001John or Fabby, can we just do a quick audio check from the Google Meet? test. Test. Thank you everybody for your patience. We just have a little bit of a technical issue we're trying to iron out before we start this evening's meeting. >> [music] >> I'd like to call to order this regular meeting of the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education for Tuesday, January 13, 2026. Board members may attend and participate in board meetings in accordance with BBSC policy BMEA and state law. Laura, could you please call the role? >> Ber, >> here. >> Chavez >> here. Medler >> here. >> Quinn Linua >> here. Raj Paul >> here. >> Tamuading >> here. >> Anger >> here. >> Thank you. Next item on today's agenda is the land acknowledgement. The Boulder Valley School [music]
002District resides and operates on land that is the ancestral homeland and unjustly and [music] illegally taken territory of the Ute, Pueblin, Arapo, Cheyenne, Apache, Navajo, and 48 other tribal nations historically tied to this land who have called this land home since time and memorial. >> [music] >> We acknowledge the atrocities committed here, including the painful history of genocide, forced assimilation, and efforts to alienate the indigenous inhabitants [music] from their homeland, supported by the policies of the United States government. [music] BBSD is aware of the many indigenous peoples, past and present, and their dignified nations and cultures, who care for this land with strength and [music] resilience. BBD recognizes the histories of the land in Colorado and the survival of many nations that carried their oral traditions into the present. >> [music] >> It is BBSD's
003responsibility to educate ourselves, our community, and our students so that [music] we can embrace the wisdom and knowledge of indigenous peoples and actively [music] stand together to address injustices. [music] In offering this land acknowledgement, we affirm and honor [music] the history, wisdom, oral traditions, and resilience of indigenous people, and recognize [music] the responsibility to care for and appreciate this land together. I'd like to remind everyone that the mission of the Boulder Valley School District is to create challenging, meaningful, and engaging learning opportunities so that all children thrive and are prepared for successful, civically engaged lives. Good evening everyone. Happy new year. Thank you for joining us here tonight um in person and remotely to observe and participate in our meetings. At this time, is there a motion to make to approve tonight's agenda? Moved by
004Jason, seconded by Jorge. Laura, can you please call the role? >> Booker, >> yes. >> Chavez, >> yes. >> Medler, >> yes. >> Quinn Linua, >> yes. Raj Paul, >> yes. >> Tuading, >> yes. >> Anger, >> yes. >> Motion passes. >> First item on tonight's agenda is a work study session. We have one topic to review this evening, which is a BBSD academic calendar. I will turn it over to Robin Fernandez and Kathleen Sullivan for to kick us off. Good evening, President Rajpal, members of the board, and Dr. Anderson. I'm here this evening to share with you the draft academic calendars for school years 2728 and 2829 and to share with you the process for developing these calendars. Believe it or not, it is time to initiate this process again. So here we go.
005Uh, as a reminder, the board revised policy IC last fall. In addition to some clarification of language, there was also the creation of a regulation, which is now referred to as a-r that puts into policy factors previously referred to as the guiding principles that serve as guideposts for decision-making during the process of academic calendar development. I'll share more about the additional factors in a moment. When draft calendars are created, the foundational documents that serve as our guides are board policy, now referred to as ICA and a-R, our employee agreements, principally our negotiated agreement with BVEA, and requirements identified by the Colorado Department of Education. Yes. Uh thanks Robin. Just as a reminder to the board and for those um who may just be tuning in, uh AR is what used to be referred to as
006the guiding principles that had not been um formally documented as part of a board policy board policy regulation. And so uh as we think about this process, that's one big change. The other big change is the last time we went through this board members, if you'll recall, for those that were on the board, we went through the entire process and the board did not get a chance to see the calendar until we had already vetted it entirely with our community. And at that point in time, there was some feedback at that the board gave us that created some changes. And so as a as a change to the process, uh coming to you first based on our draft calendars based on board policy and board regulation to get feedback and understand what questions you might
007have uh then go back and engage and then bring it back to you. So, it's just a bit of a change uh in practice and uh as aligned to um board policy and board regulation, but just wanted to clarify that for the public on why if you've been watching board meetings for a long time, this is a little bit different than has been done in the past. >> Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Um, and so as you look at this slide, and as I said a moment ago, um, in addition to policy A and A-R, the regulation, we create the calendars in alignment with our BBEA negotiated agreement. That includes the school year being 172 contact days for students, four additional conference exchange days that make for a total of 176 instructional days for our licensed
008staff as seen here and 10 additional days um during which staff are engaging in professional learning and work days. Um, as always, items stipulated in our BBA negotiated agreement can change over time through the pro the contract negotiation process. In addition, the holidays that you see on the right hand side are vacation days to be considered. And I say that as they are identified in one or more of our negotiated agreements. Almost all of these are included on the draft calendars as observed holidays and based on previous feedback from our board. Other days including Indigenous People's Day are honored on an honorific calendar that is printed on the other side of the academic calendar so that we can communicate this and other days important to our community um as well. So to dive a bit
009further into the regulation, as Dr. Anderson shared a couple of moments ago, these for the most part used to be referred to as the guiding principles. And so they were previously created by a a collaborative stakeholder group and served as a means of including our community's priorities. They are referred to now as the additional factors and they're essential in order to guide our decision making as the the calendars are developed. As we know, the academic calendar is a very complex Rubik's cube of competing priorities that exist within BBSD and across stakeholder groups. Um, in addition, just to make the puzzle a little bit more complicated, we as a district don't exist in isolation, but interact on a number of levels with a broader ecosystem of communities, school districts, and governing organizations in the state of
010Colorado, uh, which are spoken to primarily in the two final bullet points. So as a result, these nine items are now what appear in the regulation and are a cornerstone to the calendar development process. During the time between calendar development processes, we continue to receive feedback on current calendars and sometimes that feedback can be incorporated into future draft calendars for consideration by our board and our stakeholder groups. So on this slide you see the reflection of what has been a significant amount of feedback um during this interim period and has been added to these draft calendars. This includes a more even distribution of professional learning days throughout the school year with three added to second semester in order to facilitate learning of uh among our our staff members as they work through the year as
011well as returning the second semester conference exchange days back to April. These requests have been heard loudly and clearly from many members of our