, survey results indicated a strong desire for a community of practice and having meetings across disciplines. This would allow educators to collaborate with their peers and get consistent and clear information from the district. This is similar to what the SLP and MH meetings that are already occurring in the district. It would be similar to that. In addition, some workload

021solutions were introduced. Our proposal included compensation for ten additional days at the per diem rate, an increase from the current three. Our survey results indicated that Sped providers work at least two additional hours outside of the workweek. Workweek each week, with the majority of educators reporting working much more closer to five and ten outside the workweek. The ten days of requested compensation will honor the work Sped staff must complete in order to remain legally compliant and serve their students. We also requested for additional professional, learning release days where they can, use individually directed time to complete their idea duties. Despite all the issues and acknowledgment from our director, we are concerned that what we are working to improve is being negated by this year's declining allocations, forcing educators to serve our most vulnerable students with

022fewer staff and resources. As of today, we still not received a counter-proposal from the districts team that hope to hear that on March 27th. Our team came, came to the table to discuss teacher workload. Our fellow educators shared powerful stories about the impact that the growing number of new resources and initiatives have had on them. Their experiences were eye opening. One teacher revealed that over the course of this school year alone, she has received the equivalent of one new directive every six days. She expressed deep concern that these constant changes are taking away valuable classroom time that could be used for exceptional learning experience is replacing it with rigid implementation of directives. Amanda Pedroso shared that admin administrators were directed to hold educators educators harmless for not fully implementing all aspects of new resources, specifically,

023Tatp and the associated look us in the New Teacher rubric. However, the reality is, is that some educators have seen their evaluations negatively impact by these initiatives. Several teachers even reported that their evaluators told them no one would be rated highly effective under the new teacher rubric. Imagine if I told my students that I had news, that I had a new assessment, and that none of them should expect in a how would that affect their motivation? The widespread frustration among educators stems from the lack of transparency and teacher voice in the decision making process. The top down approach to implementation and consistent communication across schools, and the significant impact on teacher workload, especially given the already limited planning time. Ultimately, there is little difference between a bad idea and a good idea that is poorly

024executed. Educators must be empowered to play a role in decision making, especially when these district initiatives directly add to their workload. This is particularly true for dual language and title one educators, who are often the most affected. Their workload is already heavy, and adding new resources and directives without their input only makes it worse. They need to be included in these conversations because their capacity for successful implementation looks very different from other educators. They are also best positioned to identify barriers that could prevent success. Additionally, we must we have. Additionally, we have serious concerns about the district's increasing reliance on corporate led solutions that are implemented in a one size fits all manner, despite their significant financial cost. Before making a formal contract proposal, we need to ask critical questions about these initiatives at the

025table. We anticipate bringing this issue forward on March 27th. All right. The, the last big issue we want to touch on tonight are the projected increases in costs for health care next year. Premium increases range as high as $7,194. Some of the percentages for premium increases are 10 to 15% for Kaiser plans, and 30 to 75% for moving from Aetna to the UHC. UnitedHealthCare coverage. With one plan increasing a staggering 239%. We were disappointed to see that in both district proposals brought forward at the table, they offered to pay a total of 0% of the increases. We do not believe that the employee alone should be forced to shoulder the burden of 100% of the substantial increases seen in premiums premium costs this year, JCA has proposed, and our member survey has supported, that there

026be some differentiation given, in the district coverage to the families and employees covering children on their plans, get some, extra quantity of payment to encourage the presence of children, on the plans. The more children on the plans, it's supposed to drive down costs. With that said, the district has offered a plan, has only offered a plan that takes money from individuals to pay for this, which was wildly unpopular in that survey. The district has talked about keeping things cost neutral, but is making employees alone for the millions and increased costs really cost neutral? JCA has, for a couple of years, suggested payments be given in a percentage manner, which supports the work done on the Benefits Advisement Committee. The district has steadfastly declined this methodology and as per the back MOU, we have broken new

027ground this year by bargaining jointly with JCA and just about the table simultaneously, simultaneously. For the first time ever, we feel that working together with our sister union has been important to gain a commonality among all employees in regards to benefits. Finally, we have been addressing, some areas in both associations language that should mirror one another. And one of those areas is that an employee should be eligible for these benefits if they are 2.6 or greater. And we would ask that this be extended to our sister union for the greater good and health of all of our employees. And lastly, we would like to urge the Jeffco board to take a public stand on school funding and join many. Join many other district Board of Education. Speaking out now remains crucial, particularly as funding discussions

028continue, with Jeffco facing a potential $26 million loss. This is not just a budget issue, it's is a direct threat to educational quality, school stability and education, educator retention silence is not an option. Please urge our legislators to prioritize educational funding and help shape the superintendent's message on this issue. Our students, educators, and community deserve leadership that boldly advocates for meaningful investments in public education, and now is the time to act. We'd also like to invite you to March 20th, our day of action. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Now, do we have someone with number one or do we have Jesper? All right, we've got Jesper. Come on up. Welcome. Please introduce yourself when you have ten minutes. Good evening. I'm Darcy hassler. I'm the Jesper bargaining chair. I'd like to start off

029by saying that we're about halfway through our sessions, and we're having really tough conversations, but we are managing it without having a facilitator for. Health care. As we've alluded to prior to bargaining, we understood that this board and the superintendent were interested in pursuing a percentage based model for health care. And we're puzzled that your team did not bring a model that is percentage based with even current existing rates and percentages. If that change was based on the survey that was conducted by the district, we know that there's a whole science about how surveys are written and interpreted. For instance, there was a question on that survey on flat rate versus percentage based, and it was a scale rather than a binary choice. I could argue that the folks who chose flat rate wanted it,

030and everyone else is open to a percentage based model. Our members continually tell us that they would prefer that the district pay a percentage of the premium, rather than a fixed amount or flat rate. Finally, the district brought up a slide on value employees, valuing employees and ask why a family should be valued by having more paid to their health insurance than a single person. And Jasper would like to point out that not employee. All employees are even eligible for health insurance. Our sister union has stated that eligibility for them is at 0.6 FTEs, or 24 hours per work per week. And at last year's mediation, Jasper agreed to receive what our sister union JCA, received. However, we were not granted that point. Six FTE eligibility. We still have to work at .75 FTE or

03130 hours per week to be eligible for health care benefits. Is that bad? Faith bargaining? We are not following up on commitments. Does this mean that the district values teachers more by offering more health insurance at a lower FTE than ESPs? I'm going to move on to a preschool wage schedule that was proposed. We proposed a wage schedule for preschool with lanes similar to a teacher wage schedule for ECP career growth to potential CTE. We were asked, why would the district pay for additional education? And our question is, why would a school district not pay employees for more education on a career path? Jeffco thrives major initiative two is professional development pathways. This is how an East tip will have a career pathway to becoming that CTE licensed educator. Finally, administration, accountability and safety. The

032issue of orange stickers with a dispatch direct line being on phones came up by the district repeatedly, along with talking about a laminated 911 policy next to each phone. Not all phones have the orange stickers, nor is the 911 policy shown at the table, the one that's being handed out at CPS and first aid trainings. Let me clarify just this issue is not the fact of whether there's an orange sticker or not, but it's the lack of consistency surrounding safety policies and enforcement across the over 150 schools plus terminals, plus shops. Why are we bringing up safety for employees and students? Because every day an employee is hit, kicked, bitten or scratched. District policy GB says to call local law enforcement when this happens. I may be wrong, but I don't believe I need to

033call police when a seven year old throws a chair at me. We need to teach them, our students, our learners, appropriate ways to express their anger and frustration. Which leads me into another topic that we brought up, which was funding school materials and supports that Jasper brought to the table when the district believed it was for a Sped department. It was a discussion. And yet when we came back and said this is needed for all students across the district, we were told to talk to our individual principals and it was no. And it was struck from the language. Which leads me back to the starting point of the orange stickers and not having consistency throughout the district. We demand better accountability from our administration. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay. Now for the

034general public, do we have someone with number one? Okay, great. Well, please introduce yourselves. And you have ten minutes. Hello, I'm Matt Green from Verde Exploration School. I'm. I'm Kate Buckley from Brady Exploration. I'm Christy Bishop from Brady exploration. Hi there. My name is Andrea Newland, and I love my job as a special educator at Jeffco Virtual Academy. Java. As an alternative education campus ADC serving the district's highest needs students. At least 90% of our population face significant challenges being over age and under credit history of trauma, bullying, medical issues, severe anxiety, etc. others are the elite athletes, early graduates or part time students attending Warren Tech or their neighborhood school. Simply put, Java provides a critical, flexible learning environment that traditional schools cannot. I stand before you not just as a voice for these

035students, but as an advocate for the educators who choose to work with them. Aces exist because traditional schools don't work for everyone. These are places of second chances and sometimes last chances. Many come to us feeling broken by their previous school experiences. Does it work for every student? No, but neither do traditional schools. That's why aces exist. Currently, J.V. provides unique, specialized and focused programing. The district's proposed changes to Java strip away student and family choice to be educated in a blended, synchronous and asynchronous learning environment. What's more concerning is that these decisions are being made from the top down, without input from the affected families and educators who know these students best. Rather than enhancing what's already working, the district plans to dismantle Java and relocate our programs under the guise of change. This

036isn't progress. It's scattering established programs into unfamiliar settings without clear structure. Real progress is built through collaboration and thoughtful planning. Jada has consistently been the district's highest achieving AUC. So why is JBA facing such dramatic changes in our programing? Isn't Jasper's mission to educate all students traditional and nontraditional? I urge this board to reconsider these changes and engage with stakeholders in the decision making process. And please don't limit options for Jeffco highest risk students. Let's do what's right together. Thank you. Hello, my name is Matt Green. I'm a science and PE teacher who has worked at an alternative education campus, Brady Exploration School, since 2019, when I first came to Brady, I was excited to be a part of a school whose primary mission was to reengage students who have been unsuccessful in a traditional

037education setting. Many of these students did not succeed at their home schools because they are dealing with large amounts of physical and psychological trauma, as well as socio economic, behavioral, or legal issues. For years, our teachers were given the tools, resources, training, and creative freedom to help our students find meaning in school and enjoy learning once again. The students at our ACS are some of the most amazing people I've ever met who can not only succeed, but thrive if given the opportunity and the support that they need. Over the last two years, our district leadership has made big plans to reorganize our Aces with little collaboration between students, families and teachers. Instead of working with expert teachers at Aces who are passionate about helping this population of students. Our district leadership has relied on spending

038large amounts of taxpayer dollars on private counsel consulting corporations such as TTP. Most of our superintendents have spent little or no time at all races with our students. There is a severe disconnect between the teachers who work with these students each day, and our district leadership each year is becoming more like the rigid traditional education environments that our students previously struggled with. Moving forward, in the spirit of cooperation, I would like our district leadership to consider the following. We are asking that our district leadership rely on Jeffco teachers and principals as experts rather than on corporations. We want to work with you to come up with novel solutions for our students. We are asking that our district leadership treat our students as humans, not data points. At Aces, we recognize that data is important, but

039we should also value a holistic teaching approach for our students and a growth mindset. We are asking that our district leadership allow us to continue providing unique experiences for our students. Give teachers the support that they need to reduce barriers for them to develop novelty teaching strategies and programing. We are asking that our district leadership give us stability so that we may improve our programing over time. Our Aces have had to weather drastic changes to our leadership in programing over the last few years. This has negatively impacted student learning and teacher turnover. I hope that these requests will be taken into the thoughtful consideration by Jeffco leadership, and we all look forward to collaborating more in the future. Thank you for your time. Hello. My name is Kate Buckley. I have moved here from Arizona

040to work at Brady High School in August in order to seek a safe and better life. It has been amazing to work for my students and help them grow each and every day in this wonderful community. That being said, I believe, one thing we recognize is that the altered system in Jeffco needs adjustments to ensure that we serve our students needs. I'm here today to emphasize that while we recognize changes needed, all stakeholders should be involved in developing this plan for change. From teachers perspectives, there are decisions about how specific schools should operate, which do not make sense within a larger context of what our other schools have been developing in the past, and what facilities each school has presently. I would also like to make sure that we protect the jobs of the teachers

041who are presently employed. That they have vocal and direct assurance that they will have future stability, and that staying with Jeffco will not be a mistake. From Brady's perspective, it is evident that our principal has done everything in her power. To be fair to her staff. We are willing to adapt to what our students and the district need, but we want a teacher's voice in the planning room to ensure that the resources and the staff from our site are used to their best potential. Thank you. And my name is Christy Bishop and I'm an English teacher at Brady High School, and I'm here today because district personnel have made some major decisions about alternative education schools like Brady, which will greatly affect students and teachers. These district officials did not consult teachers in making these

042major decisions. Teachers need to be a part of the planning process going forward in order to ensure the best outcomes for alternative education students. Alternative education teachers know what, know what works and what doesn't work for alternative education students. And I encourage you to please ask the district to consult with teachers before any major changes are made final to the Alternative Education Center's curriculum. Thank you. I think we see the rest of our time. I just want to jump in and say, I know there was a meeting earlier today. There was a meeting also earlier this week that Kim and I were part of with alternative education teachers. And I know Kim followed up with a meeting again today. Kim, would you be kind enough to step out and just talk about the work that

043we have started? And make sure that teachers understand no decisions have been made that we value their voice, especially those who are working with our students in Aces and who know our students best and just kind of give some additional context to our speakers from tonight, please. Thank you. Okay. Who has number two? Welcome. Please introduce yourself. And you have three minutes. Of course. Good evening. My name is Wendy Newman, and I have the pleasure of teaching third grade Elk Creek Elementary and being the political action chair for JCA and a year round organizer for the Colorado Education Association. The C of Colorado education system remains in a crisis, and so many of our issues stem from chronic underfunding. Every day I am underpaid, I feel overworked, and I respect as an educator as I

044am taught to do more and more with less and less. Now, the state legislator and the governor are pushing for a dangerous change in school funding that could cost Jeffco 26 million this year. I'm part of the generation that's not having kids because we simply can't afford to. I can't afford to take our district short term disability as 60% of my regular salary, and I certainly can't afford unpaid leave. I hear that in tonight's consent agenda that you all vote to raise the cost of just Jeffco educators short term disability leave for next year, and even then to only get six weeks to leave some pay with a newborn, that's detrimental. The district has been saying for the past few years at the bargaining table that we want our insurance premiums to be lowered. We

045need our children to those plans. Unfortunately, with the insurance increases, the district is turning the plays on educators and the limited ability to take leave. Those expenses are those are expenses that my partner and I simply can't afford. Our district does not make it easy for educators to raise a family here in Jeffco. I am tired of putting my life on hold because public education is grossly underfunded. When educators are living paycheck to paycheck or sacrificing life events. It affects our mental health, being our best for our students, and being able to keep up with implementing all these new initiatives that are required in that classroom. Around this time, I get my hopes up, that funding will change, and I can think about the next life events as the leaders of our school district. We

046cannot stand by as a legislator and the governor attempt to undermine an already underfunded and limited public education system. Once again, I'm fighting with my union to prevent cuts by the legislature to K-12 that will continue to delay my future. Public education does not just affect me. It affects my students, my colleagues and our community. If we don't start raising our voices for real change, then when will this change? When can I have the support that I need to begin my family? So I invite the board education members to join educators and their community to the No More Catch rally at the Capitol on March 20th to stand together and build power that we need to fully fund public education. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Who has number three? Do we have number

047three? No. Welcome. Please introduce yourselves. And you have ten minutes. My name is up. I'm short. My name is Kate Otto. I'm a proud Jeffco grad, a former public school teacher, Jeffco parent of two Seacrest Elementary kids, committed DAC member, committed member of engaged Jeffco. Engage. Jeff Jeffco goal is to partner with you district leadership to ensure that all children have equitable access to a world class public education. I'll just say thank you for letting us speak here. Today we're advocating on behalf of the Jefferson Junior Senior High School community to really encourage partnership between you, district leadership and the school community to reflect on this question together. What does Equitable access to World-Class Public Education look like at Jefferson? How can the district work together with the school community to reimagine a new future

048for the school that just won an award today, for raising graduation rates? Obviously, something right is happening. We invited Rianna and winning, a recently retired Jefferson teacher and member of Engaged Jeffco, to speak to you about why the school should remain open and how the district can partner with the school community to brainstorm and co-design a new future for the school. We know Jeffco thrives 2025 is the district's priority, and according to the website, The District The strategic Plan for Jeffco Public Schools is built on an opportunity to move our district from good to great to extraordinary. Jeffco Thrives is focused on four priorities our learners, our future, our people, our strength, our operations, our foundation, our community, our legacy. Frankly, it'll be nearly impossible for this school community to thrive if district leadership isn't

049open to an opportunity. In partnership with the community for Co-Designing and reimagine the possibilities of this school without collaboration, reflection, asking and re asking the hard questions. We can't lean into the talents of our people. We can't lean into the talents of our community, and without our people and our community. What is our legacy? Jeffco Public Schools cannot, in good faith, live out the mission and vision of Jeffco Thrive 2025. If district leadership is closed off to the opportunity to work in partnership with Jefferson to imagine something new. We urge the school board and district leadership to make the more vulnerable decision and courageously challenge the status quo by not only keeping this thriving school open, but working earnestly, urgently and in partnership with the Jefferson community to co-design something that really does live out

050the mission and vision of Jeffco. Authorized 2025. Please provide a budget. Bring in experts and work collaboratively with Jefferson to create a real solution. A new operation, if you will, that authentically prioritizes our learners, our people, our community, and ultimately our legacy. Thank you. Good evening, board members and Superintendent Dahlin. As a former teacher and alumni of Jefferson, you all know how important Jefferson is to me. And you also know how important this community is to the stakeholders of the Jefferson area. We know that Jefferson is a special place for its teachers, staff, students, families, and community members. However, I want to challenge you, our superintendent, and our district decision makers overseeing the Jefferson Articulation Area redesign and plan. Excuse me. I invite you to expand your growth mindset and use your asset based thinking

051and your decision making and planning concerning the future of our articulation area. I'm also encouraging you to listen to the needs and wants of the Jefferson community, the voices of the people that your decision making will greatly impact and use that asset based thinking to growth and growth mindset. To imagine a future for Jefferson that is collaboratively created between all stakeholders. The Jefferson community has recently shared with the district leaders what their vision of the future of the Jefferson Articulation area would look like. This vision is that Jefferson Junior Senior High School would be turned into a comprehensive 7 to 12 community school which would be created, implemented, and expanded together, and shared leadership and collaboration with all stakeholders. As you know, because of Senate Bill 22, which allows schools in turnaround to opt for

052the implementation of a community school as an alternative to closure, state takeover or charter schools. Community schools is an answer to the reality of the turnaround process that unfortunately, our school is facing. This model encourages collaborative decision making, including the voices and input of all stakeholders, and it was once implemented at Jefferson. I was the site coordinator and implemented it. This is the asset based partnership creating and shared leadership that the Jefferson community is wanting to partner with, the district with and together to truly reimagine a bright future for the staff, families, and community of Jefferson Junior Senior High School. So I challenge you to stretch that thinking, grow that mindset, and actively listen to the needs and wants of the stakeholders of the Jefferson Articulation Area. Let's reimagine a Jefferson articulation area together in

053partnership that honors the specialness, talents, and assets of the schools and community. Let's create a future for Jefferson that honors the stakeholders, culture, and past, and the dreams of implementing a K through 12 dual language program built on this. Build on the successful programs that currently exist, and create new pathways that support and benefit all of our students futures. Honor the wishes of the community, staff and students of Jefferson, and keep Jefferson open as a comprehensive 7 to 12 community school and keep our feeder elementaries as pre-K through sixth. Please use your asset base thinking and approve the plan. The community is going to present on March 31st. This is what the Jefferson Community is asking of you. And so am I. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for your time. My name is Caitlin

054Fitzpatrick. I'm a proud Jeffco graduate. My daughter is a Jeffco student. Both my parents work for Jeffco. I'm also a proud member of engaged Jeffco and a committed DAC member. Our ask this evening for the board and the superintendent is to trust to affected community enough to give us the resources and the budget necessary to really flesh out a co-design for what is possible for our learners, our people, our operations and our community. Let's go beyond shaping a narrative of a top down approach based on assumptions or feasibility. We implore you to listen to the lived experience of the Jefferson Articulation Area, and allow us to bring the lens of our community in partnership with the district, for what would truly make us thrive. We believe that we can together build a new future for

055Jefferson Junior Senior High School. We know it will be difficult and that it will challenge our already maxed out budget, but we know it can be done if we work together. Engage Jeffco believes that every student deserves equitable access to a world class public education. We believe that this can only be achieved through partnership with the district and its community. After hearing from the parents, students and teachers of the Jefferson Articulation Area, we heard loud and clear the sense of community and belonging that are truly thriving. There. Jeffco has made a commitment to know its students by their name, strength and need again, something that echoed throughout the auditorium and halls of Jefferson Junior Senior High School. Engaged. Jeffco also believes that the district vision of just Jeffco Thrives 2025 can only be achieved in

056partnership with its communities. We want to help to build that bridge and believe that this is an incredible opportunity for community voices to be heard, belonging to be cherished and building bridges into the future that will create a stronger and more inclusive public school district. Included in Jeffco values are belonging, equity, excellence and integrity. Let's work together to make this dream a reality. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Do we have number four? Welcome. Please introduce yourselves. And you have ten minutes. I'm Tamara McTavish from Lakewood, Colorado. I'm Sarah Galloway from Wheat Ridge. Good evening. My name is Heidi Handy from Golden, Colorado, and my name is Megan Jorgensen from Golden, Colorado. And we also have a handful of other very interested parents in the audience. Because this is important to us. So thank

057you for your time tonight. We are here to talk about the program with Jeffco Public Schools. We are parents, spouses, employees, entrepreneurs, taxpayers and neighbors, community members, and Stover Elementary School PTA supporters. We are also Jeffco Public Schools as a program parents essay stands for School Age Enrichment and as a district supported before and after school care program provided at many Jeffco schools. We each have two student children in the C program at Stover Elementary School, and Heidi has another child who will join the join the program for the 20 2627 school year. We love the Stover program's teachers and community and being Jeffco Public Schools families. We especially love having our kids enroll enrolled in the C program at Stover. Mr. Paul and the group of C teachers are incredible. Our kids really enjoy

058the programs, and our families desperately rely on the service. We are here today because we are deeply concerned by the anticipated changes for both Summer 2025 and the upcoming 20 2526 school year for the C program that will hurt Jeffco families and students. To quickly summarize the changes. The Jeffco C program is planning to pivot to a new a new scheduling requirement and fee schedule for city families. Families are now expected to register for a set schedule for every single week throughout the entire school year, and if they participate in the summer program for every single week throughout the summer program, the set schedule is selected for one of the following options. A two days schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A three day schedule on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and a five day schedule Monday

059through Friday. Once you register for the school year, there's only one opportunity to alter your schedule if needed in November. The schedule change process also comes with the change fee. Respectfully, we oppose the changes as as suggested. We request that the Jeffco Board of Education address this issue and reconsider the schedule changes to ensure it can best support taxpaying already stretched too thin, financially strapped, busy working families in the Jeffco network of schools. While we acknowledge it is likely too late to make changes to the schedule requirements for summer 2025, we request the Jeffco Board of Education to review the program plan and make adjustments to the 20 2526 school year and subsequent summer and school year programs after that. In this public comment, we will discuss why the suggested changes are so detrimental to

060our families, and then we will provide some brief solutions that we hope can be considered. So first, let's talk about some of the changes that will impact Jeffco students and families. The changes as slated or sorry. These changes are not only shocking to us as working and busy taxpaying parents of Jeffco Public School students, but concerning. Let's dig into this a little more. The changes escalated. Well, first of all, stripped the opportunity of enrolling in a year away from some families who will no longer be able to afford this service. These are the families who truly need this program, but will not be able to enroll due to the restrictive ness of the schedule requirements and unrealistic costs. These changes may also greatly challenge our family's schedules if we select the two day option so

061it better fits within our schedules, or the changes will cost our families represented just right here a range from $2,000 to 6300 more dollars for the 20 2526 school year. If we feel forced to select the restrictive and costly five days every single week of the school year option to appease our work schedules, impacts of the suggested schedule requirements will vary from family to family, and we fear these changes may also lead to financial inequity among families, as it may favor more financially stable families. These families may be able to elect to enroll in the five day week option, since they can afford it, taking valuable spots and flexibility away from lower income families who cannot commit to the five day a week schedule. Once again, for the entire school year, we have yet to

062hear from a single family who views these changes positively. So families are overwhelmed and deeply concerned about these changes for many reasons. Let's think about this for a minute. C is a before and after school care program for a public school. This is a service for our public schools. This is not a daycare. And it's certainly not a private for profit daycare at that. Before we jump into the following examples of why these changes will be detrimental to Jeffco students and families, we'd like to share the following data point. Depending on the daily rate that is determined for the C program for the 20 2526 school year, we have calculated that not scheduling care for just one day a week throughout the school year will save families up to $1,184 for one student and up

063to $2,250 for two students. That's just for one day of care a week for a 37 week school year. Moving on. Let's play a little game of what if for different families scenarios during the regular school year. For the first what if scenario, what if a child has after school appointments for mental health therapy, tutoring, sports, art or other special needs? And let's just say those appointments are every other week on a Wednesday, as currently slated. If the family of that child would like reliable C care on the Wednesdays they do not have appointments for their child. They will be required to sign up for SAT for the Wednesdays. They do not need care when they're taking their children to those appointments. In addition to the Wednesdays, they do need a care for, this negatively

064impacts their finances. They are now paying for an SAT spot they have no intention of using, and also paying for the other special appointment program or support they're taking their child to paying for 18 Wednesdays, which is every other Wednesday throughout the school year. A family does not need will cost them up to 592 extra dollars for one child and $1,125 for two children, again, depending on what the final costs are. And it takes a valuable spot away from another family who would like to fill that spot. However, the new schedule requirement, or however the new schedule requirements will likely keep many families desperate for childcare out of the C program. While other parents are forced to enroll for days they do not intend to use for some other quick what if scenarios. What if

065you're a nurse first responder, work in the service industry or a small business owner and you have a variable schedule that may change from week to week? What if you only need three days of care per week? But it's not the Monday, Wednesday, Friday option. It's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. What if you're co-parenting in a divorced or separated family, and each parent needs to manage child care for the days they have their children on their own? What if you have Tuesdays off and would like to not schedule that day, but desperately need care for all the other days of the week? What are you supposed to do in all of these scenarios? If the C program follows through with their projected scheduling changes? Either you spend more money than you should for this service from your

066public school system. If you can afford it, or you underestimate the care you need and stress your family's schedule to support your budget. As a personal note from all of us on how these changes for this summer have impacted our families, my family had no choice but to enroll in the five day a week option for this summer. We explored every possible way to make the two day a week option work, but without a local family support system, it just wasn't feasible for our working family. As a result, we are now paying about $2,300 more than we expected to and had planned to just for this summer. And that's if we were able to select our individual days. This extra cost to our family takes away from other activities. We are able to sign our

067kids up for like sports or art. Again, widening the equity gap with access to these programs. Only those who can afford these programs or maybe aren't paying for you can send their kids to these other programs as well. The other moms up here, one is elected not to join the program at all. This summer, one is only doing drop in days, and one is only doing two days a week and sharing the rest of the summer with their PTO. So now let's move on to some possible solutions. We recognize that budget or staffing constraints may be driving these proposed changes. Two suggested solutions for this school year include. Instead of the current policy of scheduling care on the 20th of the prior month, perhaps the program could require families to schedule attendance further in advance

068to help address operational and financial challenges, but still allow families flexibility to select the days that work best for their schedule. For example, Denver Public Schools Discovery Link Afterschool program allows family families to schedule for the entire first semester starting July 1st, while still offering flexibility to select only the days they need and a space allows. They're able to add care days until the end of the semester. Another option is to evaluate schools individually. Some schools may need more flexible options than others. A one size fits all approach may not work when start and end times vary. Across Jeffco, schools. We also have two suggested solutions for summer care programs. The first is to require families to sign up for the individual days they need in the beginning of the summer. Once again, allowing flexibility

069for specific days and not requiring set schedules, or if we must sign up for a set two, 3 or 5 day week option, can we at least only sign up for the weeks we know we will need ahead of time? Just like every single other summer care program that is offered to kids of of this age range in the summer. In conclusion, the suggested schedule changes to the Jeffco C program will hurt kids and parents of Jeffco Public Schools. However, we believe many solutions are available that can meet Jeffco budget and scheduling needs and the flexibility and cost needs of the families it's supposed to support. Please, we beg of you. Review the program. Plan and adjust the schedule requirements to better support Jeffco families. Thank you for your time. Thank you. And who has

070number five? Welcome. Please introduce yourselves. And you have ten minutes. Leah Cohn, I am from Littleton. I'm Ryan. I use he pronouns, and I teach at McLean Community High School. I'm Hannah Ashley. She her. I've been in alternative ed for 25 years in Jefferson county. Stephen Graham McLain Community High School. Mike Digger McLain community high school. Emily Giles, she her McLain high school. Karen Lockwood McLain High school. I thank you for your time for hearing us tonight. I've been teaching at alternative schools for about a decade now, and I'm incredibly passionate about supporting some of our district's most vulnerable students. This is my fifth year teaching at McLean, and I'm incredibly thankful to be working out of school with a team of educators that's so fully committed to the mission of alternative education in Jeffco.

071My programs administrator and our team of educators spent countless hours each week tweaking our attendance policies, considering changes to our academic policies, and discussing individual students and how we can best support them. I am proud to be a part of a team of educators who has experienced and committed to best supporting students in alternative ed. When my coworkers and I were told a few weeks ago of the district's new vision for a season Jeffco, we were pretty shocked to hear how such major changes could be proposed to ACS and Jeffco without us even being consulted. My coworkers and I were shocked as we heard details of this plan, that, in our experience and opinion, we believe would negatively affect our students and the education that they deserve. The messaging that we have been given around

072this new vision for a season, Jeffco has dramatically changed over the past few weeks. Initially, we were told that this is the plan, the vision that is happening and that we were being told about it before the public was told. Then a week later, we began hearing that it was a draft that was still open to being changed. And now we're being told that it is a draft and that we are open to help her find the details of this draft before it is rolled out. While we do appreciate being asked for our opinion on this draft, we don't want to help refine the details of a plan that we played no role in creating that we weren't consulted regarding, and nor where our students or their families. I've learned from working with my administrators

073over the past year as my school's union rep. The value of a bird's eye view when it comes to schools, I have learned that there is absolutely value, and the perspective from someone looking top down at an entire system, not just one classroom. I absolutely see the value in that perspective. I also believe that as an educator who spends every day working with these students, that the opinions of myself and my colleagues are equally valuable. And that's why we don't want just a platform to voice our concerns and to feel heard. While this plan is being finalized. We want a seat at the table where these decisions are being made, because we believe that if we are working together, we will best be able to support our students and give them the education that they

074deserve. Thank you. Hello and thank you for letting us speak tonight. My name is Leah Chacon, and I'm a Jeffco parent. I have three kids in the district and I am also an English teacher at McLean, where I teach in the rice program. This is for our ninth and 10th grade students who need those credits. And we're a really small but powerful program where students learn how to reengage in the school environment. I previously taught in Douglas County, where my union was busted. The board refused to negotiate or recognize the union, and my voice was completely silent. We were basically told to implement the new board agenda or find another job, and I did. I joined the McLain community three years ago, and there are so many wonderful things about this district. I knew that

075I had found my dream school and my dream district. Recently that changed, and I feel like I'm back in Douglas County and without a voice. Alternative schools are blindsided recently with news of massive reform and change. This happened without our input and was presented to us as a done deal. McLean teachers are deeply passionate about our students, and we take great pride in our school. We know the truth about the amazing work that is done in our building. We're horrified that we're being presented with a plan that changes or erases some of the most important aspects of our school, especially when we weren't part of the planning progress. I'm here tonight because I can't stomach working in another district where my voice doesn't matter, and top down initiatives that aren't in the best interest of

076my students are forced on us. I'm here to represent, many of the teachers in my building who couldn't be here tonight as well, because they're hosting parent teacher conferences. Thank you. I work in the adult G.E.D. program at McLean, and it is a thriving program where several students graduate each month. And I'll share my perspective on how the new AC strategy was presented to us. Over the last couple of weeks, in what I see as a communication debacle. We are frustrated with the lack of clarity and transparency from leadership at JP. As as was already mentioned, it was unveiled as something that would include widespread changes to be incorporated over the next year, culminating in a full launch in 2627. We were very concerned with the plan that neglected many of the unique needs of

077AC students seemed to be based on little understanding of what we actually do at McLean. It seemed like new models from other districts were being pushed upon us, with little regard for the expertise and institutional knowledge that has accrued over the years in Jeffco alternative schools. This new plan was met with strong resistance from the teaching staff, not because we are resistant to change in general, but instead because we are resistant to wholesale change without stakeholder engagement and change, that doesn't make sense for the students we serve. Now we're told this is a miscommunication. Just to draft that over the next year will work together to generate a vision at this point. I feel shell shocked and don't know what to believe. Morale is taking a hit. I am new to McLean, and I want

078to share how I have been impressed with the high level of commitment and passion the AC teaching staff has for our students. I assure you that any resistance from teachers is in good faith, centered on the unique needs of our students. I encourage you not to see our resistance as a challenge, but instead as an opportunity to understand our concerns for our students. We ask that the dedicated teachers be included in the actual development of a new vision for X, and for some included means, not just via surveys or presentations, but actually, as a member of the planning team. I admit we have areas of growth. I believe we are open to improvement, refinement, and new alternatives as long as they are built upon our areas of strength. Thank you. All right. I don't really

079think I can add any more facts or numbers to anything that's already been said. I am not a new teacher at McLean. I have been there. This is my 19th year. So I've been through an awful lot. Don't know if you, are aware of Deborah Gard. She was principal when I was there, and some really, really amazing things started to happen. When I started there and, as time went on, the teams that, I was blessed to be working with were so collaborative. We were collaborating before JCA even put collaboration into writing and contracts. So it was something I was very used to. And, you know, you've heard top down and, things just been thrust on us and, you know, that has been some of my experience. And, you know, in the time where there are,

080guidelines about collaboration that don't seem to be, followed to, their fullest. And, I was part of a team, that broke up last year. I lost half of my coworkers. And we had a nine year relationship prior to that. Working with these kids, helping these alternative learners, developing some of our own things that we thought would be best for them. And with the AEC audit, and some of the uncertainty and questions, and lack of perceived collaboration. I lost half of the best team I've ever been a part of. This year has been a bit of a struggle. Fortunately, the four that we hired are excellent teachers. So, you know, we can rebuild, but, you know, McLain is a very special place. I will not leave there. And I would very much like McLain to be a

081wonderful place for everyone. Students, staff, parents, everybody. Thank you. Do we have number six? Welcome. Please introduce yourself. And you have three minutes. Mark them and Sookie Sobieski Academy. Good evening. Members of the board. My name is Mark, famous lucky, and I am a high school math teacher at the Biscay Academy, one of Jeffco alternative education campuses. For those of you that are not familiar with this, the Best Scholars Program serves a diverse population of students with social emotional disabilities that require the care and attention that can only be provided by a separate school. Some best is undoubtedly a very expensive program to operate, but it is an important one. Recently, our staff was presented with the restructuring plan and the justification provided for this restructuring was that our enrollment was declining and that our

082student needs would be more intense. While it is true that the number of students in our program has dropped somewhat from the peak, we saw immediately after Covid, the enrollment is not out of line with numbers we had at Cbs2 almost nine years ago when I started teaching there. The restructuring plan itself is calling for the elimination of four core content teachers, all in the secondary program, and two of our four elective elective teachers. Note that some of these positions are vacant and have been filled with long term substitutes. Additionally, we are losing one of our six mental health providers and four para educators. I do want to provide some context for the teaching positions that will be cut. We are currently configured with four teachers in middle school and four teachers in high school.

083All teachers in our secondary program had previously been expected to have special education endorsements and competency in a core subject area. Essentially, our teachers collectively have needed to fulfill the role of a full service middle and high school because our students ultimate goal is to return back to a less restrictive setting. That's the best for our students. Do not have access to any regular education teachers. The restructuring will reduce the number of middle and high school teachers down to two each, and force each teacher to cover two different subject tier subject areas. Now, I think I'm a pretty decent math teacher, but I'm not some magician or the proverbial golden unicorn that can deliver four grade levels worth of engaging lessons in both math and science each day, and be a speed teacher at the

084same time. Yet that is exactly what the new plan is calling for. Our reality will end up very different. Multiple levels of students will be tossed together into the same room, and somehow we will be expected to make it work. Right now, we can offer a wide variety of classes, just like students would have access to in their home school. But with this restructuring, that will no longer be possible. Mark my words, if this plan is implemented, the secondary program at SIB will be irreparably harmed. Curiously, our leadership says that what they are doing is in the best interests of students. Really? Due to these changes, sound like they're in the best interests of students. Reducing course offerings. Expecting secondary teachers to teach content outside of their area of expertise. Eliminating flexibility from our scheduling.

085At no point did our staff have input on the proposed staffing changes before they were dropped on us in an after school meeting. So Biscay is not without its problems and there are many that needs to be fixed. I believe we can fix things through collaboration, not top down changes. And I'm calling on our board to help ensure that our leadership implements changes at SIB in a way that is collaborative, viable, and makes the best use of district resources. Thank you. And that does bring us to the end of our first hour of public comment. We will come back for the, rest of public comment after we have our other agenda items and before the director reports. So now we will go into the study session. On March 5th, 2025, the board held a study

086session that included the following topics. A legislative update, discussion of current topics of interest, school budget planning, and the FY 26 budget development. The Strategic Capital Master plan, property surplus recommendations, and finally the Enterprise Resource Planning Replacement Project. I encourage you to watch the recording of the study session to learn more about these subjects. 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 board docs and our live stream platforms. So for our first item, the Board of Education will discuss the second quarter 20 2425 financial report and have the opportunity to dialog with its Financial Advisory Committee. Consistent with statutory requirements, the district prepares and publishes quarterly financial reports that are interim and unaudited financial statements. The reports are posted

087publicly on our Financial Transparency website and reviewed by our FRC. Members of the faculty will share observations and recommendations based in part on their review of the quarterly financial report and import on in part on other meeting content and discussions. I want to sincerely thank members of the FARC for their work to provide the board timely insight into the financial well-being of the district, and we should be having a presentation. Yes, Miss Copeland. Before I turn this over to Miss Copeland and the Financial Advisory Committee superintendent darlin, is there anything you'd like to add? Thank you, President Parker. I want to queue up that this next, agenda item is going to be, I think a review of our second quarter financials. And some advice, to the board from the board's advisory committee, the financial advisory

088committee. So thank you, Mr. Sproles, for being here. Thank you, Miss Copeland and Miss Rosario. It's interesting. So much of I think what we just heard in public comment is reaction to two efforts that are currently underway. One is an, a need for us to think strategically about how to improve student achievement. You know, as we've studied in Monitoring Report 1.1, just as an example, our third grade students are, reading at grade level just above 50%. I believe in Jeffco that we can do much better than that. And it is going to take some intentional effort in our classrooms supporting our teachers to get there. So that's one piece that I think is, a challenge right now. The other piece that's going on in terms of, student achievement. It's challenging because as we heard this

089evening, we are we are going to be expecting reduced revenue from the state. We've been actively working with the state, advocating strongly that they keep some form of a stability factor in the School Finance Act. Ideally, the implementation of 1448 that they approved last year with a four year averaging, which would be the best benefit to Jeffco. And even if that is the case, we are looking at a $4 million reduction in deficit or in revenue, therefore adding to our deficit. You'll hear today, in the second quarter report that we are expecting to spend more of our appropriated budget than we have in the last two years, therefore eating into the district's fund balance. We are fortunate that the district's fund balance is healthy right now. But if we look ahead, at what we're expected

090to spend this year and what I believe we will be bringing to you all as a proposed budget in June. We will we will not be looking as healthy in about a year from now. And that is a challenge. And so I want the board to know that in addition to really a strong focus on student achievement and student outcomes and extraordinary student experiences. The other side of that coin is that we are looking actively at reducing expenditures, and those two things are hard to do at the same time. and I understand when any, efforts that are currently underway or programs that are currently in place, when we look to try to find efficiencies, it's hard. It's very hard. But we also know that this board and the superintendent myself believe strongly in compensation for

091our employees and try to trying to remain as competitive as possible with our neighboring districts, for our people, our strength. And so some of this effort to find places where we can move resources to prioritize other things that are aligned to our strategic plan, including compensation, does have impacts in our in our organization. And that is hard. And I recognize that. And I want to just publicly say that I get that. I do appreciate that in the board's governance policies, you have Gpio seven, which allows the board to, require staff, the superintendent and chief financial officer to work with a community committee of experts in the financial arena and for you to receive not only, of course, public comment and communication from the constituents, both internal and external, to or district, but also from financial

092advisors and our community, people with financial expertise who run businesses and understand the ins and outs of a budget and expenditures and accounting. And so I'm really looking forward to you being able to hear a bit of a balance this evening. Around what are we looking at financially? Because in addition to being able to focus on extraordinary student experiences, instructional excellence, student outcomes, the primary responsibility that the board has every year is budget approval. And it is important, as stewards of public funds, that we are responsible with those public funds and efficient. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to our Chief Financial Officer, Brant Copeland. Good evening, board members. I'm just going to say a couple quick things. Good news, bad news. The second quarter report tells you pretty much what, we

093indicated. We thought it might when we brought you the revised budget in January. Do you remember this report? Reports through December 31st. We had not yet adopt the revised budget. So some of the themes you'll hear us touch on were things that drove us to amend our budget in January. Right. But technically this is through December. It's the original budget. That once, Mr. Rosario is done, I will take back the mic and we'll introduce you to Mr. Sproles and get him started. But first we're going to do the quarterly report. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks for having me this evening. All right, so as Miss Copeland talked about, this is the second quarter financial report, which is year to date activity from July 1st through December 31st, 2024 for the first six months. Just some reminders

094and consistent with our first quarter report. We have a budgetary benchmark for expenses that will be on the graphs that you see. This budgetary benchmark now reflects the actual percent of spend in the prior, the same period of the prior year. So, for example, the year to date expenses in Q2 of last year as a percent of the total expenses for the year. That's how our benchmark is now calculated. We're we're focusing on year over year comparisons. However, in the general fund, this is skewed a little bit because of our fund consolidation activity that we did at the beginning of this year. And then finally, this report, represents actual spending through Q2. Mr. Copeland talked about that. This is also comparing to our amended budget. It's not going to reflect our, revised budget from January.

095And it is it doesn't include a forecast. This is truly our actual versus budgeted spending for the first two quarters. All right. For the general fund. And then also just to ground you to the slides that we'll see in the next few slides. The first three bars are the revenue. The orange is going to be budget for this year, the full year budget, the amended budget. And then we will, look, the green bar is the actual activity for the first two quarters, and the gray is prior year of the same two quarters. The actual revenue is on track in the amended budget. It represents an increase in per pupil revenue, less the enrollment decrease that we budgeted for. It also includes our actual activity. It includes our state equalization payments. We're now receiving those over

096nine months versus we used to receive those over 12 months. So it's just a difference. In timing. And then this year our revenue in the general fund includes universal preschool. And that is due to that fund consolidation. So again, talking about that, this is an apples to apples compared to prior year because there's different activity there. The actual expense is on track with the amended budget. Our expenses are higher than prior year. But these are on track as planned and budgeted for through our amended budget. Capital reserve fund. Our revenue is on track. The primary source of revenue in this fund is $30 million transfer from the General Fund. Our actual expense continues to be on track. Just a reminder, the expenses that are represented in the Capital Reserve Fund is our annual regular capital

097maintenance. It also includes one time investments towards Fletcher Miller, Arvada Aquatic Center and our ERP project. And then this is our final year of 2018 CIP spending. And that funding is coming out of the Cap reserve fund. The grants fund, the actual revenue is on track with budget and includes plans for lower than what we expected or compared to prior year. Last year included Esser activity. This year it doesn't. So both revenue and expense in the grants fund is less than prior year just to reflect that change in grant activity. Both of these are on track, maybe a little bit slightly less, but our activity picks up as the year goes on in our grant fund. Food services fund. Our actual revenue is on track with budget. The primary source of revenue in here is

098funds that we receive for federal and state reimbursements. Our actual expense in this fund is off track and above budget. Both our food and labor costs in this fund are trending higher than we budgeted within our expectations. Some of this increase for the expense is being offset by a fact that last year we had a one time capital expense that's reflected in the 2024 actuals. This year we don't have that one time capital expense. We have that increase in food and labor costs. The as Miss Copeland talked about, this was addressed when the budget department came in January to present revised budgets. So the revised budget for this one after Q2 will be adjusted to reflect that new trend and expenses. Campus activity fund. This represents activity within the schools such as yearbook, athletics activities.

099This. The activity in this fund is consistent to prior year and on track with budget expectations. The Insurance Reserve Fund This fund represents our risk related activities. Our actual revenue is on track to budget the revenues primarily related to transfer from the general fund. We have additional revenue in this fund that's related to risk related insurance receipts. The actual expenses on track and the spending is up by benchmark for this year. So it's consistent to what we expected and consistent with trends we've seen previously. Childcare fund actual revenue is on track to budget. The primary revenue is the source. And here is the tuition payments for before and after school activities. The actual expense. This is another fund where the expense is trending higher than budgeted and expectations. We are doing a little bit of

100an in-depth review of this fund, so to see if there needs to be potential changes for next year. However, we also note that there's a year to date activity in this fund and the expense that relates to a non-cash expense related to the retirement of assets. This occurred as a result of the fund consolidation. So that's driving the expenses higher than anticipated. And this fund was then presented in January to have an adjusted revised budget. And on this one, we the prior year activity is not shown because it's definitely not apples to apples. Last year, the, the preschool activity was in this fund. This year, it's now in the general fund. And that is it. Questions. What? I'm curious, with the child care being the expenses being so much higher. Is that part of what's

101driving some of the changes that people were talking about during public comment? And can we can we explain that a little bit for folks? Yes. Miss Copeland and possibly Doctor Kim can give you a little bit more detail about why the adjustments might help with the sustainability of the budget. I'm happy to start. And please, Doctor Kim, help me. The first thing you see is that we had already budgeted for this fund to spend more than it brought in. So, you see, we were budgeting revenue of eight and expecting expense of 8.7. That's just because once we tease the two things apart and focused on what's just truly sad, we realized that number was a little bigger than we knew because it was hidden a little bit before. So part one is there was it

102was already budgeted and planned at an amount in excess of its own revenue. Of the 5.6, the actuals in Q2, approximately 1.1 million of that is a non-cash charge related to the asset, write down. So take the 5.6 in your brain and turn it into like 4.5. 4.5 is still more than 4.2, and 4.5 is still more than half of 8.7. So there's sort of three things going on. One, once we teased apart the budgets, we saw that it was out of balance to their spending even more than the budget. Okay. And then part three is this non-cash item. The non-cash item is going to go away. It's very confusing, very accounting ease. We finally confirmed with our auditors the correct treatment. And, there will not be a write down expense there. So that part

103is going to go away. So 1.1 will go away. However, there's still some issues to solve. And so yes, we had reached out to, the sales team and their leadership and reviewed several different ideas. We discussed them in cabinet. Some of those include some program adjustments. Some of those include some potential hours adjustments, all of which is designed to make sure, we offer the services where they're most needed. And in the most fair and, efficient at times way possible. Doctor Kim, I'm just going to add one thing and then let Doctor Kim jump in. I would also say some of what we're doing programmatically is also related to frustrations that we've heard from families around having to sign up every week, which is a little bit different than what we heard tonight. So just, just

104to acknowledge that we're hearing different things, and I think it's based on the fact that every family has different and unique needs. And so, I just want to put that in the room as well. So it's we're trying to listen to as much feedback as we can align some of the changes to that feedback, but also, Fit within a budget, fit within the budget. So Doctor Kim Jepsen, again, I was basically going to say what, very similar to what you said. We're trying to be flexible, obviously, with our families, our families are having to sign up week to week rather than commit for a month. And that way, you know, you have staffing, that staffing is connected to the revenue that comes in. If you go week to week, we can't say to somebody, don't

105work this week now, work next week, don't work this week. Now work next week. We commit to our staff. And so having our staff in place, even if there aren't as many kids as we were counting on, makes there to be a delta between income and revenue. There. So I wasn't hearing. Even tonight, groups say that they wanted to go to signing up weekly. What I was hearing them say was that they were willing to commit well in advance, with some flexibility about how they use those days, and I don't know if that ultimately creates more of an issue or. Well, we've been working on that. So, Kim, I don't know if you have an easy update on that. I did I did ping you and Renee saying, we're going to need an update. Because

106I think we're further along than maybe what has been communicated to families. I think that we have been working on some adjustments to the feedback we got about the lack of flexibility, and the changes. We've gone back to try to make some changes in response to that feedback. And at the same time, we're building the budget. And so we're trying to balance how do we do what we need to do to help respond to the family feedback as well as align to the budget. And I don't know where we are with that. All I can tell you is that, Renee, Nick Otis did present she and her saac leadership presented to our team some proposals to look at how they might approach this differently and address some of those challenges. And we gave them some

107feedback. They're planning on coming back. So as soon as they do, we'll be able to give the board an update on on kind of where that lands. Great. So they're actively working on being responsive and staying within budget, but we don't have all the answers yet. Can I can I add I will one we are studying this next month right April or May. So there would be a chance, I assume there, to come back with the update, which would be really helpful to be communicating with families. Yeah. And I just want to clarify when I sign up for essay, because I do use essay, thankfully. And it's an amazing service. We appreciate it. We sign up each month now, but we can pick days, right. So I just want to make sure we're talking the

108same. The problem is we're not consistent from site to site with that. That's part of the challenge, which is partly driven by staffing. It's not driven by staffing. That's why studying it will be very helpful. Thank you guys. I was going to actually ask the same question if it was different site to say, because our site also signs up month to month. And I just lift up for flexibility sake. I was unable to sign up at the end of February for as a for tonight. Well, I need to be here and my spouse who is a federal employee, had to be at work. He ended up having to take two hours of personal leave in order to pick our child up from school, because we didn't have a say. You tonight. The impacts are real

109and I as I wanted to speak that into the room. And I'm looking forward to studying it more because it's a direct impact on myself and director Applegate. And I know so many other families across the district. I do have a question on the presentation. Sorry, I jumped in. President Parker, thank you. In non accounting, speak, when we say we retire an asset, we are not talking necessarily about a physical asset. Correct? I think I know the answer, but I'm going to ask it. Well, for fund consolidation, we needed to take an asset and move it from one fund to another. And it when we first did it, we did it as a right down and an asset in this case is furniture equipment. Thank you. Supplies and materials. It's up to you for sure.

110We don't think of them that way. But but it's those types of things that have a useful life more than a year. It's actually probably not this. Does that make sense? That is helpful. Thank. I have a question on who provides a. Because I was under the impression sometimes we get an outside company to do it. So is it mixed? It is mixed. Mostly us, but also other providers. And so is and partner orgs like Boys and Girls Club and different. Right. So so are these changes that we were hearing about. Are they just for our own staff that we're, trying to plan for, or is this something that outside agencies have bought into, to or asked for? Two points there. Again, we're just talking about changes we would make and, we're benchmarking some of

111our changes of how other providers do it to create more consistency in general. So I think, the fee per use drop in scheduling, is actually not that pervasive. Most providers, private providers and other districts don't do drop in. And so I think some of what we're doing is normalizing to more standard ways of operating. And how many schools have se. I was just looking for my essay update that I last had, which was a while ago. Can we can we hold on that? And we'll get you some answers. I think we should think about some level of written update with just some basic explanation of what happens where. What are the additional providers, who gives an employee discount? Who doesn't give an employee discount? Because we do, by the way, 20% for Jeffco employees. And

112I think we we may not be as prepared as the board would like us to be. To discuss SRT in detail tonight, if that's okay. We'll get you a written update, because I know we still have a month or two before the public presentation, so. Sounds good. Thank you. Any other questions? Nope. We're done with that part. Great. So, I want to introduce the board, to Mr. Jason Sproles. Jason is one of our newer members on, FRC, and he has jumped in and really already provided great insights to the group. He's going to share some recommendations, some conclusions and recommendations. We have been meeting and speaking with the committee. According to a cadence of kind of pre-scheduled agenda topics. And so some of what is reflected in these. It's actually a different docu ment. That's

113okay. The conclusions and recommendations, you know, draws from different meetings at different points in time. And of course, we can always refer back to the prior ones. We the FRC brought some in the fall. I think it was October. So and with that, Mr. Small's pretty good. Thank you all very much for having me here tonight. And and, Brant, I really, truly appreciate it. Then, as Brant said, part of the, advisory committee, since October and has been very insightful, to see what's happening around the district. I've been in Jefferson County since 1983 and, graduated from Chatfield in 1990. So I have watched the evolution of the district in its very interesting to see how the budget is completed, the complexities of that, all of the different funds and getting the education, from, the team here

114in order to help understand what are the moving parts and what are the real challenges that we're facing right now. I think part of that too, and make a shameless plug here for the FRC and all the other committees, is we're looking for more committee members. And, we encourage anybody that is interested and, and has the interest and skill sets to please get involved. It is a great group and, great leaders. And it's encouraging the community engagement. On top of that, I'd like to, you know, state that I took some time to review what was the past of of meeting, and some of the topics that have been brought and the actions, that in recommendations that were made during that time. I think it's encouraging being a new member to see that these conclusions and

115recommendations have been heard. They have been reviewed and in many cases have been implemented. I think that draws a lot of value to all the people that are contributing. And I think that, it should encourage other people to get involved because these are real issues and there's real discussions happening with, the focus that I would say is always on the students. Almost every meeting starts as much. And I think everybody that's contributing, has, has said as much. I think some of the big things that we're seeing, as you've seen in the, report that's been provided, is that so much of the recommendations, are based with what is going to become, what is a potential very large budget shortfall within the state, billion dollars shortfall that can, impact Jefferson County with 20 plus million dollars of

116a shortfall ourselves. This wide range of impacts, could, you know, I think sadly, impact the capital improvements. Security is always a big issue. All of these hard, fixed assets that you just about. These are real things that have to be replaced. These are real things that break down. And, we we have to, put back in place. Back in service. And then the other side of it is, which we've heard tonight through the public comments, is is clearly on the compensation side. These are real numbers. These, have material impact on the budget. And I think are things that we're finding within the advisory committee that we are being asked we're looking for ideas. And the bottom line really boils down to the things that have been said in the past meetings since what I read back

117through in 2022 and 23 is that we need to continually work to decrease expenditures and find opportunities to increase revenues. I think that's pretty straightforward. However, easier said than done. I'd like to point out one exercise that we went through, with one of the, during one of the meeting sessions that I thought was very insightful, and it was simply to put together a simulated budget for an elementary school. It was mind numbing to me of how few dollars there were to go around for absolute necessities and the choices that had to be made in order to accommodate one small school. And that was a small elementary school that has nothing to do with some of the other larger, complex high schools, things of that nature. So these are real considerations and real problems that we're

118going to be running into. And based on some of our recommendations. Part of the, aspects that we talked about quite a bit in the most recent meetings is the utilization of the capital fund. The reserve fund, I should say. This is something that is a necessity. It will need to be done. With the budget shortfall, there's really not a whole lot of option to that. However, it's not a sustainable model. There are a lot of things that come with that reserve fund, including interest. There needs to be, an understanding, and rules and strategies set around that fund, in order to know what are our minimums, what are the strategies of using that fund? How are we going to use it? You know, we keep drawing down from that, and it's just going to be a,

119a continual slide down that hill because, we're we're taking revenue away that it's actually producing revenue for us right now. And we're going to continue to slide that way. So these are some important considerations that I think we have in the months to come. And and clearly, with our next budget for 25, 26. The other things that we're recommending is that, you know, the obvious continuing to look at, reduced expenditures and, you know, how you look over the past years is 30 million here, 50 million here year over year. You know, we're we're we're cutting and cutting and cutting. You know, what are we going to do with that? You know, it's just a continual slide down the hill again. And these are some of the things I think, that we're addressing as a team

120and, and how we want to do it. Recommends to, the administration and to the board is also, the continued efforts of reviewing these scenarios. There's a lot of moving parts happening right now. Clearly the governor has a, position that he has put out there of a one year, review of pupils, and, and how that pupil average will impact funding that we're getting for this particular district with a decreasing enrollment. It's not been official as, superintendent, Dolan has said, to our district, we do need to have a period of three plus years in order to give a a solid average. And I think with with the way that our community is changing the size of our district, this is something that we're going to need to lobby for very, aggressively, because this will again, on top

121of the the state budget shortfall just compounds the particular issues we might be running into. So there are a lot of moving targets right now. And I think these scenarios that we're looking at, which I know are already in progress and are presented to us during these meetings. They they're difficult and they're going to take some time. You know, you're you're shooting in the dark. So so we applaud the efforts that have happened so far. But we know there's a great deal of work that needs to happen as we continue to move down that path. I think, just, you know, kind of wrapping up with that, I, you know, some of the other aspects when we're looking at the budget, and as they're planning for, for 25, 26 and beyond. There has been a recommendation

122and hope to see some comparison studies done, to other peer districts, to see what are they doing? I think there's pretty active communication between the districts already. I think there's good relationships. But what are they doing for transportation? What are they doing for security? That's different. We had a security presentation, and it's amazing how difficult that can be from school to school. It's not just a an even. This is how we're distributing it. It. So how other how are other school districts doing that. And I think that's one of the recommendations that we, we really want to see is are we, you know, comparing to others effectively? Are we doing things as optimally as we possibly could? And I would think within the community that's something that they would all benefit from as well. Because

123we're all fighting for the same, you know, approach and success. So finally, what I would just say there is, you know, I think these groups are very helpful. I think that having the community being aware of how complex the financial situation is within our district is very important. What happens at what used to be Chatfield to just down the street, Dakota Ridge, completely different scenarios. Had no idea. I thought it was much easier than this. The consolidation of funds and where those funds go, how you can use those funds. Very complex. And I don't think that most of the community knows that. And I think it's it's good to have people like us and more people engaged in these committees so we can actually, communicate to the community about what's happening here. Give some clarity,

124like, you know, what's being given here today. So I guess I would just say thank you very much for having us involved. Look forward to more of it. And, hopefully the advice that we're giving is, is constructive and and helping move the needle a bit. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. And, having been, able to attend some of the FRC meetings, I think that they're invaluable and really appreciate your observations. I just want to throw out that when I first saw that SBB budget exercise, you know, what do you do in a school? It was it was mind blowing. And and I cannot believe that our principals, in addition to having to know all about education and how to teach, have to know how to be business managers, too. It's it's quite, a quite

125a burden on them. So anything we can do to help them is important. Board members questions? Thank you so much for being here. I think our advisory committees are vital to the work that we do up here. And I also think it's vital because we end up having a lot of educated and informed community members who can help be meaning makers outside of serving in that committee. So I think, participation in this community is just really valuable. Thank you for spending your time in that way. I want to I want to ask a question more for district staff or also for us, I guess. But I'm curious about communication between our advisory committees, because I know that on the DAC, there's a, budget subcommittee. And so we have also community members there who are trying

126to learn about understand the budget. And I just wonder how much cross-pollination we could do across communication. We could do, with those groups, especially that with a capital asset advisory committee, because they also have a different lens on, how our finances are being used. So I just it's raising for me, like taking our engaged community members who are giving us some of their time and seeing if there can be some, some communications amongst our advisory committees where they overlap in content. Because I know that that some of our budget subcommittee would probably really benefit from going through an exercise like building an elementary school budget if they haven't already done it, sitting as a member of a school advisory or a School Accountability Committee member. And it's also a good way to brush up, especially

127if people are coming from maybe a middle school perspective or a high school perspective that helps us dial into what the realities of what's happening, rather than talking about the theory, behind it. And so I just love lifting that up. And I would like to see some attempt to have some of our budget subcommittee on the DAC communicate with, or maybe attend a meeting. I don't know. I think it would be really valuable. Thank you. I think we had heard that suggestion, maybe even last year. We did invite the DAC budget subcommittee chair, to the very first FRC meeting, which was sort of our kickoff meeting where we did more grounding. We're happy to invite her back and and have additional dialog. So thank you for that suggestion. You know, I think as we move

128into this recommendation and that need to talk about reducing expenditures, our FAC committee and our DAC budget committee can be very helpful for us in what is going to need to be a broad stakeholder community engagement plan. And I you know, I think that time isn't not right now, but it's going to be soon. And I think we'll be able to have more clarity on that as you all move into as we move into April's budget presentation, May's proposed budget or draft budget, that and June's proposed and adopted. Thank you. In June. So once we know kind of where the deficit budget lands this year, we'll have a better sense of what does the community engagement need to look like late summer and into next fall as we begin thinking about how to reduce that

129deficit spend? And I really am hopeful that all of our committees would be interested in participating in that process with us and being community leaders as we reach out. Thank you. And I really appreciate you all in the FRC. I've always said if we didn't have your level of expertise, I don't know how I would understand a lot of the things, that we're talking about. I think you all bring a really, important piece to to the work. I know I've said a few times. Theresa Shelton, who is also on the audit committee. Her expertise in audits has just, you know, really changed things for us. I think you nailed it when you said the community would like to understand, could understand, better, I think. I think that's something that community members are like. Longing for,

130is to just understand what the heck is going on behind, you know, the spreadsheets in the budget. But I don't think you should have the answer to this. I don't know how to do that. You know, within our committees. That makes sense. But it's such a small place, you know, where people talk and talk to each other. And I just wonder if we could think about that on the FRC also. Or community members could have how to how to expand this. Because if we're going to continue to ask for funding or put out a mill and things like this, like I think that I think that's really important what you just said. I don't know if you have any suggestions for that. Now, kind of scaling what you know out to a larger community. You

131know, I would I would probably start pretty simply by having more people on the committees, that can touch more communities. And I think it, it in lieu of advertising or anything like that, you're going to have to have that community outreach and, and community awareness, through different channels, whether it be social, whether it be conversational, but more people should be able to. Speak to what is actually happening. And I think that messaging getting out to the community is is paramount. Have a I have a quick question. I've always wondered, would it be helpful? We have all of our committee meetings at the district office. What if we had our community meetings, our committee meetings in in schools or like our in communities or even, like presentations or things where they could come and be involved?

132I just we do all of our committee meetings here. Well, I don't know if that's true. No, we do all our FRC ones here. And I've always thought it would be helpful if we were having conversations out where people knew those were happening in the community. Sure. I don't I don't know the answer to that if that's that's the right way or not. There was about 60 more people in earlier. I think it would be helpful if they stuck around. And I think things like that, you know, I think drive a little bit more awareness and change. As far as, getting more community involvement and, teaching them more about what we're doing. More than ten years ago, I participated in something called the Citizen's Budget Advisory Committee, and they gave us a big book, something

133that Brenda would love. But it was huge. And it was it was overwhelming. I mean, so it was transparent and every piece of information you'd ever want to know, it was in there. But, if we could have a presentation. That is just the basics, bare bear. You know, start from what we get from the state and what we get local, you know, just buckets. It I don't know. It would be nice if we could give them some information but not overwhelm them. Yeah, I think that's completely accurate. I think if you look at the amended budget that the first meeting I went to, it's completely overwhelming. And it shows what's close to $1 billion budget really looks like, which I don't think a majority of people know that. I didn't know that a principal was

134in charge of their own budget. That's pretty important thing to know. You know, so I think it's part of that learning process. It's a lot of information. You have to be willing and invested to want to do it. And I think maybe taking topics and keeping it simple. I think the agendas that we're being provided with are directed. And I think that there's a real task there, and I think that those showed the district's awareness of what's happening in the community and the reality at the same time. You know, so maybe the encouragement of more reading of meeting minutes, you know, the information is there. I can honestly say before I started FRC, I was not looking at a whole lot of meeting minutes on the Jeffco website. Now that I've read most of them,

135it's very enlightening. And you see a story, you see a pattern. And you can see the real constraints. I'm not a marketing expert, but it's it's a marketing exercise. I'm going to throw out for someone who may be listening, maybe a high school junior, a senior that needs a project. And I worked in the utility industry. We made a board game, and the board game was, how do you power the state of Colorado? And you had different types of energy. You had all these things, and it's really hard to win that game. And just hearing that example, it's like, man, it would be great if we had I'm going to say game. I was listening and putting it into the ether. Because it'd be really hard to win that game as you alluded to. Right.

136And so I really appreciate your comments. Coming in as a parent, I've been in this district for 12 years before stepping into the seat, had no idea the complexities that go into what happens on a budget. And it's it's really hard. So I appreciate you being here and your kind words and your encouragement of the rest of our community to get involved. Because I do think that's half of it. Knowledge is power in a lot of ways. And I think the more people that understand and I still ask Sabrina stupid questions all the time. So, even a year in, I still am. And really, I work hard to try to understand it. So thank you for your efforts. Thank you for your expertise and your time. I actually don't have necessarily a question. I just

137want to express my profound gratitude for your willingness to do this because I. I struggle certainly with with this overwhelming budget and all of the moving pieces. And so the community members who volunteer their time and come in to do this are so important. And and what you have to say to us really matters. And so what I'm going to do is elevate what you've said, which is that you need more community members on the, on the committee. And given that, you know, we do periodically get letters that might be mildly critical of how the district handles its budget. I would welcome the people who feel that way to join the committee and like, really take a look at it, and see what all the pieces are. And you know what? If they have suggestions

138that will help us out. More power to them. That would be a great place to do that. So I just want to elevate your request that more people join the committee, because I think, many hands make light work, and, and a lot of minds can come up with some pretty good solutions for us. Thank you so much. All right. So, yes, thank you again. Really appreciate it. And, I think maybe there's a benefit of having some kind of budget presentation, you know, forecasts, but you managed to have something almost every month. And, the more we hear it, the more I understand it. So thank you. I would agree with that point real quick. It's the repetitive side of it, the continued, you know, education of it, reinforcing it with us. So yeah, I appreciate that.

139So thank you so much. Appreciate it. And at this point, I'm going to call for about a ten minute break and then we'll have a legislative update or discussion. In. Between. And. Okay, we are back now, and we are going into, agenda item on legislative discussion. Tonight, Ed Bowdich, partner with Bowdich and Castle Public Affairs, joins us virtually to engage in discussion. Prior to calling for a motion to determine if there's a board majority to formally endorse or oppose any of the pending legislation. So, hello, Mr.. Bowdich. Thank you for joining. Good evening. And, we do have a list, of, bills that have been mentioned. We had a study session last week, and, some of them were brought up then and, then a couple of additional ones. So I'm going to start this out actually

140by saying, moving forward into this, legislative session. I think I've spoken with, Director Kenworthy and Director Reed, who have, previously expressed an interest in sort of, taking the lead in legislative bills so that going forward, you can be the ones, telling us about any changes or any new bills that come up and any ones that you think are worthy of our attention. So having said that, we will be, just sort of going down the line here and, having everyone bring up the bills that they are interested in. And if we have questions about it, you can answer them for us, and that will help us. We can decide if we want to take action on any of them. So is there anybody who would like to start? Director Kenworthy, thank you for creating the agenda

141item for tonight. I, I read over, Mr. Babbage's summary that we got this week. And I am willing to, on the extending prohibition of school facial recognition table that until later on in the session as we wait for amendments to come on that. So I'm happy for us to not have to make a decision on that particular one tonight. That is it's, as Senate Bill 25 143. Yeah. So that was the one I wanted to lift up. Given the feedback that we got from, Mr.. About it, that one seemed like a good one to wait on because there are still pending amendments. Yeah, that's all I have. And the rest of them we have listed here. I still am interested in supporting those, but I'm open to additions or retractions, by the way. Okay. Director

142Reed, can I call on you? You had mentioned one other one. There was one that was. Oh, shoot. And and I'm noticing it's not in here. It's. Oh. Thank you. SB 25 191. The, cardio emergency plans. Making sure that at sports events that they have, defibrillator machines there. I do know that they're it's not common, but it does happen that kids just drop from cardiac arrest and, I mean, if we can, if we can protect them. I would like to see us endorse that. I had my only question on that was it was unclear to me from the language. So it wouldn't help me here because I might have this wrong, but it was something to the effect of anywhere that public or non public plays or has a practice. And so my question was

143how many do we have now? How many, how many more. How does the training work on that. I certainly support the intent of it because you're you're 100% right. We've seen professional athletes fall from cardiac arrest. And we celebrated, I believe, a staff member who saved the life of a child, because they knew CPR. So I absolutely see that as value. But I would love to understand what that means from us financially, from a training standpoint, if it would restrict us from having activities if we didn't have one, like what parameters that puts on us and that one's newer, it is pretty new. That's why it was listed in green, I think, on our report. And my thoughts when I saw it were just that. I know that a lot of our sports are going

144to be in indoor facilities where there likely already is, infrastructure for supporting that. My concern is about remote, outdoor fields where they might not have the infrastructure. Power, or, you know, a structure to locate it so that it's safe from weather and exposure. And so I wonder either what what that means is this is an unfunded mandate where we're having to put infrastructure, at a remote practice fields. Not so much about playing fields, I think. Playing fields, probably, yes, but it's practice fields that are remote. And then the other potential outcome from this bill could be that this, that we stop using remote exterior, you know, remote outside fields, outdoor fields, which would change practice potentially adjust practice times for practice schedules, for sports teams that are outdoor sports. That's my wondering. And my, my

145other wondering around this or question is sports is pretty broad. And so golf, swimming, tennis some of our adaptive sports I mean, is it L-3 junior varsity varsity? Is it everything? And and again, not against that. I would just really like to understand the full ramifications for us as a district. So tennis KC, would there be a way to I'm happy to get some. Can you guys, this is not on the list that you were talking about tonight or or that Ed has provided some context for tonight. Is that correct? What's the number again? Do you know the number or the bill? 191 yeah, yeah. Senate bill 191 and I'm happy to provide some context that would be helpful. Is that an order number one nine. I don't think that's right. No. Senate bill. You're

146just thinking because once upon a time it's a 25. Oh right. Okay. So 25 191 I'm happy to find out some more information from our district athletic director, Patrick Simpson. I believe we probably have some protocols in place for sidelines of actual games. I don't know that for sure. I will get more information on that and provide the board an update and then add you can once you know what we do, maybe you can compare that against the statute so that we can let the board know, like are we in alignment with this, with this require us to do more than what we're already doing. What would be the fiscal note on that? If we have one so we can do some we can. We'll get you guys some context on that one. I can

147also provide some context if you'd like. Thank you, Mr. Palermo. Sure. You're welcome. So, our athletic trainers have portable AED devices, and, all of our high schools have 2 to 5 devices on their medical emergency wall. We have not done an audit in a while, but, because of this bill, we've talked about doing an audit. Our intention is to ensure that these emergency devices are within three minutes reach of an incident at any given time, whether it's a sporting event or, something going on in our facilities. So, but we can get more information on that for sure. So in that case, it makes sense to not necessarily put that on our list, but to put that on a thing to check out. Like Jerry is another one. Sorry. I have a couple of questions. On

148the education accountability system, I'll be quite honest. I read through it and I'm not entirely sure I understand what it says. So I would love just kind of a. A summary and help me understand what it would mean in practicality for us. That would be really helpful for me. So we ask that me or yes, Mr. Bowdich, do you want to start and then I don't know. Sure. Thank you for that question. And good evening, everybody. You are not alone in trying to understand the bill. House Bill 1278, that is attempting to implement the recommendations of the Accountability Task Force. So I just got home from the Capitol about 45 minutes ago, and there was about a four hour meeting on this bill. They did not take any action today. They're going to come back

149with amendments. But a number of recommendations from the task force, are contained in the bill. But still, there was a lot of testimony, today that said, look, the task force has recognized that a lot of students are not being well served, students with disabilities, students with different language and students with different learning styles or low income students. But they didn't feel that today that today's bill really did enough to try and address those shortcomings. If you will. Now, I know a number of things that are, in the bill. Providing content areas and test, content area tests in languages other than Spanish and English. Adopting new performance indicators. So there would be additional performance indicators that schools could get for students who are involved in career and technical education. Researching, asking CTE to research early identification

150and intervention systems for public schools, doing more evaluations, by CTE. So there's a whole bunch of things, that are in this bill. The bill right now has a $6 million fiscal note, which is just out of the question. So there will be a lot of amendments. And I think a lot of frustrations, because there are a lot of people who agree that the accountability system needs to be improved, if not just updated, but if not updated and improved as well. But the funding may really restrict what can be done this year. That's very helpful. I guess. In that case, do we need to see amendments before we consider a formal support, or do we feel, I mean, I guess I agree that I think the accountability system should be updated. I'm just still very unclear

151on what updating this is doing well, and I'm not liking something that was $6 million when we are already facing a huge shortfall. That's fair and I'd be happy to table about it, remove it from our list. I have one, and I'm sorry, I just learned about this bill this week. It's HB 25 1059. It's not on our list. Food waste reduction in public schools. One of my close by reps is sponsoring it, and I heard her speaking about it. But I don't know a lot about it or any positions on it or anything like that. I didn't know if you had more information. That, yeah. 1059 that bill has passed the House and it has been introduced in the Senate. I think it doesn't have a lot of mandates, which is the first thing

152that I always look for. It's more, advising on schools. On just like advising schools on, on, efforts to decrease food waste. Doesn't have a lot of support. Well, there's, there's a lot of districts that are just monitoring this one food waste reduction in public schools. And it came from the Colorado Youth Advisory Council. And it encourages school districts to adopt policies to reduce food waste and seek grants and technical assistance. In doing so. So are you saying, it's not mandated? It's a suggestion. You are exactly right. It is. It's not mandated. It is a recommendation I see. Thank you. And, I know we've had a lot of public comment on food waste in schools. And it's something that, even before I was up here on the board, I noticed all of the time in our

153schools and I, I really appreciate this coming to the, this level of attention. I think it's something in schools we said we should be paying a lot of attention to. So I don't know if we need to take action on it, but I just noticed it wasn't on our list and I there is a, kind of a comment always made about it that it doesn't cost anything, but I think managing school waste in schools will cost something. Those programs, it's it's not a free thing to do. So I do think we'd have to acknowledge that, but I think it's really important to address food waste in, in our schools. I hadn't heard about this one before either, but I am intrigued by it. I definitely think we need to do something about it, and I

154always like to support the ones that come from the youth advisory. And especially since I think that's one of the things they're cutting for next year they're talking about. So they are going to keep it. They just start changing microphone. They are going to keep that program, but they're making it so that they can't submit legislation anymore. I just read that this morning. So I would be interested in supporting it, even knowing that it could cost us to do this. But anyway, so that's kind of like I'm putting it into, a yes kind of vote on it column. Yeah. Okay. I like, I will just say, I think that, Evergreen Middle School has an outstanding program around sustainability, food waste, and it's student led. And so I think we have work happening already in Jefferson

155County that supports this. And with align with us. So it would be one that I think we could support easily. Do one more thing. We heard tonight, and I agree that it would be good for us on the board to consider, not for tonight, but preparing something that does show our advocacy for school funding, our finance and I, I see other districts putting out resolutions. I've read through many this week. And I think I think those are important statements. I also think, a letter from the board that was just very simple and clear. My, my take on this is I don't want to compromise on school funding, in any way. And I want to join the other advocates who are pushing that forward. So I would encourage us as a board to work on that.

156Between now and whenever the next time is, we can, work on that. Yeah. I like that idea too. And, another thing, as I had mentioned, having two people who are going to sort of keep monitoring the bills as they progress. We also talked, briefly, not officially, but having, a subcommittee of sorts for policies. And I think we could include resolutions or letters, whatever it is that we want to, you know, publish. And so I know we had some people who had mentioned, interest in policy, doctor, doctor Ken Mosby, we're all a doctor at some point. And was it who else? It's when you were gone and we we nominated you. Oh. I'm kidding, I don't remember. There was something when we nominated you for when you weren't there, but, I, I, I don't care. I'd

157be happy to support also. Okay, so if we could sort of task the two of you, then if you would, put together something that we could make it official and send it to the legislature so that, it's visible. I know we put it in our, agenda or our priorities. Legislative priorities. It was in there. But that's in the middle of a lot of other things that we say it was not just that and the, just for clarity, this letter would be specifically about, advocating for maintaining public school funding and not cutting dollars. That accurate? I think it's yeah, it stance for maintaining it as much as we can. Well I would say yeah. First I would say a letter, not a resolution. Because this isn't our action to take. This is the state needs to

158do it. And I would like to see us. I mean, ultimately, we can't make anybody do anything. So it's not like if we say we're not going to compromise that, you know, it's going to devastate some other school district because we did this thing. But I just think that the state needs to hear that we are done. We are done being the people who balanced the state's budget. We're done. And so, no, we're not compromising on anything. And then they're going to do what they do. And just for clarity sake, I like the letter idea. I really want to put your road example in, but I'm going to hold myself back so it makes it may arise in there because I think it's an excellent example. But we also did talk about once the actual

159budget package comes out, we would still maybe take a position on that too, right? Or we would at least bring it back to consider addressing what's actually in there. Okay. Yeah. And the, the long bill, it's what we would be responding to and that should be coming out this week in the next ten days or so. Hey, ad, can you just share the latest, with the board, given that you were just down there today and I think they have been talking about it, given that we're now talking about, School Finance Act. Yeah. The the long bill needs to be finalized right now by and introduced in the Senate on Monday, March 24th. It now over the years about two times out of ten the long bill gets delayed a week. And I wouldn't be surprised

160if this ends up being one of those years given the magnitude of what they need to do. But in order to close the long bill, they've got to figure out how much general fund for K-12 education. So even if we don't have the School Finance Act finalized by then, we'll have a very strong idea of where we stand. But I would guess the next ten days, two weeks, things will really start shaping up in terms of what we know. And so would you recommend that the board consider writing a letter and then another letter or just wait ten days? I think, Michelle, is that kind of what you're asking? I'm just trying to find the right procedure to have the most impact. I think waiting ten days would be good. I would suggest we start.

161I mean, we we look at you have direction from the board in their legislative platform to advocate, to maintain the averaging and to advocate for funding. And you've been doing that for us. I mean, they've been that they've been talking with staff Brenna, mostly alongside Ed and with some of my input around what are some ideas, you know, because it's always better to come with some solutions. And technical work. I think staff can sort of support conversation with the technicians who are supporting our legislators. And so that works happening. But I think a really strong message from Ed to our legislators, based on your legislative platform right now and then maybe a letter once we know more about the details, because then you can argue for or against the details. Ed, do you think that's

162appropriate or would you recommend something different or the board. No, I think that's it. That's a great plan. Can I, I would like to write a letter sooner than that. And then I think it would be fine to respond to the proposal after, I think we're behind on this as a board. But also I wanted to ask what is the, procedure for writing a letter? Do we have to vote on a letter? That was going to be my question is I I'm super supportive of that earlier. But if I don't know where we go from step one to step four, I would propose much of it if you and I worked together to draft an initial version that then we can give it to, our executive administrative assistant, who can then hand it to the

163superintendent and the other board members for a review before we decide. I don't think that's something that we would need to have to formally vote on. I think it would be a thing that we can think of because, you know, the there has to be a public, formal thing. So to me, the public formal thing is, are we all on board with saying that we want to keep the averaging and we don't want them cutting the budget? And as long as the letter says that in some way, we're okay with it, does that make sense? Let me just weigh in briefly. I think the best approach is to give general direction to staff. And Mr. Bowdich about the position that you want to take and when you want it taken by, and then to defer

164the word smithing to that team. The struggle with trying to draft as a board, you wind up with a communication cycle that sort of becomes a deliberation on the document. And fundamentally, it may be that Mr. Barrett suggests some particular strategic approach. I mean, there's a point at which that that's why you have him. Right. And so I would say, and again, we're in that sort of that's kind of quintessential policy governance. Right. This is what we want advocated for and go forth and do. Okay. So, Mr. Bowdich, you have heard what we're asking you to do, go forth and do and then, yeah. Are we asking for that to happen now or after the bill comes out? I, I'm saying right now and saying now to. Yeah. And and he knows who to talk

165to. Who's you know really in the in the weeds with long bill and we don't really know who that is right now. I wonder, do you have the legislative platform handy? I'm trying to look for it. I can't find it because I do know there's very strong language in there. And if we could just read it out loud and get the board's approval that that's the message you want sent. Because I do believe the message is in that platform. I want it to be a letter. I know that's what I would like. That's really clear. I don't want to just re hand them the same agenda that we already handed them to. Me, that's not as effective. I think our the legal advice that was just given to the board is deliberation on a written

166communication outside of a public forum is not advisable. From Julie is am I summarizing your advice correctly? Absolutely. Though you can certainly direct folks to reduce that to a letter. I mean, it. I will say also, if we're not going to draft, a letter as a board that each of us individually have the ability to communicate with our legislators about our individual, perspectives on what they're what they're facing. Yeah. Why wouldn't we do a letter as a board if it's the same language? We put it into a letter. I don't understand, I don't disagree with the letter. I think what I am hearing is that the letter. So the way I'm thinking about it is multiple parts, which I don't actually think is bad because what I'm hearing is that in order to do the

167letter, we have to have some sort of we have to have a public forum that we confer on the letter R, and I could take a staff stab at it. We could send it to trace to Superintendent Borland, to Jennifer. It could be circulated, but we would have to discuss it in public. And our next meeting isn't for a couple of weeks. I'm just looking for that language. I want us to clear the language so you know, if it's what you want us to say, but I. But I think so. I'm trying to figure out how we act quickly because I do feel like we're behind. And also do a letter because I do feel strongly. Yep. One recommendation, I mean, one option is, is to go ahead and, you know, designate two people to

168work with, you know, Mr. Bowdich. And it may wind up he needs feedback from his Copeland, for example, on fiscal impacts or whatever it may be, and get it done. You know, one thing that the state Board of Education did in these circumstances is they would designate two board members to write an order, and that might be even on a teacher license revocation or whatever it would be, or a charter school application. And there's a point at which you have to say this. We're we're denying it basically on these grounds in that context, right. Is two members are going to write an order on behalf of the board, and the president is going to sign it. So it you just got to be willing to trust, figure out what that makes is going to be

169entrusted. And so the and in the, in the 2025 legislative platform, they have state financial priorities. You know, in, in, in bold increased state per pupil funding to get to the national average, prevent reinstatement of the budget stabilization factor, keep the four year averaging in place. And then there's a paragraph on that about how it's critically important that the four year averaging position, is built into the new school finance formula remain in place and then avoid creating new grant programs, adopt the School Finance Act no later than 21 days prior to the end of the session. And then they and then there's some things in there about accountability system and other things as well. So I think that maybe I'm comfortable based on that, using a lot of that language. I love the fire that

170director Reed is giving us and inspiring me to say we're not taking cuts. If if acceptable, I would be happy to work with Director Kenworthy at the. I'm going to say this wrong, Mr. Lawson. So help me out here at the direction of the board. We could provide our comments to Tracy, to Ed. On behalf of the board, I don't I think what we're saying is we don't need your comments. We have your legislative platform and what is already posted on the board's site on our website. That director Reed just reminded me about. Thank you, director Reed. We can take those same words and draft a letter for the board and have Ed deliver it as soon as next week. If that's the board's interest. With them, would we have the president and the secretary

171sign it? Send it? Because I think one of the things is to have it come from the board and have it be signed. Sure. And I mean, if that's what the board decides they want to do and they give us that direction, can. Aaron I'm sorry, may Director Kenworthy and I work with I like that direction. If Ed can take a letter based on it, can we take a peek at it? If we want to add anything and do that revision? Of course. And then. Yes, director. I'm sorry. President Parker and I would be happy to sign it. Okay. Do we have a time frame on that that we'd like to aim for? How fast can you turn it around? It? You have to start. Are we starting or is that starting? I guess that's

172the question. Oh, he's starting it. Okay. I thought the district was. Yeah. I think if the district starts it, I'm happy to review it as soon as I get it. And then as soon as I get it back and final form, I can get it out to the delegation and to the key players at the capital. So when we say the district is going to start, it, does it mean like it seems to me like maybe the easiest thing to do since we have the language and it's like right there is that something comes can just put together for I will I will make sure that our team takes the language from the legislative platform and that you can see it on the board's website. It says board legislative agenda. We'll use that language related

173to school funding, and we will cut and paste with some introduction paragraph. I'm going to go like all the way back to my, you know, second grade teaching days, do a five paragraph essay or the board. Well, we'll let Ed look at it as well. We'll, we'll make sure Aaron and Michelle review it. And then once they provide feedback and we make revisions based on that feedback, we will have Mary and Michelle sign it, and we will have Ed send it. And we can do this say by the end of next week I think definitely okay. Okay. So. Good. Comms will send it to, director, Applegate and Kenworthy, and then we'll go from there. Great. Okay. And then we have the rest of the list here. I think, you know, for my little scratching, we

174did eliminate a couple. We did say we're going to vote on the food waste reduction. Director Kenworthy, do you want to just give a brief kind of your thoughts on the ones that are listed there, and why you think we should consider voting on them? Okay. Protect students from restraint and seclusion. There's another bill. It's also been proposed about specifically about seclusion in response to and, a situation that happened in DPS almost two years ago, I think, and I think that this, this bill takes, a broader approach to the discussion around seclusion and restraint, than the bill that's just specifically about seclusion. That's why I'm in support of it. Because I do want to protect our students from from undue restraint and seclusion practices when necessary. And I think there are some exceptions in that

175bill, for the safety of the student, the student in question. But, I am I am supportive of that getting clarity around how our students are treated. When there's behavior difficulty in schools, the next one, trauma informed school safety practices, I think that one doesn't require a whole lot of talking about it. I think being mindful of trauma experiences of our students, and we're working with them to keep them safe is important, comprehensive black history and culture education in K-12. That's what I'm supportive of. We've had, in the month of February, teachers who are teaching about, Black History Month and questions from families and community members about whether or not that was included in standards. This bill will actually, embed those lessons into state level standards so that then our teachers are teaching to standards rather

176than doing lessons or teaching about things that might not be explicitly stated in standards, at the state level. So that's why I'm supportive of that one. I'm happy to take the ag education accountability system off. We said that was when we were not going to consider this evening library resource decision standards for public schools. I think this is the second time that this has been presented, and this is meant to, instruct districts to have specific procedures and policy about reviewing items if they're being removed from library shelves, which I think is always good practice to have a procedure in place. The next one is education curriculum on genocide against Native Americans, and it means including, indigenous experiences of genocide within the definition of genocide, as it's taught in social studies curriculum, which usually includes the

177Holocaust and other practices and history. And it's just adding in that Native Americans here, our indigenous culture also experienced that as part of that discussion about genocide. We said we were going to table the prohibition on school facial recognition. And then the last one is Colorado K5 Social Emotional Health pilot program. This is just, again, providing language for the state Department of Education to help them have clarity about how they're going to allocate resources for, social and emotional health programs. So it's just a small language addition. There's no fiscal note. And it's, it's a language change. No. Thank you. And Mr. Bowdich, is there any, additional information you have on these bills? I appreciate you putting them together with the people who support and oppose, but is there anything else that you think we should

178know about? Any of them? No, I think that was a good brief summary. And I have no concerns with the district. If the district does want to support the bills that have been listed, are we also adding the HB 25 1059 on food waste at this time, or did we want to wait? Yes. Making notes for my motion. Okay, so I think this does come to the point where we can, take a vote on the bills that have been, put forward. We've got some language here, so if I can figure it out, my point of order really quick. President Parker can. Are we comfortable instead of doing one at a time, doing a batch? Let's ask Mr. Miss Tolleson. Okay. All right. And I point of clarification. Are you removing House Bill? 1278? Yes, I

179got moved. It, tabling it. So do you need the new language or are you feeling okay about the okay. Thanks. I just want to make sure I understood that. Also removing 143 and one 143. Okay. Sorry. Thank you. All right, well, then I think, there's, Applegate can make her motion. We're going to try this. I move to formally endorse the following pieces of legislation. House Bill 25 1248. House Bill 25 1149. Senate Bill 25 063. Senate Bill 25 123. Senate Bill 20 5-178. Senate Bill 25, Dash 027 and House Bill 20 5-1059 and authorize Ed Bowdich Bowdich and Castle Public Affairs to act on behalf of the board. Is there a second? Second. Any further comment? Okay. This vada. Can you call the roll, please? Applegate. Yes, miss. Kenworthy? Yes, miss. Parker. Yes, miss. Reid?

180Yes, doctor. Vada. Yes. Okay, so that ends the, legislative discussion for tonight. Thank you very much. And moving right along. That does bring us into our consent agenda. Items 9.01 through 9.21 are presented in board docs is a proposed consent agenda. And just as a reminder, we did have a wee preview of them last week at our study session. Do I have a motion regarding the approval of the consent agenda? I move to approve items 9.01 through 9.21 on the consent agenda, as published in board docs. Is there a second second? Any comments? It has been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda. Roll call please. Miss Avada. Miss Applegate? Yes. Kenworthy. Yes. Miss. Parker? Yes, yes, yes. Okay. And that, brings us now to our public comment part two. So anyone who, did

181not get a chance to comment at part one, we invite you now to come on up. And, we left off with number six, I believe. So if we have a number seven in the audience, please come on up. Good evening, and thank you for sticking around. Yeah. Please introduce yourself. And you have ten minutes. All right. My name is Leslie Kelly with Dracut, and I am a teacher of children with visual impairments and a certified orientation mobility specialist for Jeffco Public Schools. And can you get closer to the mic, please? I'm not sure we can hear you. I know well, read my glasses. Oh, let's move it. Okay. I am asking for your help in developing guidelines for case loads. We have been unable to meet consultant direct service minutes for students per their IEPs.

182At Jeffco, we have on average 30 students per teacher and 1500 IEP minutes per week. Denver Public Schools has on average 17 students per teacher, with a maximum of 936 minutes per week. When asking for medical caseload minutes, the response we have received from leadership is that we would have to bargain through JCA or go on strike. Three years ago, at the start of the school year, we had 23 students who did not receive IEP services. This went unacknowledged by the district and parents. These students have severe and profound disabilities, meaning they are nonverbal, non ambulatory and have significant visual impairments. They were unable to express to anyone that their vision teacher never arrived. Additionally, there was no communication to parents or schools informing them that these IEP services were not being provided, let alone

183any compensatory services for families. These students remained without support until we were able to hire additional teachers. However, at the start of this school year, a decision was made not to rehire staff and we were told not to work too hard. We need clear guidelines in our contracts to support our supervisors, to make informed decisions about caseload sizes. In order to meet IEP minutes for students. Our current workloads do not follow the recommended CDE guidelines for determining caseloads. We are proposing caseload limits on the number of students and number of minutes per week, encompassing both consultation and direct service minutes and drive time. Without these necessary guidelines, we remain understaffed and unable to meet the required service minutes for our students. I hope the Board of Education will consider these concerns and implement necessary changes

184to ensure that vision teachers can effectively serve students. I believe addressing these challenges will increase the sense of belonging of our students and families in the community. Hi, my name is Karina. I'm a farmer and teacher, and I'm and current and I'm an elementary learning Spanish and learning to elementary. My current daily workload is 38 students, my caseload at 18 students. During my current do my current contracted planning time I plan for, I set my time in progress, monitoring students, collaborating with teachers, other learning specialists and other providers, and completing assessments to interviews and observations and days we have IEP meetings often do not have planning our lunch delay time as capacity constraints and setting constraints. But I pass it on. I say let's go to work an extra 45 minutes a night and brought

185home a minimum of two hours of work at night, including weekends. This work consists of Ida paperwork, progress notes, and planning for instruction. That external workload outside my contact day as forced me to sacrifice meal times, but routines game nights. Try here. Band concerts and this practice. My family or physical health has been impacted as our workout routine is interrupted I suppose increased to the demands of the job. Next year we allocate 3.5 learning specialist. That's five hours. We currently have a doctor learning specialist will not only increase my daily workload, then researchers like groups I see at my current caseload IEP for every piece I manage, which means more, which means more time outside my day, working on paperwork and planning. Hi, I'm Dave Armor, I'm a learning specialist at Ken Carroll Middle School.

186I've talked to you guys before. I am, here to read a letter from one of my coworkers. Linda Wilkins from McLean. She's a learning specialist, and she says, sorry, I've been learning. I have been a special education teacher for 14 years, with the last eight at McLean Community High School. I have seen significant rise in the numbers of students with IEPs at McLean. In the last four years, our enrollment has fluctuated between 30% and 40%, special education reaching as high as 48% in our ninth and 10th grade programs. I'm doing everything that I can to meet the complex needs of 26 students on my caseload, but I leave each day feeling like a failure. It's not just the numbers, it's the growing severity of their needs, particularly the social emotional needs. Our mental health provider

187has 60 students on her caseload, many with serious emotional disabilities, which is unattainable by the level, support that they require. These challenges have escalated to a point where they are creating unsafe situations for these students. And our school, we continually told it's bad everywhere, as that absolves, the action. We're told that the academy, the district's facility school dedicated to serving the students with intensive social emotional needs, is a fully is full capacity and that you can imagine my shock when I heard that Sobieski staff is being cut next year due to low enrollment. I know that the district faces, difficult budgeting decisions and that the special education may seem to affect a limited number of students. However, when our classrooms are increasingly filled with students who need more support than we can give. It really

188does affect everyone. Special education is not just a box to a box on a check mark. The more positions that are cut or remain vacant, the greater the burden is on those who remain. And we are reaching a breaking point. Simply, compare the numbers and links of vacancies in special education in Jeffco and other districts. It's time to prioritize our students and staff, and ensure that the resources needed for success are in place. And, I would also just like to say I had, brought something to bargaining. When we first started bargaining about, the differences between plans, time and, special education work. And, I just want to say my week this week I have three IEPs and two of them are reevaluate. And I have, two grade levels, seventh and eighth grade, and I co-teach with,

189I co-teach in five different classrooms and all of my kids are doing, literature circles and they're all reading different books. And so that is my week. And I get the same plan time as what my co teachers get, and I can't do it all. And so that is why we have asked for more time. It's not because we just want more plan time. We have two separate things that we're doing. And so I really wish that, they would come back and bargain with us for that. Thank you. Hi, I'm April Bell. I'm a learning specialist at Dakota Ridge High School. I've been working in schools in various capacities since the year 2000. I worked in Denver at Jeffco Charter and Cottage High School. I've been at Dakota Ridge as a special educator for seven years.

190In that time, we've had to hire at least eight special ed teachers. It's it is difficult to keep our department staffed, even though it's a great school with amazing staff and students. Each time we need to hire a new person, we do not get very many applicants. There's no reason people shouldn't want to work at Driggs. The only plausible reason we can find is that the surrounding district districts pay so much more than us. If I were to work in Denver, I would earn at least $10,000 more a year and have my caseload capped at 15 to 22, depending on the school. According to the interviews that I did last year as part of my grad school program. On top of that, I'd get a hefty stipend of $5,500 per year for being the department

191lead. I currently get an extra plan and a few hundred dollars a year for a stipend for being the department lead. Another part of the problem is the workload. We're given. One planning block, like the rest of the teachers, were expected to teach five classes and have one duty. We also teach seminar, which is kind of like a homeroom or an advisement type class. I've been working with the administration to give learning specialists more time to get the job done. In general, my caseload has been 30 or more. Last year we were understaffed, so I had a caseload of 45. The only way to serve my students well is to work outside of my hours. I come into work about an hour before my report time each day. That's five extra hours a week. By

192itself. I also stay two times a week, for an additional 70 minutes to supervise a club, during which time I work on paperwork or lesson plans. The rest of the days, I stay for at least 30 minutes past my release time. When these. Even with these extra hours, I still work on the weekends for at least five hours a week. Sometimes more, depending on how much work I have to do. I currently co-teach three classes and teach two different preps. I'm also our department lead. I believe the reason we cannot keep special educators is because there's too much work, with little to no compensation for the time we have to put into the job. If we have smaller caseloads and it's written into our contract that we have more planning time, I believe it'd be

193easier to keep teachers. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Do you have number eight? Going once. Number eight. How about number nine? Welcome. Please give us your name. And you have three minutes. I'm Matt Teagarden, from Arvada, Colorado. Wait till the clock starts. While I'm waiting, don't let my, fatigue betray my passion for this issue. I urge the board and the superintendent to keep our community informed about those plans for responding to the decimation of the United States Department education. Seven days ago, President Trump claimed that further budget cuts would be made with a scalpel rather than a hatchet. Two days ago, his administration cut 50% of the Department of Education staff, gutting its ability to enforce laws that protect students rights and ensure students serve all learners equitably. Since bureaucratic trimming, it's a

194deliberate attack on public education as a pathway to opportunity for all people, all learners. A scalpel in the hands of a master surgeon removes what's toxic. It saves a body that doesn't play as well as well to the bases. Richest man swing and a cartoon is chainsaw. After 24 years as a social worker in Jeffco, I fully understand the need to cut red tape. But let's be clear slashing enforcement of civil rights protection and education laws doesn't eliminate bureaucracy. It shifts the burden onto local school districts, leaving our most vulnerable students at risk. Further, education funds about 14% of K-12 education, all of which is covered by law. But its real value lies in enforcing Ida section 504, title six and title nine laws that ensure equity for feet for students with disabilities. Students of

195color, and other marginalized groups with federal oversight collapsing who will uphold these protections in Jeffco and across our nation, federal programs help level the playing field between schools with vastly different resources. Now more than ever, we need a clear collaborative strategy to protect equity and funding curriculum, post-secondary opportunity. Public education should be scrutinized, but educators, families and communities must work together to ensure that every student enters adulthood with the skills necessary to succeed in a political climate where too many rely on, divide, demonize and dominate to force their agendas, Jeffco must commit to an inclusive, transparent process that appeals every child's right to a high quality, fully inclusive education rooted in dignity and respect. No young person's opportunity to learn and grow should be limited by their disability, color, gender, or zip code. Thank you.

196Do we have number ten? Number ten? I let number 11. Welcome. Give us your name and you have three minutes. Thank you. Elizabeth Armstrong, Arvada, Colorado. Mom, thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight. Jefferson County School District has a trust problem and has earned it. I'd like to say the worst problem is test scores. It's alarming that our goal is 55% of students meeting our exceeding standards. That by itself should be a three alarm fire, but the fact that it doesn't even lead to mind has nothing that keeps me and other parents up at night is telling. I'd like to say the worst problem is that school choice is being managed to make it nearly impossible to send children to high performing schools unless parents can afford to move into the articulation area.

197Because the district has defined what constitutes a school at capacity, sometimes above the objections of the principal, in favor of keeping enrollment up at neighborhood schools. I'd like to say that the worst problem is our chronic absenteeism, whereby parents who don't get their kids to class are blamed for poor test scores, despite the fact that every year the district adds more non-student contact days with simultaneous, evidence free reassurance that it will benefit their education. But it's not those things we can't even, as a community, get to the reasons why academics are faring so badly, because we can't get past what seems like continuous scandals about student safety recently. Doctor Farr does add that the surveys of the community indicate a lack of trust in the district, I think, that pertain to stewardship of district money.

198But I'm here to tell you that it's much more widespread than that, and that the district has contributed to and perpetuated that mistrust with their lack of transparency, ownership of mistakes, and commitment to correction. There have been repeated issues of staff with nude, sexual or celebratory of violence content on public facing media access by students. District staff doesn't routinely check media presence as part of hiring practices, despite the fact that I don't know a single organization with public facing employees, let alone people who routinely deal with children who don't. There's been a lawsuit filed by parents to stop the practice of adult interns or high school students bunking with opposite sex, 11 year old said. Overnight educational experiences like outdoor lap without the opportunity for a parent to opt out of the situation in hypothetical,

199without any private information distributed, there have been at least six serious charges or police investigations of sexual abuse of children or students by staff in the last roughly 18 months. But my student watched by five classroom signs a day on which a teacher herself proclaims that they are a trusted adult and offers to maintain confidentiality. I don't know about you, but I tell my kids to steer clear of people who assert authority and trustworthiness that they haven't earned and keep secrets. This is a common sense. Speaking of unearned trust, one of the Jeffco employees charged with abusing students had a criminal history and unrelated open arrest warrants at the time that he was put on leave. Jeff Coe's public response was that the misdemeanor offenses reflected on the background check were not of a kind

200that would prevent his hire. Okay, but shouldn't we have wondered if they should have been? And why didn't we know he had an open warrant? News reports of recently surfaced about a student whose parents approached the district about a suspected inappropriate relationship between their female child and a teacher at the school, despite knowledge of thousands of texts and hours of phone calls between the two, a complete investigation was not conducted for months. The teacher was never placed on leave and accrued taxpayer funded benefits, and was allowed to resign months later and then lose her teaching license until the CD you pulled it for evidence of grooming years later. To add insult to injury, members of district staff completed paperwork, unbeknownst to her parents, that the student was homeless and then chalked it up to little

201more than a procedural error. Parents found all this out through social through media reports, like we found out that the chief of schools employment had been terminated pending criminal investigation throughout the district's position seems to have been deliberate opacity, with the community hoping it blows over with the next news cycle not taking corrective action unless forced by large public outcry. Perhaps that works in private business or, I don't know, traffic management. But these are children. We're talking about our children, and we parents have charged them, charged you with their care and well-being. We entrust them to you for roughly 30 hours a week. We entrust them to you, and we don't trust you right now because you aren't being straightforward with us. And the solutions you proposed reflect that visitor management systems are going to

202address the problem, because moms doing Friday folders aren't the problem. Safety summits, where you tell parents how to help their kids identify predators, aren't going to help if you let predators self-identify that they can be trusted. Background checks for board members are window dressing. When we don't know that educators have open warrants and criminal histories that turn out to be relevant, be straight with us. Be upfront about issues and mistakes so that we don't have to wonder or find out for somebody else. Be serious about solutions because this isn't going to blow over. As an author, I greatly admire said last night about the tenacity of parents protecting their children. Parents are always going to be the ones to stand up, because we're the only ones who can't be bought up. Thank you. Do we

203have number 12? 13. Anybody left still wants to testify? Their comment? Any other numbers? Do. Okay. That does bring us to the end of public comment and we will go in now to the leadership reports. And we'll start with Superintendent Dalton. Thank you, President Parker, as always, several of my highlights this evening, are going to be from my school visits. I know all of you enjoy yours as well. I spent the morning at Governor's Ranch last week, doing an instructional excellence superintendent visit and following my classroom visits, I had a wonderful conversation with four Governor's Ranch students as part of the visit. Towards the end, when I asked what was the same across all the classrooms and teachers at Governor's Ranch, they told me how amazing the teachers were. To quote one of the second

204grade students, he said, teachers are helpful and thoughtful and meet all the students needs. And it's just really wonderful to hear those kinds of comments from our students. I also want to shout out, Tammy friend here, Shannon Arnold and Laura Spindler, who are part of the school's leadership team, working collaboratively with the principal to make decisions about how to operate the school and, focus on improved academics for students. And they took time out of their day to talk with me about their experience as educators in Jeffco. I heard, both positive and constructive feedback, and I appreciate the time that those educators took with me. These visits, as you know, are important. They help me understand the impact the district decisions have on students, families, educators, and school leaders who were here to serve. I also

205was able to visit Hutchinson Elementary, for Read Across America Day. I loved reading it. If you ever want to bring an alligator to school, don't was the name of the book, and I read it to kindergartners and first graders. And last month, I observed the Colorado Court of Appeals oral arguments event at Green Mountain High School. It was wonderful to be there. Jeffco is proud to participate in this program, and it's part of the Colorado Judicial Branches Courts in the community program, which is really cool. For our students to be able to see live court in action, I want to acknowledge the community work we're doing in the Jefferson articulation area right now. You heard some public comment about that this evening. I have attended two of the three meetings at Jefferson Junior Senior, and

206I appreciate the community's voice in this process so far. I know people sometimes don't feel heard, but I have sat and listened and I have a lot of notes. And in processing with our team, all of the feedback that we're hearing, there was also a meeting earlier this week with elementary parents from the area who are advocating for dual language programing, and we have two more meetings in this process coming up on March 31st and April 30th. I encourage community staff, families, and students to join us for those two meetings. Speaking of upcoming meetings, I would like to encourage our families to attend the April 9th Safe Schools Summit at Wheat Ridge High School. The event is from 430 to 8, and if you google Jeffco Safe Schools Summit, it comes right up in your

207search so you can find the details there. I am also proud of the work that is going on in Jeffco, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to lean in, to listen and learn about what's going on in the field of education more broadly across our nation. I attended an I superintendents event hosted by the women leading Ed last month. I went to the School Superintendent Association National Conference, where I presented alongside our partners, Flow Analytics, the group that conducted our boundary study. And I am looking forward to being a panelist at the upcoming ASU GSV Summit in April. ASU and GSV is a collaborative between global Silicon Valley and Arizona State University. The mission is that all people have equal access to the future, with a foundational belief that innovations at scale in pre-K

208to grea learning and skills are critical to achieving that end. So how are we taking technology and things like AI and making them equitable to all students as we move our work forward? I know we heard a lot in public comment tonight that isn't necessarily about all the things we should be proud of, and that people are sometimes frustrated with where things are. And I want the board to know that I listened to public comment as diligently as you did. I also took a lot of notes and will be following up on many of the things that we heard this evening with our staff. To get you some additional context, about some of the comments this evening. So thank you. Thank you. Directors, anyone like to go next? Go that way. Okay. Mine's fairly short.

209I did go to two of the Jefferson community meetings, and, and I definitely appreciate the people who have come. I appreciate the things that they've said. I do just want to say, I hope that. And I realize that it's hard to presume positive intentions when they've been asked before, you know, hey, you're in trouble. What can we do? And then it sort of dissolved. And I think there was a lot going on when those things happened. But that doesn't change the fact that it feels like we went through this process, and the district asked us this before, and, you know, and nothing happened. And so there's a certain cynicism, coming into it. And my hope is that we can help them understand that this is not the same board, not the same administration. And so

210I think sometimes assumptions get made, like, you know, why are you breaking us up into groups? You're you're trying to divide and conquer and as a classroom teacher, I can tell you that when I stopped leading whole class discussions and started letting kids have discussions in small groups, more kids got to say more things. And so if we had started off with, let's put everybody in the auditorium, have everybody speak at once. I mean, even as it was the last meeting that we had, there were people that didn't have time to get up there and speak. And so, it's not about dividing and conquering. It's about making sure that everybody gets a chance to be heard. And so, yes, that's going to be in smaller groups and with different facilitators. But there was sort of

211like they didn't expect there to be this many people. Actually, there was an expectation that there would be that many people. That's why we had enough facilitators to break into the groups that we broke to. So, so we are expecting a lot of people and I, one of the people at the last meeting said, keep showing up, keep showing up. And and his message was, they don't expect us to. Oh yeah, we do expect you to. And please keep showing up. Please, please keep showing up. We do need your voice. And I am looking forward to seeing, you know, well, we've had a chance to kind of see some of the things that Edgewater has proposed and, and to see sort of what happens as we work that out as a, as a district and

212with that community. And along those lines, I had the chance to go to the Edgewater City Council meeting and engage with the Edgewater, Edgewater City Council about their hopes and their dreams for the Jefferson area. And I appreciated their points of view as, municipal leaders on that. And I appreciated their invitation to be part of that meeting. I did have a chance in the whole read Across America fondness to go to Shelton Elementary School, which I've done every year that I've been on the board, and it's been really fun. I did learn this time around that you should read the book before yourself, before you read to the children, so that you can find out ahead of time whether or not the big cat doesn't make it, because you don't want to read to pre-K

213kids that the big cat didn't make it. I was really sad about that. Oh shoot. But the kids were amazing. They didn't get super emotional, but they were very matter of fact. My little girl raised her hands and that's because he died like, yes, that's what happened. And the kids were just like, yep, you know, they've been through that. And so they shared that experience with each other. And it was actually kind of a sweet moment in the end. I am kind of interested in hearing what what is going on with the aces, because I guess I was not aware that we were doing massive changes, and now it sounds like maybe we are, clarifying some things. We're not engaged. Massive changes at the moment. We are starting a conversation that we know will be

214a long conversation with many stakeholders about what we need to do to make it clearer, more systemic. How do students get in, what programs serve? What kind of student, what resources are we providing to make sure schools can do what we're asking them to do? And so, Doctor Kim spent a lot of time. I spent time with teachers earlier this week. Doctor Kim spent time today and then after public comment. And I don't know if you want to add anything more, Doctor Kim, yeah, I think I can help. Part of this is the leaders that came to us after they've gone through a number of iterations with CEI, really looking at what is best practice, what is our current practice, what recommendation to they make as they went through and, looked at what's working, what's

215not from their leaders said to us, give us a framework to start, and then we'll jump in and start working through with our staffs. Unfortunately, they took we went through that process. We've met three times. There's not like there's not been an ongoing 2 or 3 months. We've met three times to kind of figure out how are we going to approach this. And here's an example. The principal of both JBA and Europe got together. It came back and they actually proposed this is what we see going forward. And we said great. That's a great idea. Now go back and engage with your staff and talk with them and have them talk about it. Iterate, ask questions, do all that. And so they went back and started that conversation. Now there are a few places that

216are just the starting of the conversation recommending potential different age groups in different schools certainly cause folks to go, wait a minute, I don't want to move, I get it, we're going to have to work through that. But what we did tell them was there's we have no intention of changing anything between now and the fall of 2026, so that we have time to engage with staff and students and really look at capacity and look at what implications, if we make any changes, what will that be? And involve all the experts that need to be part of that conversation. But what folks heard was, you're going to make me teach different age group kids. And we said, no, we're, we're we're starting the conversation. So we had conversations with folks today. We had conversations with

217folks two days ago. They're starting to think through, what does that mean I'm going to do? But unfortunately, I think there were a few conversations that where this is what we're doing now, let's figure out what that can look like in our school versus we're going to talk about this for the next nine months. Okay. So thank you. I appreciate that. I was kind of like, wow, a site like okay. All right. Because as you know, that's something that's just ever so slightly near and dear to my heart. Okay. Yeah, that's that's that's pretty much it. So thanks. This month has also been kind of short for me, having some things going on at home, but, I wanted to lift up that we visited the DeAngelis center and be, grateful for the all the folks

218who were there to host us and to, talk with us about the the variety of things that happen in the particular building, and how they impact our students. It was an education, for sure, being, being there. And the conversations that we had, I thought were, illuminating for some other conversations that we'll have moving forward. I've attended one listening session, at Edgewater Elementary regarding the Jefferson Junior senior Plan. And it didn't engage, but just really tried to sit and listen and hear what was being said. And I just so appreciative, both for staff who were there, to have the conversation and also to the community members who were showing up, particularly those community members for whom English was not their primary language, and showing up and participating, and also wanted to lift up the principal from,

219Edgewater Elementary for specifically inviting those folks to make sure their voices were included in that conversation that night. I also want to lift up, that our community is facing, federal employees. Jefferson County is has a huge population of federal employees, many of whom are facing either fear about losing their job or they already have. And those are our families. Those are the parents of the kids that are in our buildings across the county. And I want to lift up because my own family is facing that similar uncertainty, just how stressful that is. When we talked about one of the bills or supporting being trauma informed school safety practices, when a parent loses a job that is a that can be a traumatic experience for a family. And I know that some of our families are

220facing that. And I just want to acknowledge that this is a hard time right now, particularly in Jefferson County. Colorado is the second largest employer of federal employees in the nation, behind Washington, DC and, so we really are feeling the impacts of some of our national leadership agenda here, right here at home. I also wanted to lift up my appreciation for adjustments to our agenda that allowed us 30 minutes to have, responsive conversation during our study session. For me, that felt incredibly helpful that we're able to lift up, concerns and issues that are coming to us in the moment rather than trying to figure out how they fit in on an agenda three months down the road. So that's been incredibly helpful for me, and I think I'm thankful for that procedural change. And the

221last thing I'll say is I went to the February deck meeting. There's great conversation and engagement there. I'm just hoping that we we continue to have that level of engagement. There was a lot of small group conversation where people were able to actually speak to each other and have some interaction and ask questions and then answer each other's questions. And I thought that was just, a really good use of their time. During a DAC meeting. So I'm looking forward to seeing more of that. Otherwise, I'm looking forward to visiting a couple of schools and getting ready for graduation season, because it will be upon us very soon. Anyway, thanks everyone. I wanted to just bring up the, Jefferson comments, especially from tonight, and previously, we have had a lot of people. It's really impressive, actually,

222kind of the comprehensiveness of like, I sat at a table with alumni, there's parents of the kids there. There's community members who just live next door to the school. It's kind of, amazing to see that happening. But I don't really understand what is we're doing right now because we had two more meetings. We've said that we're doing a co-design process with them, and they have come up with ideas. I don't understand how they're supposed to get from this idea to something on March 30th on their own that is properly co-designed. I think tonight it really got me thinking. The call for resources. I think she said resources and experts know she's a budget. An expert to help them co-design. So like the community themselves are not going to be able to figure out how to

223create a community school or a dual language program or something like that. But we have experts here, I think, of foster, and if we I've heard several times now, the history and story of how foster came about, it was not easy. And it's a lot of work and it may not have been as successful. I think it would be helpful if the community could hear our stories around how those things developed, because by the time we get to March 30th, how do we expect them to have a plan without having given them any support between now and then to develop that plan? And so I don't want to set them up for failure, like just come give us the plan. That plan is not feasible. We're not going to be able to do it. So

224no. So I just think we need to be authentically co-designing with them by giving facilitating a process right now, just saying we're going to accept community engagement, but community, you're on your own. Come along and let us know what you want. It's not very supportive. So I'm just hoping that that calls for experts and I don't think they mean I don't know what they mean. I think we have a budget for them to do this work. But to understand what are they planning for? So I'm just worried that we're not supporting the co-design process in a way that can be successful. And I also just want to continue to advocate that I think we should take close closure completely off the table because it completely distracts this co-design process. And so I'm just going to

225say that every time it's something I'm very, I feel really passionate about in this case, that if we want to authentically do this work, we should we should, give them the space and the time to do it. And lastly, I just I have to comment on the separating them. I think teaching and separating into groups is very different from community engagement. And to tell a community of Latino families we're going to separate your families is just a mess. So I would be careful in how we approach our communities, using mainstream traditional methods maybe that don't work in certain kinds of communities. And to tell them you're wrong, we know how to organize meetings because I've done this before, I've taught or whatever we understand. This is not believing them, that they know what they want.

226And so I just think if we're going to do this process, we have to listen to people and believe people when they say that these are the things they want or don't say, we're going to do it, just take it off the table then. So secondly, I just noticed themes tonight. These are things people said tonight. Wholesale change without stakeholder engagement. Resistance is not a challenge. It should be considered an opportunity. This was presented as a done deal unveiled as widespread changes. These were all different comments. And there's a theme that we're hearing. It made me think about when they were talking about the these the learning specialist with, I think it was a learning specialist forgetting the title when the district said, we're going to eliminate that role, we heard from it. We came

227back and said, wait, we'll go ahead and work with it. I just think there's some big lessons here for how we present things. It's it hasn't been working and we have lots of reasons why, you know, we're backtracking and we can or we can or someone said something wrong, but these are things. And I hear it tonight. I heard it across multiple use cases. And I don't think we should brush that off lightly. And lastly, I will just say out loud, I don't think it's appropriate for the superintendent to to respond in a public comment because we're not doing that for everyone. So it feels unfair or awkward to me when a public comment is happening and we address them and even call them out to have a discussion. But then the next group, all

228the aces, came. No one. We didn't do that for them. And I just think we should be consistent. We have always said we don't respond. I if I respond it, it would be very inappropriate if I said, let me respond to something that you're saying. And it's a practice that has now been happening a lot. And I, I don't think it's appropriate for us to be doing that. And so I would encourage us to be consistent across the way that we treat people at public comment. So those are the things on my mind tonight. I just want to I just need to add a couple of things. One, I do remember times that we've pulled people out because it was like they to get more information from them or to, to clarify things. So I

229know we we don't do it all the time, only then go ahead and watch all the board meetings recently, and I'm agreeing with you and I. I don't think we should be doing that. And the other thing I want to say is. I don't know that I, I haven't said anyone's wrong. I've. I've asked. Please assume positive intent that this is something that can work. And if it didn't work here and it was tone deaf or whatever, then that's one thing. But I have not said that anyone was wrong. I will just add to the superintendent. Dawson did tell me that, we knew there were a lot of people that had some, questions on X, and I forgot that the other one was, But anyway, personally, I feel like, so I knew she was going

230to do that so we can decide if that's appropriate or not. But I know for me, when we have expertise sitting at the, tables over there who can answer questions or can help, I think it's, it's a, a lost opportunity if we don't do it, if we want to have it be not public. It's just, a nod to somebody or somebody there knows that they have expertise, that they could help answer some questions, whether it's parents, teachers, who knows, and they want to do it. You know, not publicly. I still think it's a missed opportunity if we don't take the time to give some information. Thanks, Mary. I'll just say this is a practice that I have. Seen other superintendents who I've worked very closely with, use in other districts. And the distinction between, like

231who might be able to have a conversation and get some clarity versus a more broad based advocacy. Is is where sort of some of that line has been drawn. And the practice that I've seen in other districts, if the board is not interested in us doing that, then I will stop asking people to support a specific issue. Sometimes it will happen. I think in the past we've done it. When there's a specific parent with their individual student issue that comes and it just seems like they're really struggling. And if I've got somebody over here who can walk out into the hall, get the name, the phone number of the parent, a little more context about their concern so we can follow up in that state or to, to help them. That's another example of when

232it's helpful in my opinion. I'm also happy to just not jump in publicly and ask for that to happen. Sometimes I think it's helpful to be for the district to seem responsive to individual, specific situations. If that's not something that, you know, and I think, you know, I'm going to take direction from the majority of the board, but my team can pay attention to that and just make sure they're stepping out. It's very difficult for me when we have a specific situation like our asses here. And I know that we've done some work over the last couple of years, and I have someone here who is working, but honestly, they're here. Kim's here to be able to step out and have a conversation and help teachers understand in the moment, and share their perspective with

233us also, is is the point, you know, that's different than somebody who's just coming in, is frustrated by something a little broader or wants to give feedback on something a little broader. So happy to take direction either way, please know my intent was positive in the sense that we're here to try to support people. I just want to follow up. I think the problem is that the inconsistency so at almost every single thing that someone comes to public comment and comment on, there's someone sitting over there who can help every almost every single topic. But we don't. You you just said if someone's if it's broader or they're like, sometimes they're saying things that we don't really want to hear, but there's someone over there that could help. Not always. We don't have everyone come

234anymore, but if we did, so when are we? What I've seen happen is when there's like, oh, there's a good news we can share with you about that. So we'll take you out and do that. But if it's a hard topic, we're not asking someone over here to step out and discuss the hard topic out there. So I would say this was a hard topic tonight, but there but the message was, let us help you fix that. Where all I'm saying is it's it doesn't feel fair. Lee distributed. And I think that people feel that way too. I would, I would say, and then I'll get you to I would say that, we do say that this is not a time for dialog. So I think we can be consistent there. The board does not

235dialog, and even the superintendent does not dialog with somebody there. But if we can make it some, we can think about how to do this. But again, taking the opportunity, if there is someone there who can address a specific question, or help out, I would be in favor of, of making use of that opportunity. But I understand what you're saying. We're not consistent because some people say they're piece and they leave or they don't get anybody coming after them to talk to them. But yeah, I think it largely comes down to, the purpose for talking to somebody. I, I do think it's wholly inappropriate to use a response time to rebut something someone has said. You know, to to argue or to try to persuade or, you know, or anything along those lines. But I

236think if there are times when either we can gain more clarity, like when we ask a parent to please step outside because they've talked about this one particular thing with their particular child, and it would help us to have clarity or to get contact information or know what school. I think that's appropriate. I think when we can give clarity that is appropriate. You know, I, I don't want to be unresponsive if we don't have to be unresponsive, if the if we can do something in the moment to build trust and to build a positive relationship, then we should we should be able to do that either in providing clarity, like I said, or gaining clarity. But but not to rebut or try to persuade or or anything along those lines. So you know, if I

237were going to draw a line in the sand, that would be where it would be. But, you know, if we've got a group of people who are upset because they don't understand something or we want them to know, okay, nope, we heard you loud and clear, and we've already decided, like, we're going to take these steps to try to mitigate that. Why would we send them home upset when we don't have to, when we can tell them we heard you, and there's going to be steps so that they can at least go home with some understanding that, oh, yeah, it's, you know, this has been heard and something is going to be done. Okay. Well, I think, we can, she's asking for. Yeah. I was just going to say that. Yeah. I was not going

238to skip you. But anyway, we will, you know, I'll talk with, the superintendent about if there's something comes up again the next time that you think, can we get it? But what I just heard is that you would like to hear from the board. Majority like so, you know, how do I think everybody needs to sort of weigh in right now? You've heard I mean, yeah, you've well, you've heard from three of us. And because we're not on the same page, it's not a majority. So I am interested to hear, the other two directors and how they feel about it differently. I'll say, I think when we can be responsive, we should be. It is frustrating as a person who's done public comment in other places before to say something that you're super passionate about

239and get nothing back in response. So I think we can be thoughtful about when we apply that and if we're applying it consistently, is is a great conversation. We haven't had, any discussion about it up to this point, but I don't feel that it's inappropriate for the district to be responsive in the moment, particularly if we can provide context support, ongoing communication, with somebody who's taken the time to come here and express a concern or a need. And I, I would encourage that. But we can also be thoughtful about how we do that. And that's a conversation that we can have. Not right now when we're doing our, our individual leadership reports. But it is something that we could, we could address or talk about, at another time. So I think. I think I feel

240I share feelings with Director Kenworthy. I do think it's appropriate when we can help in the moment to help. I do also recognize as director Radha's like observation. Tonight was an interesting night. We had multiple groups and I actually. And I hope I saw this right. Doctor Kim, maybe you can correct me. I think some folks from the other group actually came out and joined you when you went out, so I but I think it is a especially when we have two separate public comment sections. Right. Like that's the first time I've actually experienced that. I think, So I do think it's worth some thought. How can we be consistent? And I did, you know, I know that we're constantly taking notes and you ask me what school is that? And so I know there

241are notes being taken. And I think if we can if we don't get to those folks in a moment, if there's a process to follow up or whatever that looks like, I think there's opportunity. But I do think it would be worth it. I'll hand it over to one second. Superintendent Ryland, I do think us understanding kind of what that looks like could be helpful and even for the public to understand. And I'm happy to put thoughts down about when that feels appropriate or not for us, for our staff to be called into a situation, and then we can even build it into Mary's script maybe, or something. But thank you for the feedback. I'll continue to work with Mary on this. If we develop criteria, I think we should share that with the public,

242that during public comment you made. These are the reasons why the superintendent may address you publicly, that that's the kind of thing I would like to see happen. Like tonight there was a group that was talking about their, that the special ed group with, planning time and IEPs. We didn't pull them out to address that. That's a that was something I mean, I would think we should try to address. That's why I said that we could build it into the president's script. And then that's why I said, I think we should share that with the public, though, in the public comments, sign up so that people understand, because I don't think it's building trust. I think it's people in the audience going, why did they just get pulled out? And I didn't. So so yeah,

243I think if we just explained that, if there's a way that we can clarify, because I think in that case that's still in negotiations and so we can't really we don't have a thing where we can say, you know, oh yeah, we've already worked on that, and here's what we're doing for that. Or, you know, and they know that it's part of negotiations. I mean, they're, they're here like so often like with the health care, comments and things like that, where they're here to, to make sure that the board understands these are things that are really important to us in negotiations. And, and that's gone on for decades. You know, so there's not really any sort of clarity that you can provide to that, but say, you know, we're being you know, we think that

244we're being told that we're not going to get any input into these changes in curriculum, in our particular program. And you can say, no, we've already had like just a few meetings on that. We're going to have more. So you can provide clarity. So I think, yeah, if we just say if there's a way that the district can provide clarity or gain clarity, that that would be the situation and we that would then that could be made public. And I can put that in the public, information. When they sign up, we can explain when and if they might get someone talking to them. And then I can have it in my script as well when they come up. Okay. Director Applegate mine is also quite short. Has some really great visits in the last couple

245of weeks. I do want to mention we did have a retreat, but that was really good. Chance for us to get together. It was public. We were able to talk about, the way we work together and improve processes. And I'm already seeing some of that, as Director Kenworthy mentioned, some time for us to talk during the study session. I thought that was really positive. The visit to the data center was really awesome, and I know it's late, so I don't know how many people are still listening, but they offer a ton of training for the public too. And I would just really encourage you to visit their website, the DeAngelis center. I was blown away by the work that our security folks do, and a huge credit to Mr. Pearson and the whole team. It

246was it was really impactful. And I was I was just blown away. So thank you. Got to attend the JCA meeting with the superintendent. That was really lovely. When, miss, Copeland presented kind of thoughts on language for Mills and the levy overrides, and that was a really great discussion. And then just so much advocacy, it's really encouraging to see that people are engaging in this process. And, and we saw that in public comment tonight. And I just want to lift up that, it's important for people to have a voice. And I appreciate that people are using that because I think it's really powerful. It's great for us to hear, and we hear it. We take notes. I've got multiple pages of notes, too. And so, I look forward to ongoing discussion. I know we've got

247a lot of opportunities as a district, and I know we're going to tackle some. That's it. I stop there. Okay. I have a few things that I think I'm happy to let the public know. Although it is late, I don't know how many is still on, but I did have the opportunity to sign two closing documents, two papers to close on two of our schools. So we have closed on Glen and Heights and Thompson. So that was very exciting to have that, you know, be completed. Then another thing, I did attend the FEC meeting and the meeting this past month. I did go to Conifer High School and had the student led town hall there, which was just so awesome. And they were just amazing. So I love that. I did go to the, two

248of the Jefferson community meetings. And, I think that we've gotten some very strong messages. I think there's some things that have come through very clear. I also went to the Jeffco School Foundation lunch, which was lots of fun. I went to the courts in the community at Green Mountain High School, which I had done before and loved it. I also went to a two pack, meeting, and those guys are amazing. Oh my gosh, they're great. It's and again, it's another example of it's really exciting to have expertise in our community to come help us. I wanted to point out that, Director Kenworthy and I've been reviewing executive assistant resumes, and so I want to take this opportunity to thank Jennifer Zavala for the incredible work that she has done for us. It's very sad that

249we're going to be losing her, but she is really working hard to have everything. You know, shipshape and, and help in the transition period. So thank you, Jennifer, for that. Let's see. I also enjoyed, the, retreat that we had, and I think having that extra period now of discussion in our study session is going to relieve some of the pressure of how can we talk about it and how can we let the public know what we're thinking? I also did watch, one of the JCA negotiations and, one of just those negotiations. And, I just want to say that Amanda is doing an amazing job there. She definitely has a gift. So thank you for all that hard work. And then lastly, I did go to the Lakewood High School Chamber Orchestra, sort of sendoff. And

250they are now in Indianapolis in a, nationwide competition. And oh my gosh, we saw that, the jazz band from, Columbine tonight. And then seeing that chamber orchestra, we have some amazing musicians in our, in our district. So it was a good week or month, whatever it was. All right. So at this point, another executive session has been notice for the end of tonight's meeting pursuant to CRS 24 600 to 4 E for the purpose of engaging in discussion regarding collective bargaining negotiation strategy, is there a motion to convene in executive session? I move to convene an executive session pursuant to CRS 20 4-6 hundred 24E for the purpose of engaging in discussion regarding collective bargaining negotiation strategy. Is there a second second? Any comments? It has been moved and seconded that the Board of Education

251will convene an executive session. Roll call, please. Miss Avada. Miss Applegate. Yes, miss Kenworthy? Yes, Mr. Parker? Yes. Yes, doctor. Rada. The board will now convene an executive session in the Ed Center seminar room, which is closed to the general public. The Board of Education will reconvene an open session to adjourn the meeting.