001I would like to call to order that this regular meeting of the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education for Tuesday, August 12th, 2025. Welcome back everybody. Board members may attend and participate in our board meetings by electronic means in accordance with BBSC policy, BMEA, and state law. Laura, can you please call the role? Chavez, here. Medler here. Nisnik Quinn Linua here. Raj Paul here. Sergeant here. Anger here. Thank you. I'd like everyone to turn their attention to the screen for a land acknowledgement this evening. [Music] The Boulder Valley School District resides and operates on land that is the ancestral homeland and unjustly and illegally taken territory of the Ude, Pueblin, Arapjo, Cheyenne, Apache, Navajo, and 48 other tribal nations historically tied to this land who have called this land home since time and memorial.
002[Music] We acknowledge the atrocities committed here, including the painful history of genocide, forced assimilation, and efforts to alienate the indigenous inhabitants from their homeland supported by the policies of the United States government. 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 resilience. BBSD recognizes the histories of the land in Colorado and the survival of many nations that carried their oral traditions into the present. It is BBSD's responsibility to educate ourselves, our community, and our students so that we can embrace the wisdom and knowledge of indigenous peoples and actively stand together to address injustices. In offering this land acknowledgement, we affirm and honor the history, wisdom, oral traditions, and resilience of indigenous people, and recognize the responsibility to care for
003and appreciate this land together. I would like to remind everybody 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. Thank you for joining us here in person and also remotely. We're glad to have you observe and participate in our meetings. At this time, is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda? Moved by Jorge, seconded by Kitty. Laura, can you please call the vote? Chavez, yes. Medler, yes. Quinn Linua, yes. Raj Paul, yes. Sergeant, yes. Anger, yes. Motion passes. First item on our agenda this evening is the superintendent report. Dr. Anderson, Good evening, board president Rajpaul. Board members, welcome back. So good to see everyone. Hope that you all had a
004wonderful summer. uh board members and community members, those who joined us this evening. As you know, tomorrow we'll be welcoming back students to school. Our team will be providing an update regarding our preparations a little later in tonight's meeting. Um but it's really been nice to see our principles, teachers, and staff back in our buildings. Uh excited to make this an incredible school year for everyone in BBSD. Um and then wanted to give uh everyone an update on the attendancebound change feedback. Uh board members, while summer is a great time for rest and relaxation, we're also busy working on district priorities, including gathering feedback, as we told you we would for the board uh regarding the proposed attendance boundary changes we discussed in May. Last week, we finished up our feedback sessions with families regarding
005those proposed changes. And as you all requested, we reached out directly to the families that might be affected. everybody had the opportunity to have a personal call from somebody in the district to talk about any challenges or concerns. Uh it was a great great conversations with with the parents who signed up. Extremely valuable to hear their firsthand perspective of the proposed changes and I want just want to thank everybody who took the time to share their thoughts with us about this. Feedback will be compiled and shared with the board at a work session in September as we move forward uh with attendance boundary changes study first then um then action based on feedback from the board. So that's all I have for my remarks this evening. Welcome back everyone. That was so brief I was
006chewing. Board members, any questions or comments for Dr. Anderson? Seeing as there are none, we'll now move on to public participation. The board respects the rights of the public to speak on matters concerning the operation of our schools. The board does not endorse any comments of any speaker and reminds all who speak that you are responsible for your own speech. Speak speakers will each have two minutes to speak. You'll see a yellow card when you have 30 seconds remaining and an orange card when you have 10 seconds remaining. If you run out of time or would like to share additional information, you can always email the board. We do read all of our emails. board members. Tonight we have two folks signed up for public participation. Understandable since this is our first meeting back and
007school does not start until tomorrow. First person signed up this evening is Becky Rouetto. We will then move on to Michael Whitaker. Hi board. I'm Michael Whitaker. I have a daughter that's going into nth grade at Fair View and a son that's going into sixth grade at Southern Hills. The reason I'm writing is, you know, can can any of you explain the AI policy for the district in less than 30 seconds? Could you explain it to a teacher? Could you explain it to a student that asked you? Could you explain it to a parent that wants to help you at home? Help the kids use AI in the right way and not in a way that's cheating, but in a way that's enhancing learning. I write this summer I started a Substack newsletter for free
008for parents to help them shape the way AI is going to impact our work our kids and ourselves because it's so complicated because parents are feeling behind because they don't know how to engage and there's this real risk that because they don't know how to engage they just don't and it's moving too fast to let that be the okay outcome. This weekend I went looking for our policy. I couldn't find it. Like I googled it. I found a nice story from a student testifying about how they used AI last year where he admitted that the rules were weird. I then used Gemini deep research to say what is the policy and had it go through public facing documents and try and distill it down. I ended up being able to create a one-page website infographic,
009not neatly designed yet, but that actually distills the policy down to something that could be understood in 30 seconds, that could give the kids guard rails for how to do this the right way, to use AI as a learning partner not to do the work for them, that gives parents ways to age, that gives the guard rails clearly in plain language. I urge the board to put some attention on this early in the year. It's moving too fast. This can't wait till next year. This is not the domain of the IT department. There's a real opportunity to put a simple web page, a one-pager, have a poster in the classroom. Turn it into a design contest for the students. Say, "We need to be able to communicate our a AI policy. Well, here are the
010core tenants. Come up with an interesting design. Use AI to do it. Give them permission." I just want it to be something that is brought into and openly discussed going into this school year because it's too important to leave it quiet into interpretation and vagueness. Thank you. We will now move on to our next item on this evening's agenda, which is board communication board members. Is there anyone who would like to go first? Yeah, I don't have a lot to comment on, but welcome back everybody. And one thing I noticed in all of the legal changes that have gone on since we were last here is a change in mandatory reporting law. And that's something that's near and dear to my heart since that's something I used to teach. And two big changes are one
011that I really approve of is you may not delegate your responsibility to someone else. You used to be able to and I always advised against it. But the other one is that now mandatory reporters only have to report in the context of their jobs, not outside. And it used to be if you were a mandatory reporter, you were a mandatory reporter in your whole life. And I would still encourage people to keep that in mind that if you're a mandatory reporter, that means you know something about the warning signs of child abuse and may be able to recognize something that other folks don't. And I would encourage you to report even if it is not in the context of your job. And with the new law, I would have to check with our legal expert.
012But if you are reporting not in the context of your job, but just as a private citizen, you might be able to report anonymously. Kathleen, do you know? Because I know it didn't used to be. If you're a mandatory reporter, you have to give your name. Yeah, they are still protected by Colorado law in terms of the identity of the reporter, but um yes, I I did know that. But a lot of people are reluctant because they think somebody might figure out who it was, and it's possible that they could. But I just want to say as an expert in mandatory reporting, I encourage you all to continue to do it in your life as well as your work, Alex. There we go. I think it started. I must have pushed two buttons at once.
013Um uh great to be back um to see everybody and to meet people who are are new to their roles and principles. Um also just want to reiterate in part what our speaker said tonight. Um uh in my day job I continue to see how much artificial intelligence is sort of becoming more and more significant and I do believe it's something that students will be using a lot. I think Boulder's already uh ahead of the game with our magic school approach to it, but I do believe it's the student use that is a fundamental challenge and hopefully eventually opportunity. But uh the capacity of the artificial intelligence tools is so great that it's pretty impossible to imagine the students not being well ahead of the school system and how to deal with it and just
014treating it as a new form of plagiarism uh is just doesn't cut it. And so I do believe in all the things that Boulder does to be a leading edge district that's doing really good stuff and thinking about things in a forwardlooking way, I do think accelerating our attention to the topic is probably necessary if we want to stay in front of things that will be affecting students and how they learn. So I also want to thank our speaker this evening and also thank you for providing that in writing so we have that to reference. It's great to get those emails. I want to give a shout out to all the principles that came here tonight, our new principles. Thank you for having dinner with us. Dinner is early on these board meetings, but it
015was great to meet you. It was great to see the energy of our principles. Likewise, shout out to all the staff members who are getting our schools ready. There have been, I know I've heard from different sites, lots of new students coming back to BBSD, open and rolling in our schools. kids are coming off the wait list which is creating exciting challenges and opportunities for the the schools to work through uh in this couple days before school opens. So, thanks to all the efforts there. I also want to acknowledge all of our 360 leaders, those upper class middle schoolers and upper class high schoolers who have been working hard over the summer to get ready for the new sixth graders that are rising up and the new 9th graders. That does take time and I
016commend the leadership that you show in your schools. Similarly, if you were out at all this summer in our parks and on our trails, you will have seen a lot of our student athletes practicing and getting ready for the season. Again, big amount of effort that goes in to represent their schools with pride. Not just our student athletes, but the marching bands, too. I mean, a lot of a lot goes into the start of the school year to ensure our schools are ready to be successful from any everybody's part. So, thank you for that and to thanks for all the parents to getting the kids to all those registration picture day back to school nights. I know it's it's a lift, but it really does create the sense of community that helps our schools be
017really successful. So, I just want to commend everybody for that. We will move on to information this evening. We have two information items. The first of which is a back to school update and I will turn it over to our cabinet members who will make their way to the podium. board president Raj Paul as as our team is is coming up to present and board members you'll recall that this is a presentation we do for the board but also for the public every single year before the start of school uh as an important overview of some new things that might be happening some great things that have always been happening it's a it's a great time as folks if they're new to our school district or just uh tuning in to what happens here in
018BBSD um to watch the back to school update and So, uh, tomorrow is the first day of school. We're all very excited and I'd love to turn the presentation over to Dr. Dea Cruz. Laura, thank you, Dr. Anderson. Good evening, President Raj Paul, board members. So, good to see you all again. Uh, welcome back. We're really excited to share with you all that we've been up to as we prepare to open the 2025 2026 school year. And speaking of welcome back, we are in back to school mode most definitely. There's been a lot going on to be ready. We can't wait to welcome our students back to school tomorrow for elementary and secondary on Thursday. Um teams across BBSD have been really hard at work to just be sure that everything is ready for learning
019from facilities to IT to professional learning for teachers and leaders and more. and our team's going to be sharing that with you this evening. BBSD's been really busy this summer, especially these last few weeks and especially these last few days as we gear up. Uh we're we have a pretty large organization as you know and these numbers really tell that story. What it all boils down to, of course, is serving and supporting a little over 27,000 students and more actually enrolling every day as President Raj Paul um pointed to. Um we serve millions of meals. You can see that um there's a lot of miles on buses. Our budget, our employees, and our schools are all there in service to the students in our buildings. Did I mention that we've been busy? You can see
020a little bit of that in the photos on this slide. What you see here is really just a fraction of the preparation that has been in place to open the school year. We always love our first district leadership team, DT, and our first PK-12 meeting of the new school year. And that happened a couple of weeks ago. Um, those meetings with leaders involved new learning and refreshers from legal updates to refining 90-day plans and a whole lot in between. Between DT in the morning and PK-12 in the afternoon, we always enjoy the annual DT barbecue. And that's just an awesome time for leaders across departments and schools to enjoy each other and enjoy good company and enjoy amazing amazing fresh food. uh prepared and delivered and served by our amazing food services team. So, all
021teachers, you're going to see a little bit of that here, too. Teacher professional learning, all teachers in all grade levels, all content participated in two full days of professional learning last week. And then some who are in phase one of our elementary math materials, new math materials, spent a half day yesterday in professional learning as well. Across all professional learning, there was a focus on standards and content and just preparation for the year ahead. Early indicators show really good attendance and participation at the professional learning for teachers and we've gotten a lot of fantastic feedback about that as well. Most importantly, the energyy's been really good and these early days have been super positive and a great beginning to what's going to be an amazing school year. And now Robin Fernandez is going to update
022us on all things school and network leadership. Good evening. So this year we will continue in our three network structure. As a reminder, the east network serves the communities of Lafayette, Erie, and Broomfield under the leadership of executive director Dan Ryan. The Southwest Network serves Lewisville, Superior, and South Boulder and is overseen by Executive Director Neil Anderson. And finally, the Northwest Network serves the communities of Central and North Boulder and our Mountain School communities and is led by Executive Director Tamara Asavdo. The strength of the network system is that each network team focuses on the specific schools in their network in order to deeply understand the individual schools and the community's needs with the goal of of providing tailored support unique to the needs of each school in each community. This focused partnership between the
023school communities and the their support structures here at the ed center have been highly valued and have proven successful in serving all students in each one of our communities. And now I am thrilled to officially introduce to the community the nine leaders that board president Raj Paul just referred to. We have nine new school principles leading uh schools in all three networks across the district. Some are new to the district whereas many of them well accept all but one will be familiar faces who are now serving students in different locations in different capacities. First, Julie Garcia, principal at Monarch PK8. Eileen Trillo, principal at Cole Elementary. Erin Hinkle, principal at Creekide Elementary. Brian Graham, principal at Broomfield Heights Middle. Amanda Jones, principal at Aspen Creek, PK8. Nick Vanderpal, principal at Elorado, PK8. Mingshide, principal at
024Apex, Apex being formerly known as Boulder Tech. Kiffany Lich, principal at New Vista High School, and finally, Caleb Melamemed, serving as the principal of both Netherland Elementary School and N Netherland Middle Senior. Congratulations to all of our new leaders, and we wish everyone a wonderful school year with their new communities. A couple of other really exciting things to highlight as we begin this year is we will be enjoying the first day tomorrow of our district's first environmental steam program which is launching tomorrow at Heatherwood Elementary. Heatherwood principal, staff, and the engagement committee spent all of last year visioning and preparing for this and they are excited to welcome their students into this program at the school tomorrow. Also, an incredible milestone will be marked this year as Boulder High School will be celebrating the 150th
025year as a school in Boulder Valley School District. Imagine how proud we are of Boulder High's legacy serving students over a century and a half. So, stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks and months for ways in which you can join the celebration of this incredible milestone. And with that, I will turn it over to Bills Sar. Uh good evening. Over the last four days, uh we've had the enrollment help center uh functioning uh here. We've had two 20 that's supposed to say 277 families served. Uh it did wrap up at 4:00 this afternoon. So, um it was uh recently updated. Uh but anyway, um support for uh families to uh get help with um free and reduced lunch applications. About 80% of the folks that came in uh got support there. Uh
026and about 20% uh getting support uh for enrollment and getting enrolled into the district. Uh so now it's uh back to business as usual for enrollment. uh enrolling at uh your school uh or coming to the ed center. Uh always here to help uh uh families get enrolled into the district. Moving right along. All right, good evening. Just wanted to give a couple updates and reminders about the academics department. So, as a reminder, this is our year two of having the academics team, which we're super excited about as it really helped us with uh coherence and alignment of curriculum and programming. So, we're excited to begin our year two of that. And then, just as a reminder, these are the departments that are under um me as academics. So, we have MTSS, DDI, CLLDE, special
027education, and then our equity for teaching and learning. And then on the right side, um, all of our content areas, gifted education, steam, which is science, social studies, math, and the arts. And then literacy, early childhood, and then we also facilitate learning for our district um, coaches that are serving as coaches in schools. A few highlights for us this year. um our CLLDE team as you many of you know we're we finished our third year of implementation of our co-eing model and we are going to begin a sustainability plan which increases our support in the school. So what that will look like is coaching observation and feedback on site and we'll be doing those um over the course of the next two years in a cycle based on um needs and tiers of support. New
028for us in sped this year is the implementation of our new moderate needs programming which we're very excited about. Um our objective with the implementation of that programming is to design a layer of support uh from resource to ICAN programming. So something in the middle before that. Um again we hope that we can reduce the need for student placements in ILC's and Ians as well as stepping down uh student support from some of those programs. So, we're excited about uh rolling out that this year. Another new thing that we have in academics is, as many of you already know, is our adoption of our MClass literacy assessment at the elementary level. Um we will that's kindergarten through fifth grade. Uh we're excited about that implementation because we really feel that it's going to help support
029where we're going with our MTSS implementation and the progress monitoring data that we need in literacy uh for um our students in elementary school. And then our last new in the academics is that we um will be beginning a math adoption with elementary. Um it's illustrative math. We're really excited about that. Our team has spent a significant amount of time launching that out in the spring and we just spent as Dr. Dea Cruz just mentioned several days in training with both teachers and leaders. And a lot of our exit slips up to this point is there's a lot of excitement from teachers about the implementation. And so we are excited for that to begin and to continue the support throughout the year. And then the last upstate update in our department is just right now
030for early childhood our PK enrollment is up by 88 students from last August to this August. So again continuing to support um we're our team has worked really hard to share some of the programming that we're doing and as evidence that we're increasing enrollment in that area. So we're excited about that. So just a few updates for our academics team. Thanks. Perfect. Good evening, board, and welcome back. Uh, just a quick update. Thanks to our community for supporting our 2022 bond measure. Uh, the bond department was able to complete 22 projects this summer, totaling more than uh $74 million. Those 22 projects are listed to the left. I believe you have seen that list previously in other updates to the board. Um, some of the highlights of this summer's work included we constructed universally accessible
031playgrounds at six schools. To fulfill our promise uh to expand opportunities for career and technical education, we built out new spaces at Boulder High, Broomfield High, Monarch High, and Monarch PK8, Lewisville Middle, and Casey Middle. In addition, we kicked off our large project at Apex uh which resulted in new uh facilities for Boulder University and a Rapo Ridge campus um and several new spaces for Apex. As a reminder, that is a two-year project. So, that'll continue throughout the year and into next summer. Um New Vista High School remains fully on track. If you've been by it, the old building is torn down. New parking lot is in. still on track to have that building completed by the end of October. Uh athletic facilities, we saw extensive improvements um this summer. We had athletic fields or
032tracks were updated at Boulder High, Monarch High, Netherland Middle Senior, and Casey Middle School. Uh new grandstand went in at Broomfield High. Tennis courts were resurfaced at Monarch High School. We have informed the board a couple times about some delays associated with mechanical units, etc. We have also encountered delays with a press box at Broomfield High, the track at Monarch High School, and the track at Netherland High School. So, we are working with those schools, but um these are just recent uh items that I have found out about. So, we're working through that now. We've notified the principles. Uh we'll keep the board informed as we move forward with that. Um, also as part of the 22 bond, a number of critical needs work were completed this summer. Those were items like auditorium improvements, life
033safety improvements, ADA upgrades, etc. Um, all of this work ensures that our students have safe, accessible, and well equipped environments that inspire learn inspire learning, uh, support growth in academics, athletics, and career pathways. And I can't wait to get you all inside some of these new buildings. They look fantastic. from an operations uh perspective just I just cannot thank uh our operations team enough and without their commitment their expertise I believe the high quality learning that happens in Boulder Valley wouldn't occur without all of those individuals so um over the summer when some get a break our operations team takes just an opportunity of our relatively empty buildings we don't have a lot going on in transportation and food service uh we get the buildings clean, we get complete the repairs, we do the preventative
034maintenance, um, and so so much more that people just don't see. So hopefully if you see someone, uh, please tell them thanks. Uh, I do believe these dedicated employees are our strength. They all take great pride in their work. Um, and I do believe, uh, and, uh, we preach just the idea that they set the conditions for the great teaching and learning to happen in our schools. So, um, with that, I will, uh, turn it over to Dr. James Hill, assistant superintendent of human resources. Good evening. It's always exciting to be able to provide an update from human resources. So, today we'll talk about um some of the hiring volume that we had from April through August. That's kind of our the bulk of our hiring season. And then we'll look at uh trends from
035our administrators and our certified uh hiring this year. So just from sheer volume alone, you can see that our staff has been hard at work. Um we had 662 uh jobs posted. Uh we went through 9,799 applications. uh extended 417 offers and hires that we've processed has been 526. So, um been a hard at work uh on making sure that our buildings and our our schools are ready to go uh for the first day of school. So, some of our uh our trends in hiring and we looked at the past three years um the the numbers the 22.8 the 22.2 2 and a 24.4 is the percentage of our uh leaders of color that we've been able to hire. As you can see, we've we've been there's a very narrow trend of of you know,
036some decrease between 23 and 24 and about uh a tenth of a what is it? We have about 2/10enth of a a percentage increase from this year to last year. So holding steady, but our goal is always to uh increase and sustain. So that's going to be our goal um still and increasing those numbers. The same trends hold true in our certified uh hiring. As you can see from uh 23 to 24 the same uh uh number just a a a slight decrease but again from last year to this year we have uh a slight uh increase in the um educators of color we were able to hire. Again, although we were able to maintain where we're at, our goal is always to uh have a sustainability where we're we're have a upward trend in
037that. So, we'll continue to uh work in that area of uh hiring and and uh sustaining our uh qualified educators of color. All right, turn it over to my man Frankie. Good evening board members, Dr. Anderson. So tonight, I'd like to share the overview of the IT department's work over the summer and the priorities guiding us into this next year. First, our core summer work. Over the last few months, our teams have worked to ensure that every school is ready to start the new year with technology that's fully operational and reliable. Through our summer sweeps, we visited all schools to inspect, repair, and prepare classroom and office technology. We deployed over 6,000 devices to students and staff. We refurbished and redeployed several hundred more, extending device life and making efficient use of our resources. And
038in our data warehouse, we ensure timely loading of assessment data so it's available for immediate instructional use. Secondly, our special summer project. We produced a network upgrade RFP. We are preparing for a district-wide modernization of our wired and wireless infrastructure. Over the summer, multiple teams collaborate collaborated to design, write, and execute a strong RFB process, incorporating the latest industry standards, ensuring a fully modernized network. We also made sure we stayed within compliance with -ate guidelines, ensuring we received the maximum reimbursement from the federal government. And finally, our innovation efforts. We are evaluating the latest AI offerings from Google and continue to mature our approach to further AI adoption. We are taking thoughtful structured approach to integrating AI in a way that aligns with the district's educational mission and values. We are supporting the development of
039the district's AI vision and guiding principles. We are also creating a comprehensive plan to prepare for future AI integrations. The IT team is currently evaluating Google's recently released Gemini AI tool suite and will be making rollout plan recommendations based on our findings. And we are conducting an AI maturity assessment and gap analysis to ensure readiness for the implementation of not only the new Google Suite but any other AI tools that are as they come available. In short, this summer was about preparation, modernization, and innovation. We've ensured technology is ready for use day one, advanced the major infrastructure project, and taking deliberate steps in the toward the responsible adoption of AI. And with that, we stand ready to answer any questions. Thank you for that comprehensive back to school update. Cabinet members, Kitty has a first
040question for you. Yes, I have a question for Dr. Hill. I'm going to go back to this um screen so I can see what I wanted to ask. So, yeah, I'm curious that you offered 417 jobs and processed 526 hires. I knew someone was going to ask have an answer for you. No, some of those include subs as well. So that that number, you know, includes subs as well, you know, and then um some of those include like staff members that are already hired but maybe taking on additional FTE as well. So, thank you. Yeah, I know it was kind of off, but Alex. Yeah, Dr. Hill, as long as you're up there. I have one one more question. I know you've been doing a lot. So, if I read these numbers right, does that
041mean that we have like 250 or 236 still open positions if you've got 662 posted and 417 job offers? So, some of them again, um, let me go back to that slide. Is this the slide you were talking about? Yeah. So, yes, we we still have positions uh that are still they're still open. And again, this is across the whole um organization as well. So, it could be anywhere from community schools positions that we have, you know, positions that are hard to fill that we're still trying to repost and and and and post again. Some of those positions um all that includes our sub positions. So, yeah. Good. And uh two two follow-ups on that. Um one is how how is that number of unfilled positions this year compared to previous years? And I'm also
042curious as long as you're there, how was the federal withholding of funding that we temporarily experienced, did that impact our HR processes much this summer? So, um, my worry with with with that piece was we were going to have to and I I I think we talked about it last spring that we were going to have almost have to do a job freeze during that time. We didn't have to we didn't have to do that or a hiring freeze, I'm sorry. We didn't have to do that. So, it had very little impact. We were able to post uh pretty much on time as we usually do, you know, right after that spring break around those April time. So, um, we were we were good in those those pieces of I mean, our team worked hard
043to making sure once the FTE got out, got it to our, uh, building principles, and they were able to be creative with the areas they need to make sure that we got those jobs posted. So, um, a little impact, but not as much as as we anticipated. And as far as what was your your first question? uh for the unfilled positions at this point. How are we this year relative to previous years? So, actually we're in a much better place. Last year, as you know, we uh struggled a bit with some of our dual language schools and and working with, you know, some of our uh uh J1 visas to get those uh employees set and and in those schools. This year, we jumped on it early because we knew we were going to have
044those those situations. And so we learned from the previous year. So, you know, some positions are still out there, but you know, um we're in a much better position this year as opposed to um last year. Board members, I I'd love to be able to get you just kind of an overall analysis of that of that data year-over-year, and I can get that to you all. I think that that's a really good metric. Um I don't know that these numbers reflect some of the successes we've had in hiring you in terms of dual language schools um in our you know special education teachers, our bus drivers. I think um food service, you know, some of those areas we've made tremendous gains. Um and also we need to get you more current data because this was
045as of August 1st, 2025. And so if you'll allow us to do that, I think that that would help to um to paint the paint a clear picture for you. I just want to thank you, Dr. Anderson, and your leadership team. Looks like very strong work and we're looking forward to another great school year. I want to echo that and I can't wait till we talk about how all this hard work is paying off in dividends for our students coming up. Do you want to jump in or can I ask a question? You can ask a question. Uh question about the PK enrollment. I know since UPK's inception, we've tried different things, had to do different things with scheduling and programming and the uptick in numbers. I'm curious if we can attribute that to some
046of the shifts that have been made over time and or if it's getting us to where we're projected we were projected to be or relative to expectations. I think the uptick and I mean we would have to go back and see if it's because like we where are we with our full day programming at Sanchez um are where are the hot spots for that but we can definitely get that information for you. That would be great. I think it understanding what our community is looking for and needing from us can help us to continue to refine and improve in that area. One initial note that we do know is where our numbers are higher is where we also have enrichment. So, um, where there are pockets where there isn't enrichment, that seems to be where
047there's more of a struggle for enrollment, but we can definitely look a little bit deeper for that. Thank you. And I want to echo the comments. So, some of the principles mentioned that they're hearing positive feedback from their staff members around MClass and illustrative math. So, that is exciting because change is change can be a challenge. Uh, and we do ask a lot of our staff members when those changes occur. So, I'm glad that they're being wellreceived. Dr. Anderson would love to take this opportunity to thank all of our employees for all they've done to get ready uh for tomorrow and uh our teachers have uh have really stepped up to the plate in terms of two days of professional learning. Um our professional learning team, our academics team did an incredible job getting everybody
048together uh to to roll out new curriculum. I mean MClass is different. It's different than I already. Um, illustrative math is going to be in almost all of our elementary schools. Uh, that is a new elementary school math curriculum. And board members, for those of you that are keeping track, that means we've implemented a new literacy curriculum, new assessment, new elementary school uh, math, new middle school math, new high school math. We we have been I I think our team has just been really focused to make sure that all of our teachers have high quality instructional materials to work from and to use as they as they teach our students. The research is really clear on the importance of that. Um and so just want to thank everybody, thank everyone who went to our trainings.
049Um I will be out in schools everywhere the next few days. So, I hope to run into people uh and uh starting at 6:30 a.m. tomorrow if if that's right, Randy. I think that that's when our first uh first uh visit is. So, uh very very excited. Board members always welcome to to join us. I believe we posted that tomorrow as a meeting. School visits for the first day of school. Let me double check on that. We can if you want to go to schools, we can we can make that happen. We'll just have to split up a little bit. I thought that we had posted that. Um but excited. Thank you everybody. Alex. Yeah. Um and circling back to my comments before, I'm excited to see the the IT innovation efforts underway and the
050discussions of all the AI tools. One of the things I've been seeing in other districts um is sort of the confusion about what to do with the other off-the-shelf stuff uh in their regular day and how to incorporate that in appropriately plus the stuff that a district's endorsing. So, I'm just excited to see the discussions take place and for us to become thoughtful about it and really sort of be based in the real world of what um professionals and kids are doing in 2025. Great. Thank you everyone and I hope everybody has an awesome first day of school this week. We have one more information item which is probably going to be brief legislative update. I think board members who've been paying attention to the fact that we will go, we are now officially having
051a special session. State of Colorado is looking at a$ 1.2 billion dollar deficit again shortfall and uh so we'll see what happens there. Dr. Anderson, did you have anything to add? No, I think that we're we're anticipating um education being impacted somehow. Again, last time board members, this this will be the thing to to watch. If they don't cut dollars, will they change the way they count students, which inevitably cuts dollars without saying you're cutting dollars? So, uh you know that that could come in the in the form of uh you know, less averaging uh you know, more counts throughout the course of a year, right? Where you don't get all the money after one count, you could do multiple counts. I think there's some some things that could be considered. I think we'll have
052to just keep an eye um on those things and I will we'll make sure that we keep the board updated as the session's going going along. Great. Now we'll move on to action items consent grouping. 7.1 Personnel item 7.2 approval of minutes June 17th 2025 approve 7.3 approval of minutes June 20th 2025 special meeting 7.4 4 grant food services fresh fruit and vegetables from the CDE 7.5 grant food services local food programming from the CDE. Are there any items board members like to pull from consent grouping? Seeing as there are none, Laura, can you please call the role? Oh, sorry. Hearing none, we need a motion to approve. Moved by Jason, seconded by Kitty. Board members, any discussion? See, I have first aid jitters. Alex. Yeah. I'm just curious if the if the food service
053grants are changed or if those are sort of what was expected in the first place uh for 74 and 75. Those were what is expected for this year. So yeah, nothing has changed. Any further discussion? Board members. Laura, can you please call the roll? Chavez, yes. Medler, yes. Quinnlanda, yes. Raj Paul, yes. Sergeant, yes. Anger, yes. Motion passes. Next item on this evening's agenda is policy action items consent grouping. 9.1 board policy IGAC and IGAC-R teaching about religion and religion in schools. 9.2 Board policy J instructional material selection and adoption. 9.3 board policy KEC complaints about curriculum and instruction. 9.4 Board policy KEC-R complaints about curriculum or instruction regulation. 9.5 board policy BM board meetings. 9.6 6 board policy JO J-Ro E all related to student records. 9.7 board policy KLMA relations with military recruiters,
054post-secondary institutions, and prospective employers in higher education. Are there any items board members like to pull from consent grouping? Hearing none, we need a motion to approve. Moved by Kitty, seconded by Alex. Were members any discussion on the policies within the consent grouping? Alex and oh sorry Kitty Lenia. Alex. So I know there are several here that we are adopting because we have to. Is it are we going to have a chance to come back to them when we can talk about them or do we talk about them now because I think it'll take a long time if we talk about them now. Thank you for that question, board member Sergeant. So, under board policy BP, as is often true this time of year, we want to make sure that we've got clean policies in
055effect for the school year. The board's policy will require us to go through the full adoption process after tonight's temporary action. Um, so, oh, and let me just first say if you're watching or listening, my chronic cough is acting up. So, I'm coughing a lot. It's not bacterial, viral, or contagious. So, you are all safe and I look forward to continuing to get under control. And I'm sorry for the disruption. um uh recognizing the interim nature of it and the need to act um uh and looking forward to future discussions of this. I'm wondering if Kathleen if you can give us um just a bit of an overview of sort of the things that led to these uh needed changes. Sure. I'm happy to talk about that a little bit. So, um, last year in
056Colorado, our legislature, even without a special session, took action and adopted, I think the number was 476 bills. Um, there are a number of them that are going to have policy implications for the school district. um some interesting bills on how school districts would keep any sort of immigration related information and access to our facilities in light of what's going on um with some of the immigration actions. We also had a really important bill at the state level passed on the adoption and use of library materials. Um, that bill did a few things, including putting in place some specific procedural requirements for schoolboard policies around challenges to curricular materials or to library resources. So, those that was happening at the state level. At the federal level, there hasn't been much happening lately, but um yeah,
057that's a really lame joke, I know. Um there have been a few things happening including at the end of June we received a 63 decision from the Supreme Court. This decision is a little bit strange just procedurally for us. I think we're used to cases when they get to the Supreme Court they've really been fully fleshed out. We know what the issues are. We know what the facts are. And the Supreme Court generally gives us the law of the land. They have done so because that's their role. But in this case, it we are early into a challenge of a school district policy in Montgomery public schools in Maryland. They adopted a set of learning materials, a set of story books with LGBTQ themes in them. They also adopted a discussion guide that would help
058educators in implementing these materials that the board had selected. And a family in that district filed a challenge to the policy because the board's policy did not have opt out and excusal provisions in the policy. So there was not a specific ongoing right for a family to excuse their student from that instruction. The whole case has not been heard by the federal courts yet. So, it went to the Supreme Court pretty early in a litigation process because the family requested to have a preliminary injunction that would give them that right that didn't exist while the case is heard. So the family said, "We want the school district to be obligated to give us this notice and excusal that we're seeking in the case overall, but we want that early as part of the preliminary injunction
059while the case proceeds." So the Supreme Court said, "Yes, there is a right here." And then they remanded that case to go back to the federal district trial court to have all of the rest of the evidence built out in a way that you typically would at the Supreme Court level. So um in Boulder, as is often the case, we did have some board policy that already touched on these issues. So, we had existing board policy IGAC that talked about when there's a burden on religion. It talks about when we're going to have uh maybe a religious song included in a performance. It is a meaty policy. I think that does a lot in this area. So what the board is being asked to do tonight is to revise that existing policy to bring it
060into alignment with the Supreme Court's decision to touch on a number of sort of related policies that touch on the selection of curricular materials which is board policy J. And that is where you'll start to see elements of the Supreme Court case as well as Colorado's bill around the selection and consideration of materials. So that's really the the context into which we're taking policy action tonight. Um I think it's important just to think about where we are in this process. I used an analogy for our educators. Um we're in Colorado. We know what a beautiful river is like to raft on and a lot of times you know exactly when you're getting to a part and exactly how we're going to navigate through that particular rapid. It's a little harder to do here because it's
061not fully mapped out. The Supreme Court and our federal courts have more work to do. But we know the water. We work with a lot of diverse families. We want our students to come to our schools starting tomorrow and belong and be honored for the amazing individuals that they are. Um so this policy um update we've shared it with our educators and it really is intended to get us off um that first day of school with our plan ready and then we'll be looking forward to hearing from our educators and our community. I would say um these policies are posted on our website under board policies for review. So if people want to take a look there and they've got specific thoughts, that's a great way for us to receive feedback. We have not gotten
062any so far. Um and before I wrap up what was supposed to be a really brief summary, but I am a lawyer, so keep that in mind. Um, I just want to acknowledge you get to meet a lot of our amazing leaders in our district, but Rey Sakura, who's in the room, is our district librarian coordinator. the leg. I'm not sure, Governor Polus, I'm not sure the signature was dry on the bill before Rey was in my office with really a very thoughtful written document that really laid out for us all the elements of the policy that the board is being asked to adopt tonight. And I just want to acknowledge the work um because it makes my job and hopefully the board's job so much easier. Thank you for that overview, Kathleen. Alex. Yeah,
063thank you, Dr. Sullivan. Um, uh, that was actually a really helpful explanation. I'd just like to reiterate from my reading of the policies, and one of the things I'm proud about in Boulder is our efforts to make sure that all our kids see themselves and their curriculum and their materials and that what we're teaching is inclusive of everybody in our community. And I think managing these legal challenges puts us in a good position to deal with when that becomes tricky, but at the same time not backing down from honoring and make sure every kid sees themselves and their family and their heritage included in what they're learning about. So, thank you for the work on this and and I look forward to deeper discussions later when we have more time. Alex touched on my sentiments.
064I think as board members, we are obligated to follow law and we have an obligation to really do what's best for those in our communities to make sure they feel safe and welcome and represented in what we do. And I think the these initial drafts really do a good job of threading both of those and keep them at hand. And I hope our public knows that while there are going to be some unexpected changes along the way with the federal government and decisions that come through, we are still BBSD. And I really hope you're proud to be with us in the work that we continue to do. Any other discussion on this on these policies? Board members. Dr. Anderson, I I just like to take the opportunity to thank Kathleen for her incredible work um
065on these uh on these adjustments and uh want to just want to reiterate, Alex, what you and Nicole has have said. I think for us it's important for our educators that they know that they're supported uh and they know clearly um what the rights of parents are as determined by the Supreme Court. Um and and what the support that they have from us on teaching our curriculum um a curriculum that's designed to make sure that everyone feels like they belong and can see themselves. And I think that that's incredibly important. I think it's a big um part of our success in building just positive cultures in our schools and uh um but I I think the clarity is really important especially as these things that the rapids get rough. Is that the analogy we're going
066with there? Um uh clarity is going to be important and so our team has has been communicating with your approval tonight. Uh we'll we'll continue to communicate and uh and continue to keep you and our community up to date on on where things are with with with this with this policy. With that, Laura, can you please call the vote on policy consent grouping? Chavez, yes. Medler, yes. Quinn Linua, yes. Raj Paul, yes. Sergeant Hunger, yes. Motion passes. Well, board members, members of the public, that brings us to the final item on this evening's agenda, which is future agenda requests. Board members, anything to kick the year off on this topic. Alex, uh, I've spoken about it a couple times, but I I do look forward and I think we should probably have at some point
067a good in-depth discussion about artificial intelligence, and that's both an update of what we're doing, but also what what the strategy and the vision is for how we do it. I'd also suggest that I think that's a good there's a broader vision of that discussion, which is about the technology use in general that's going on. So, I don't know how to frame those two things, but I think both of them are worthy topic for us as a board to talk about and and learn more about from the staff. Jason. Um, thanks Alec. I was going to suggest the same thing and I I don't remember the last time we had this before the board, but I think, you know, I'd love also uh, you know, an update. I'm sure the technologies changed leaps and bounds
068since we last did that and I think it was just late last year. Um, but also kind of a broad not just on kind of the actual program we're using, but the broader kind of context of it all and how it's how we should be thinking about this, you know, going forward and not just what, you know, what program we're adopting, but the broader, as Alex suggested. So, I'm I'm in favor of that as well. While not an agenda item, board members, I just want to remind everybody that the CASBY Laura shared the delegate assembly document and if anybody has any feedback on those, maybe email that to Jason directly because he is our delegate for the Colorado Association of School Boards. That is coming up quickly. So, just want to remind everybody to give
069him some feedback on that one. And that then adjourns our business for this evening. Thank you everybody. Have a good night.