February 13, 2024 - Regular Meeting

001we will now reconvene our meeting with the reading of the land acknowledgement Beth would you please read the land acknowledgement for us I would love to Boulder Valley School District resides and operates on land that is the ancestral Homeland and unjustly and illegally taken territory of the Ute plean Arapaho Cheyenne Apachi Navajo and 48 other tribal Nations historically tied to this land who have called This Land home since time Memorial 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 the land with strength and resilience bbsd recognizes the histories of the land

002in Colorado and the survival of many nations that carry their oral Traditions into the present it is bbd's responsibility to educate ourselves our communities 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 and appreciate this land together I'd like to remind everyone that the mission of the Boulder Valley School District is to create challenging and meaningful and engaging learning opportunities so that all children Thrive and are prepared for Civ successful civically engaged lives good evening everyone thank you for joining us here in person and remotely we are glad to have you observe and participate in our

003meetings at this time I would like to see if anybody would like to make a motion to approve the agenda so moved moved by Beth seconded by lenia Laura can you please call the role Chavez yes medler yes Nik yes Quin L NOA yes Raj Paul yes Sergeant board member Sergeant you're muted oh I I thought I had unmuted it yes anger here yes motion passes thanks the first item on our agenda this evening is a superintendent report Dr Anderson good evening good evening board president Raj Paul members of the board good to see you all so lot's happened since the last time we've had an opportunity to meet and I believe that uh ry's got some slides and pictures to to pull up uh this morning I want to thank uh Nicole and Alex

004for being there for the New Vista topping off ceremony and Jason as well sorry about that Jason um uh it was a a really big milestone in the project uh a topping off ceremony for those who don't know is when the highest Beam on the building um is placed and uh it was really high up there today it was making me a little bit nervous to watch them actually climb up there and and place the beam uh it was uh I think principal John mclusky did an awesome job really just recognizing and reminding folks what New Vista is about and why we're building this new facility uh last week students had opportunity to add their names to the beam that that um was the beam that was hung this morning um and hoisted into place

005and so really just proud of the project uh for community members if you pass by it on Broadway it's the it's the beautiful new school that's going up right there near Baseline and Broadway uh very very excited about New Vista uh board members at the beginning of this month we had Educators from school districts across the state come to bbsd to learn about what we're doing to support uh The Surge of Migrant students in bbsd in into Colorado um as as they've arrived to our community um and to really recognize and and allow folks to learn more about our incredible newcomer programming um this event was coordinated by Colorado Department of Education and we were visitors at our rapo Ridge program at Boulder and and taures high schools uh they were able to heal hear

006directly from our amazing students administrators teachers and uh and and the Stu the stories that some of our students were sharing um just about the um the challenges in in in being able to make it here to uh to Boulder Valley uh we're really really inspiring and a lot of our students have just just definitely been through a lot um on their travels to get here um also gave us an opportunity to communicate some of the challenges that our district and other districts are facing uh and uh hope that CDE um will um be considering um some of those concerns I know will update in our legisl update there's some good news on this front on for districts being able to get some more funding um for our our newcomer students and so again it

007was a it was a pleasure to host everybody I'm just really proud of the of our of our schools and our programs uh as part of that event next we'd like to share congratulations uh for two bbsd ensembles that were selected out of all the ensembles in Colorado to share their talents and Inspire music educators across the state during the Colorado music educator Association conference hel Conference held at the Broadmore in Colorado Springs a few weeks ago uh this is a really big deal uh and so I'm very proud and and happy to congratulate the Fairview High School Jazz Ensemble directed by Travis Keller and then Monarch High School's Wind Ensemble directed by Chuck Stevens uh both groups performed to just packed houses it was just a wonderful event just really proud of our students

008in bbsd and how well they represent in our district and just thankful for CM EA for giving our students an opportunity to present so last week um unified teams from across the district came together for their annual bowling tournament at the Cole Creek Bowling Center in Lafayette I know Kitty was able to attend as tournament feature students from all of our comprehensive high schools with a team competition and then awards are presented to the top oer in each school as always these events are just a great opportunity for our students to meet uh and to get to know other students while practicing life skills and a fun supportive environment want to thank Jennifer Dixon from Monaro I know helped doing a lot of the coordinating we recognized her recently um at superintendent um uh recognition

009ceremony a few weeks back and our next unified event will be a basketball tournament in March and so very excited to be able to go and check that out and then finally one more update before our student moment um for those who didn't know this year Casey Middle School is turning 100 that is a is a remarkable remarkable uh accomplishment and to celebrate students are putting together an exhibit at the Museum of Boulder with artifacts filled with artifacts from a cent of educating students in North Boulder um we told it about took about three months and some visits to the Carnegie Library just to put it together um not to mention collecting some Treasures from throughout the community from from our community members so thank you community members um we we do expect that there'll

010be a celebration at the school this semester I'll make sure that we announce that so board members can attend if you're able to and then finally it's our student moment today we're excited to have a group of students from Nevan Platt Middle School here in Boulder and their principal Brook dare Brooke I understand these students represent your Inspire Ed program which is an opportunity to give you and your team some guidance as you work to build a positive School culture thank you so much Dr Anderson and the school board and um president rash Paul for having us this evening we're very excited to be here to celebrate the work of our counselors and our students um social emotional well-being and growth is a core belief of plat and choice and is something we value deeply

011within our community and above all else our primary goal is to foster a positive and inclusive culture where all students and staff can feel safe respected and welcome this work allows everyone in our community to have a sense of belonging where they can feel um where they can be their best and authentic self in order to create this environment daytoday it takes ongoing respectful and caring interactions understanding and compassionate support along with continuous direct and clear instruction so to this end we interweave the philosophy Fame framework and resources from four nationally research-based programs as the foundation of our work no place for hate sources of strength Inspire Ed in 360 and tonight we're here to highlight one of these programs which is Inspire Ed Inspire Ed was created by the sale I'm Sorry by the

012Yale Center for emotional intelligence with the core belief that young people matter and that they are capable of being active agents and improving their schools by elevating student voices and empowering young people to influence their school culture so I'd like to introduce Bryant Strauss one of our school counselors who helps facilitate this program thank you for having us um I've been running this program for four years at the middle school and I'm always so impressed we started with about 10 student leaders and now we are up to 20 and um our students are so passionate and they know so much and giving them them voice and empowering them to help them shape their own Community uh has been such a delight to be a part of and um I'm going to let you guys hear

013from the students um to hear what I mean and to see how this program has really helped us hello I'm April sepuka a seventh grader at plat and this is my second year in inspired Ed inspired Ed is a school-based program developed by Yale and its mission is to positively impact schools through connection collaboration and creativity at plat the leadership program is about 20 students from all grade levels and from both plat and choice our process is to assess the climate test that um the whole school takes in October as a group we analyze the data and then pick a focus to improve we plan and Implement a schoolwide intervention and then the school takes another survey in April and we see our results um next slide please thank you uh my name is Kieran

014Campbell I'm in e8th grade and this is my third year in the inspired program and I'll be talking about what we did last year so last school year um when we took the climate survey we noticed that the point to D had an adult talk about my school as a community was lower than we would like it so we wanted to improve that so um for the strategies we had the admin and counselors interview the staff and like talk to them about what we could do to help with that and then the Inspire Ed group I wanted to create an event where the entire school could come together as one community so then for action plan the staff did this really fun Community date at the beginning of the year um I quite enjoyed it

015and then the Inspire egg group did a schoolwide lip sync battle last April that one was also really fun and as part of that each team designed activities um to build community and I'd say that it worked really well since there was a 14% increase in that score from 52% to 66% thank you hi I'm Molly Johnson a seventh grader at plat middle school and I've been in inspired dead for two years this year we believe that the gossiping and rumor percentage was too high at 58% perc as an inspire fired Ed group we agreed to plan an intervention over the next few weeks to implement in March April thank you for letting us share what we do at plat middle [Applause] school thank you Platt middle school for being here and all the amazing

016work you're doing board members that concludes superintendent remarks for this evening thank you Dr Anderson and thank you to our plat middle schoolers for sharing your efforts around improving School climate and culture that's very meaningful board members do you have any questions or comments for Dr Anderson I just wanted to add that I was able to attend the newcomer event and the um it was really inspiring to see all of the leaders from across the region really coming together to Think Through how to sell help um really serve the needs of those students and it was was great um to have bbsd really be a strong example of with the work that we have been doing the work that we continue to do so um thanks to everybody who helped with that event and I

017also want to say the event at Justice or not at Justice High U New Vista high today was really exciting to be able to sign the beam to see the crowds to really appreciate the views um so thank you to our community who really um supported the work of that building with the bond uh the next item we have on our agenda this evening is public participation the board respects the right of the public to speak on matters concerning the operation of its schools the board does not Endor the comments of any speaker and reminds all those who speak that you responsible for your own speech speakers will each have two minutes to speak you will see a yellow card when you have 30 seconds remaining and an orange card when you have 10 seconds

018remaining if you run out of time or if you'd like to share any additional comments or feedback to the board you may email us um if you wish our first Speaker tonight is Riley laferty who received two minutes from Stella Murray hello um when can I start whenever okay um hello my name is Riley lafy and I'm a senior at Fairview High School and a student at hairstyling 2 at Boulder Tech um my classmates and I found out that our programs would be cut um would be cut within the next 3 years I'm here to talk to you today about that um over the last couple of years being in the hair sting classes I have learned a lot and become a more well-rounded person at the beginning of last year I was shy and

019self-conscious I I was terrified to put myself out there the kid I was then would have never stood in front of this board to talk about something that I care about being in the hairstyling program has allowed me to grow and gain confidence in a way that I can't imagine I would have without it on top of this growth I've also gotten the education so that I can get my hair styling license right out of high school I fully intend to get that license and go to college to get a degree I plan to use hair styling to support myself while I'm in college and then use What I Gain through college to support myself in my hairstyling career afterwards I think that adding programs to Boulder Tech is is a great idea when the

0202022 crit fa facilities critical needs plan was approved it highlighted the promise to expand Career and Technical education opportunities I don't see how getting rid of I don't see how getting rid of three programs that bbsd students have zero access to with without these programs is expanding is expanding career in technical education opportunities um I am I'm sure that many of you are familiar with Senate bill 19176 concerning concurrent enrollment but for those of you who are not I will give a brief overview this bill indicates that if that if a student wishes to earn post-secondary course credit then when still enrolled in high school and the district does not have that course or the equivalent then given that the student applies to the superintendent and gets per and gets approval the district is responsible

021for paying for that student to take a course at a partnered school bvsd is partnered with CU Boulder Front Range Community College and um Metro State Denver through this bill it is clarified that this includes technical um Career and Technical Education certification programs or licensing as well as college credit also within the bill it stresses that and a quote a local education provider shall not limit the number of post-secondary courses including academic courses which may include coursework related to apprenticeship programs or internship programs in which a qualified student may concurrently enroll during the 9th 10th 11th or 12th grade except to the degree that the local education provider is unable to provide access to the post-secondary course due to technological capacity CU Boulder has geology class 1,150 named water energy and environment and introduction to

022Earth Resources which to me sounds pretty similar to a natural resources um class this means that um and Metro State Denver has a culinary arts certificate which one of our one of one of my classmates will touch on later this means that there are already places where students can take these courses either CU Boulder Metro State Denver or Front Range Community College has any places where students can get the education needed to take a um to get their cosmetology license to me it seems that taking away three cosmetology programs and replacing them with culinary arts and natural resources would be considered limiting the number of post-secondary courses and not supporting sen Bill 19- 176 that is to my understanding of it um I would request request that the board would consider what I've said and

023reconsider the and reconsider the elimination of the cosmetology programs um they have made me into the person that is speaking to you today and I definitely would not be here without them I've also emailed each board member a copy of what I have said with my sources and um and footnotes as well as visuals and um the same things for uh what my classmates are also going to say today thank you thank you so much for your [Applause] time thank you our next speaker this evening is Carly Martella who was given two minutes from Isaac Leonard hetrick stylist and even having graduated from Boulder Tech cosmetology program in 1990 I grew up with a pretty much built-in love for cosmetology whether it was playing with someone's hair or applying makeup to my friends I fell

024in love with the Artistry and the opportunity to express my creativity when I found out that I had the opportunity to attend Boulder Tech and begin my journey to getting license to do hair I jumped at the chance and I have been fortunate enough to also be a part of the aesthetician program as well over the course of the last two years in these cosmetology programs I have been able to grow not only professionally but as a person as well and I have noticed a new level of self-confidence and self-love I will be eligible to be licensed as a hair stylist and as an aesthetician at the end of the school year which is an opportunity that I would not have had otherwise without acre tens of thousands of dollars in debt these programs are

025beneficial to everyone but especially those who come from lower inome households I have been told that the reasons behind the cosmetology programs being discontinued are that they do not lead to jobs that are high paying high demand or have strong Community Partnerships when asked about where they got this idea I was pointed to a compilation of data about the labor market from the Colorado department of labor and employment and the Colorado Workforce Development Council I reviewed that data but nowhere does it clearly identify any of the cosmetology Industries so I am confused as to how this conclusion was drawn in fact according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and I quote overall employment of barbers hair stylists and cosmetologists is projected to grow 8% from 2022 to 2032 faster than the average for all

026occupations about 89,4 openings for Barbers hair stylists and cosmetologists are projected each year on average over the next decade the two programs that are being introduced next year are natural resources and culinary arts the data is focused on the top 50 most common jobs in Colorado meaning that culinary jobs and natural resources jobs are some of the most common jobs in col Colorado I don't think that anyone would try and argue with that my main concern is why that is relevant the commonality of something has nothing to do with how high in demand it is or how much you make doing it this data Compares how high in demand and how high paying jobs are within the most fif with the within the top 50 most common jobs and a cook at a restaurant is

027near the top of that list but like I said earlier the data does not mention anything in the cosmetology industry since this is the only data that I was provided with it seems that the decision to cut the cosmetology programs at Boulder Tech was made purely off the fact that they are not in the list of the top 50 jobs not all people who get a license in a cosmetology field will have a job under the same job description I will give you a couple of examples you could be a hair stylist esthetician nail technician wig Maker barber salon manager salon owner sales representative makeup artist and that's just to name a few a larger can a larger list can be found on one of the documents that my classmate will mention therefore I request

028that the board withdraw the recommendation to eliminate the cosmetology programs thank you for your [Applause] time thank you our next public participant this evening is attending virtually Jon Padia hello my name is Jon bu badia I am a senior at Boulder High and a um hair styling to student at Boulder Tech as mentioned by my classmates we were very upset to to be notified on the fact that we would be losing our program one of the main reasons that I personally am upset about losing this program is because we are losing a humongous chunk of our diversity our cosmetology department is one of the biggest departments to host all diversity this year there was a total of 113 Hispanic or Latino students at Boulder Tech 37 of them were were a place in our three

029cosmetology departments the other 73 were in the other 13 programs when looking at the math that shows about six in every other program compared to ours last year there was an average of eight in each cosmetology program and five in the other programs please note the fact that the removal of this program will decrease the amount of Hispanic or Latino participation within Boulder Tech as a lowincome student myself I quite literally had no plan for college when I was provided this program as a last resort by my counselor I saw it as an opportunity to grow so did a few other of my classmates just to name a few um yeli ordas Juan David and many more all of these students have been attempting their hardest to either get their cosmetology license or try and

030finish it and be able to pursue secondary education in cosmetology with the removal of this department we will be losing our interest of diversification ation especially with programs that Latino and Hispanics are actually showing interest to I ask the board that they please reconsidered the decision to remove our cosmetology dep um departments thank you our next participant this evening is Jared Dugan okay thank you hello my name is Jared Dugan a second-year student in the hair styling program at Boulder Tech a third-year student of Monarch High School and currently employed at canor company a salon in Boulder I've come to talk to you about the removal of the cosmetology programs from Boulder Tech and my experience in the bbd's college before graduation program as you know one of the programs that will be replacing cosmetology

031will be culinary arts um my first semester of my senior year instead of going to my home High School Monarch I got the amazing opportunity to have my own culinary arts program um through classes at MSU Denver these courses included classes rst 1200 and rst 390 A and C one of them a basic cooking class this class served as an introduction to fundamental cooking skills methods theories and techniques we learned to demonstrate Proficiency in food safety and sanitation principles and learn to incorporate sustainable food practices including local food sourcing composting and upcycling my other classes consisted of three 5we courses Europe European Asian and Latin American Cuisine in these classes uh we explored the culinary history traditional cooking methods indig indigenous ingredients and roles played as a part of Global Food culture um I was

032able to take these classes due to bbsd College before graduation program these classes were more than enough to fulfill my culinary Beginnings MSU has a great culinary program that was very cost lenient it was always an easy commute whether I was driving or taking public transit you can finish that thought okay um as a student from the hairstyling program in a student from the culinary arts program at MSU the removal of the cosmetology programs for something that is easily offered through college before graduation raises important questions about the F future direction of our educational choices let's advocate for programs that Empower students to explore passions and careers seamlessly ensuring a diverse and enriching educational landscapes for generations to come thank you [Applause] thank you our next speaker tonight is Jamal Gilmore how's it going everybody

033good to see you again uh one thing we haven't shown or talked about yet is that how cosmetology or barbering or the hair industry is female Le and I feel like there's not very many other female Le Industries in your Tech program and I'm seeing some shakes of heads and so that with that said that says like um when you're a mom and you have to go to a baseball game where you have to go to any other kind of facility thing you have to take off and if you're a cook or somebody in the Green Space you won't be allowed to do that because when I say you need to work you need to work and if you don't work you're fired so as a cook you can't be a you can't have a

034flexibility of a schedule like we do as hair stylist oh to introduce myself I am uh the owner operator Genius of uh the Brooklyn barar Academy most of you know me as coach Jamal coach Gilmore uh I am a part of the Civic engagement in this town like as a hairdresser I'm a coach I'm a confidant I'm a mentor a lot of people have been in my shop here today uh I'm also if you notice I'm black so I am the unique person out here that means we diversity and you all speak about inclusivity diversity and all the really pretty language around education and being a community but what you're doing is you're killing diversity cuz in hair you don't have to be pretty you don't have to be skinny you don't have to be

035a male you don't have to be a woman you don't have to have a sex it's just about hair when and I look around here and I see you guys I I I notice like I I can't know your names but your haircut cost more than the Great Clips haircut let's just say that let's say like you've you've you've empowered a bunch of hairdressers in this town to be I own property uh I have you know I've I grossed over $100,000 last year uh singular not as a business as my business we did over $400,000 in Revenue so and that's just one hairdressing shop and there's 176 hairdressing shops in town I am eight weeks booked out so we need these young people these young people will help maintain Vitality in our business and our

036communities because we we'll be they will be the next coaches and the next people in there thank you so much have a great night all you have great [Applause] hair thank you our next speaker tonight is Erin Wilson or I'm taking Ashley cardos who was received to granted two minutes from Aaron Wilson okay is there a button here I have to push okay all right uh my name is Ashley cardos I'm a mom of two boys at Netherland Elementary I serve on the PTA board in sack I'm a prior Elementary admin and I'm passionate about ensuring equity for our Mountain schools as discussed at the Netherland School Board Forum in October four of the chairs here heard heard about the disparities between the mountain schools and those in the valley this goes beyond the dollar

037expenditure per student and is a widely held belief in our community the perception that we are given less is a lens for every interaction and it'll take consistent effort by this board and Leadership to correct the following are just a few of the areas that need immediate action to address these concerns sack NES does not have sack a critical element of school and Community Wellness there are however many schools in Boulder that have early and extended care many of our families work in Boulder an 8 hour work day easily turns into 9 plus hours with commute but schools only in session for 7 and a half we lack supplemental care options as a community attending this meeting alone is costing me near nearly $100 in child care with commute why are the basic needs of

038our Working Families unable to be met while I'm majority of families down in Boulder get care how is a Ned family expected to work full-time isn't that a district goal for kids to be career and college ready how can we model a career ready life to our kids when working families are denied support such as sack FTE allocations the lacking FTE at our schools has a direct impact on kids and culture by applying an equal FTE calculation across schools Mountain schools are disproportionately penalized for having a smaller population our schools also strugg struggle with recruiting and retaining staff being 20 mi up the canyon limits our talent pool for qualified applicants hiring takes more time prep and Care however again the equality of employee Ben the equality of employee benefits and pay across the district

039disadvantages us as there's less incentive for the broader population to even want to commute to Netherland what incentives can be implemented to resolve this challenge even more our rate of Staff turnover has notably increased this year and will continue into the 2425 year can the district partner with our interview committees to ensure a rigorous process of hiring qualified staff that would be helpful these are just a couple examples from a growing list of why the lens I mentioned earlier exists there's a baseline amount of required services that every student deserves what are the minimum standards across schools how will you guarantee equal execution of these standards bbsd proudly advertises ensuring the allocation of resources is responsive accountable and focused on student growth through customized supports if this is not a commitment then the Strategic plan

040shouldn't reflect this as a value in Colorado schools Finance act that pus recently signed it states and I know we're not a rural school but rural schools will get 30 million more to help with their higher costs related to smaller student populations Colorado rural School rural schools have gotten similar State AIDS since 2017 but our Mountain schools are not considered rural since we belong to an urban District it feels like we're between a rock and a hard place and the sense of urgency for more action is real and critical this year my husband and I now fear that we've made a mistake in making Netherland our home for no other reason but the schools the amount of advocacy required from families this year to feel seen heard and valued and secure has been a lot

041why should I Contin continue to choose NES or bvsd my expectation as a taxpayer and Resident is that keeping my kids here is a no-brainer that these things are stand standard without this much parent output operating this way easily translates into feeling neglected this neglect is either intentional or stems from ignorance my goal here is to shine a spotlight on some of the critical needs and disparities that the current policies create for Mountain schools as well as to eliminate any excuse for ignorance of our plight from now on any continued inaction or communication can only be from neglect trust in this board and Leadership will come with evidence of authentic and public advocacy for Ned schools please on beh of our kids help us thank you for [Applause] listening thank you our next speaker this

042evening is Steve Peak seeing as Steve does not appear to be present uh we will move on to Sarah Andrews good evening um my name is Sarah Andrews and I'm the parent of two kids at Netherland Elementary School my husband and I are public servants who do not have the ability to work remotely in fact I'm here tonight on my lunch break um the past few months we've had several concerns arise about the level of support NES receives but tonight I'm here to talk about the fact that mountain kids have no access to school age care or suburb programming that the students on the flats do this has created safety issues for our kids and resulted in hardships in our careers when I have reached out to the district about providing access to Sac or

043additional resources for our school I have often been ignored or told that the district doesn't have to and my question to you tonight is why doesn't bbsd want to with failing enrollments falling enrollment rates it seems that bbsd is at a Crossroads you could choose to spend your time looking outward trying to ATT attract people to the district or you could look Inward and focus on on creating amazing programs for the students you already have I think that if you do that people will naturally be drawn drawn to the district the kids in this District deserve to be thought of as more than test scores or FTE percentages they are amazing individuals worthy of more than the minimum the district has to provide thank you for your service on the board and your time this

044[Applause] evening thank you our final speaker this evening is Peg shipper good evening um my name is Peg shipper and I am here tonight as a co-chair for the bbsd title 9 stakeholder Council and for those of you who don't know we are a staff appointed Council that works with Liz Lindell the district uh Title 9 coordinator um our council is composed of community members BBs staff parents and Scholars and together we have a pretty Broad and deep uh knowledge and experience of a lot of issues related to Title 9 uh I'm here tonight to bring your attention to a report that we've recently prepared identifying several priority areas that we believe require urgent attention and recommending specific actions to address those areas um we have five main recommendations the first is that the district

045contract with a third party to perform a strengths and needs assessment of title n activities the second is that the district improves support in a few specific ways to students who are working on Title Nine issues the third is that the district expand the nature and scope of the title N9 advisory councils which includes the stakeholders Council that I'm a part of and also the title 99 student council uh the fourth recommendation is that the district revise the scope and distribution of Labor for Title 9 activities and five um that the district prepare and publish an annual report of Title 9 metrics so you should all have received the report I believe at this point um and all of these recommendations are described in much greater detail in that report thanks thank you this concludes

046today's public participation on behalf of the board I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to share your thoughts and experiences with us tonight we will now move on to the next item of our agenda which is board member communication board members who would like to begin actually let me kitty would you do you have anything you'd like to share this evening Kitty You're muted sorry that's going to be on my Tombstone um last night I was able to go to the Manhattan Middle School presentation of It's A Bard's day night and it was wonderful this is a seventh and eighth grade class taught by Brandon Price and he created this show from scratch he picked a Shakespeare monologue for each of the students the students obviously memorized them and the students chose a

047Beatles song that they wanted to accompany their um monologue and it was an orchestral um Arrangement not them actually singing otherwise we wouldn't have heard the kids but they had a great time they did a talk back afterwards and it was just so much fun and I'm so glad they did that and I was able to go go and then as um Rob had mentioned I did go to the bowling tournament um couple of weeks ago and I spoke to Jen who was the one coordinating it and told her that in the past the board had been specifically invited through an email to all of the um Boulder unified team events and I I told her I think we would love to get that again um know it shows up on in news and notes

048but it's buried in a list there so we should be receiving invitations for any upcoming um events this year and going forward and I recommend going if you can the kids are delightful they are so supportive of each other they're so excited for each other it's it you know there's so many friends from one school and an you know another unlike typical teenagers who who can be kind of clicky these kids are not they are great so it that's all I have to say it was wonderful Beth thanks for sharing that kitty um what you shared reminded me I had the opportunity to go to Legally Blonde at Platt Middle School I don't know week or two ago and it felt like Olive Boulder was there I mean you was like getting tickets last minute

049was impossible they were completely sold out it was it was wild but it was lovely and the kids did a great job and it was a lot of fun to watch um I was able to join Rob and Laura today at another teacher round table and it it's always such a great opportunity um it's hard to make time sometimes in our schedules with work and whatnot but I really value the opportunities I have to listen to teachers one-on-one hearing about their experiences and just really knowing what's on their mind because it helps when you're sitting here um and give so much contact for us so um just want to say thank you for that listening opportunity Rob and how much I appreciate that lenia uh I want to thank our community for bringing forward their

050uh Broad and deep knowledge um thank you to our Title 9 Council for bringing forward um I think it's underated the amount of community expertise we have in Title 9 in sexual assault prevention so um I just want to give kudos to our community for looking out for one another thank you Alex yeah I have a few things um one I was we had the uh um audit committee met uh this week and first off I want to thank this staff uh bill and his team but also Robert smart for really careful and in-depth analysis and other people have said it before about what a great asset Robert is but you see him in action you're like whoa how do we get that um in addition to the staff uh few things to share about

051the audit um or our meeting uh we reviewed the 2425 fiscal years second quarter financials which give us the amount we spent and received through December through the end of the year and then how much was on each fund and how that compared to last year and it's similar to the stuff we've had presented to us before um but within that report it's really pretty clear that we um are doing uh pretty well financially in terms of um staying on our budget or under it and being in relatively good shape uh for districts coming out of like the covid pandemic and the end of esser's money a few things I that were really notable for me I'd like to share um uh one thing that's interesting is people have talked publicly about their concern about

052sort of the end of the the co money running out and one thing good good to know is that as a relatively High affluent District we didn't get as much uh per kid but what we did was concentrated on our schools with the most low income kids and so like while our regular programming might not feel a hit this is another reason why we need to reserve money for our differentiated spending program because that's the thing that has uh probably received more of the sesser's money for our schools with higher concentrations so when we see ourselves um making our commitment to continue the differentiated funding and trying to pay for those out years that's a necessary thing to do and the end of the esser's money kind of complicates that uh another thing I think

053um there's data in there about the cost of the preschool program and we've we've heard about um uh the hassles of starting the program I myself I'm a huge fan of expanding Universal preschool and support the state moving in that direction and I believe ultimately that school districts will probably earn the Lion Share of the students once people figure out like like the pay scale that we provide which is one of the best indicators you can have of quality preschool because it leads to people staying in the job and so we have commitments to our staff to give them lovable wages and we have preschool that we provide with our staff so what do you know we pay more than other districts and when our enrollment didn't go up as much as we thought it

054would uh turns out we spent about 1.2 million extra it could be corrected on the totals but I think that's a bragging Point rather than like a complaining point and I think that we should actually tell the community about it and say by the way if you enroll in bbd's early childhood programs next year and which they will do through choice and they can figure out where they want to go you will be benefiting from our extra investment in this because we want to integrate it into our successful system so um I think we could complain about that and say oh what a what a hassle the state system is or we could say I just want you to let you know bvsd is totally committed to all our staff having liable wages we are

055totally committed to Quality early childhood education and we will put our resources into it until the state helps us figure this out so that's one soap box from that piece um another thing that pops up in um the report is interesting stuff on our workers comp and as we go into uh the negotiation with the bva um I'm really struck uh by the data on our workers comp claims um and it shows like we hear about the increase of the stress on teachers from uh disorder in the classroom or working with kids who are disregulated and can be violent and upset but when you see it in the concrete terms of a doubling of workers comp claims and then when you look at the month of October and see those it's like a sobering part

056like I'm not really into budgets but the things sort of pop out at you and you go oh that's what they're complaining about here it shows up even in our budget and our insurance so those are really real things from that process and um I just want to say it's uh really important stuff and we are well served by our staff when we deal with it um the other I wanted to share two other things not about that uh I was at the Dak meeting last week or two weeks ago in the Cole and I want to say for all the people that have been uh campaigning this time and youve spent uh 20 meetings having 30 seconds to talk about something you should go to Dak uh because you will spend um two hours

057having 50 really informed committed intelligent people having super deep conversations about deep stuff and it is sort of like the it's the other side of the planet from campaigning for office is to listen to the Dak um address their issues and they're dealing with important stuff and we should we should listen to them um uh also uh last night I had the pleasure of going to the Jewish community center's Forum on hate speech and hate crimes uh which was put on by district attorney Michael dhy uh was attended by um every police force um within uh a long range and a very diverse committed panel and I uh just want to say um one of the things that came up was the fear amongst many um communities that often the victims of hate speech or

058hate or uh bias crimes about the fears that going into a national election cycle brings and um I must say when I've heard from parents about uh just sort of anecdotally like the how you deal with young people in our schools using the n-word or whatever it is in terms of hate speech against other students and the casualness with which are at least our adolescence to it so yes these are young kids and they will do stupid things um but I think we should be thinking about doubling down on our no place for hate programs and other things that go on because we're just going to see more increases than that um over the next 15 months if I'm if I could bet on it in Vegas I would um and then finally I just

059want to go on a much greater pleasure note that the hallways art is fantastic I got to meet a couple of the artists and I encourage you to spend um 10 minutes and soak it in thank you Jason thanks um I can talk about the the casby day a little bit more the legislative piece of it during legislative updates but just wanted to highlight a few things um it was a really cool event uh just to be at the capital uh with board members from across the state um and I had the very good fortune of connecting with Lori Goldstein from Adams 12 uh who's about as connected board member as there is and she got us on the senate floor and connected us with a number of of our Senators including getting able a

060chance to talk to um our Senator uh president fenberg um we went over to the house floor and we were recognized um by the speaker of the house uh got to sit next to representative um Shannon bird um who Good Fortune she happens to co-chair of the joint budget committee which is relevant to the comments that Dr Anderson made about potentially additional funding for to assist with newcomer students um but it really just was a a really special day uh to be able to to have that access um to have real deep conversations with with members of the legislature um and again just really uh excited to be able to participate in that so and I can talk about some of the bills in the legislative update um separately but just wanted to raise that

061another thing this wasn't a visit but this has uh been something that's come up um few of us have raised this over the course of the last few months uh but there was an editori in the camera uh not original to the camera I think it was a a repost from Bloomberg News um uh titled ban Tik talk in schools uh get rid of cell phones instead and I want to just highlight a few things that it said um it's by now indisputable that allowing kids to have phones in the classroom harms academic performance it's linked to Rising rates of teenage depression emotional distress and self harm and so I just that's something I wanted I don't know if we can formally add to the record but I think that's another kind of evidence point

062um pointing to uh the need for us to kind of have a real robust um in-depth conversation about technology policy um Alex referenced the campaign there was no issue that came up more uh during the campaign than mental health and so here is um big flashing red lights something that is harming students mental health um and it's actually something we can do there's something we can do to add to address that so I don't know the answer to that I'm just wanting to kind of help make the case for uh the need to to really kind of think um thoughtfully about what our technology policy is so um yeah that's it thank you Jorge thank you um I just want to start by thanking all the students we saw us speak today um from the

063youngest students who are talking about their experience measuring the climate in their schools and trying to make some significant change we know Community is a big factor in terms of um making people feel welcome to addressing things like hate addressing things like mental health and to have students invested in that and building that is so critical it's a great model for the rest of our schools I think something we need to focus on the ways which climate overall we have community in schools can address so many of these different issues and I also appreciate the degree to which our students are so passionate about the programs they believe in um and the work that they're doing I think that speaks a lot to the work that our that our staff and our students are doing

064so I just want to um say thank you thanks um in the last three weeks since we met it feels like it's been a lifetime um I've had the opportunity to engage with our community in a bunch of different touch points so I was able to attend the bbsd connects at Alisa Sanchez Elementary and brunfield Heights Middle School um attended three round taes Mesa Cole Creek and Fireside elementaries and I agree with Beth that every touch point that we have with our staff and with our students and with our parents really is incredibly Valu to the work we do here um so thank you for those folks that showed up at those events and for letting us listen overwhelmingly the theme for from all five of those events were questions and wonderings around declining enrollment

065um so the work we have tonight and the work we have this month really is on the Forefront of our community's mind um so right you know I'm excited to get through that so we can rest put some of the anxieties and the worries and the questions of our community at ease um as Alex mentioned I was able to provide the DAC report to the Dack um for the for the month and it was a pleasure to be back the DC it's very informed very engaged a great asset and I was able by staying at the end um the budget subcommittee happened to pull me in and ask a bunch of questions around what does the board find valuable in our board reports how can we help make this information meaningful to the work of

066the board um as they work through how they might change their budget survey and their budget process so just another reminder that staying to the end can provide Mutual benefit to the board members and to um the DC members next next um with some of my board members participated in the very first opening meeting with bva for negotiations which was um a pleasure and a first for me um I also was able to attend the BBC's private screening of this is not who we are and I just really wanted to thank Nico via and her staff for inviting the board members to watch that screening um with them it was really uh it's a powerful film and it was great to see so many members of our staff um watching that through that reflecting two

067more items um the folks kind of related to Jason which you mentioned the folks from healthier Colorado had reached out to chat a little bit about a bill that they um are running with Judy M around healthier social social media used by youth it's House Bill 2411 d36 and I can talk about that if people are interested but there are a lot of mental health bills being run this session and then I had the first of our quarterly meetings with the city of Boulder cu you um County Commissioners and it was really great to see and hear from all of the folks that are working uh within the city of Boulder and I themes from that um really were a lot of discussions around housing stock and types of housing availability new construction and then

068um the degree to which the co relief money disappearing is really impacting all of these entities in very different ways and it really made me realize and think through probably for the first time how some of our families and some of the members of our community are really going to be hit on multiple levels as programming and services have to be dialed back as that money um winds down so something to think about um as we think through our own challenges with that money going away but that was my last three weeks okay we will now move on to the information items on our agenda this evening we only have one information item and that is the legislative update Dr Anderson would you like to begin absolutely uh things are heating up at the capital

069um just uh for for our public on February 20th we'll be hosting a legislative breakfast SL brunchish I'm looking at Laura I think it's scheduled for like around 10 more breakfast more breakfast unless they've changed the time well well let me double check on that but on the 20th and so for any of the members of our delegation who are um watching or if you know someone who's on our delegation is watching we'd love to have them all there to talk about the priorities the legislative priorities of the bll Valley School District say the top of our list is um some recommendations that are being made by um the the school Finance uh task force that recently concluded and made some recommendations uh I I think that the recommendations are strong provided there's additional funding

070provided to fund those recommendations and there's a hold harmless um mentality in funding um K12 uh as it stands today if the school Finance uh formula adjustments are accepted without additional funding then uh Boulder Valley will um have $7.5 million Less on an annual basis uh to do the things that we do as a district which uh is is a significant amount of money especially if you don't really see it coming and you don't have the runway to be able to try to adjust and figure that out um I would say that uh as a member of the Front Range superintendent group I co-chair that group along with Tracy Doran from Jeffco uh we are heading down there in March as well um as superintendents to advocate for this idea of uh a um we

071do think there should be the funding for um rural continuing funding for our rural um districts our rural Partners uh that um and and certainly I think that there's some Merit to some of the um some of the aspects of the changes but without new money taking from what some districts and giving to other districts uh is not something we support and so we'll be sharing our thoughts and opinions on that and uh if that if it does go through without additional funding board members we just have to have some tough conversations uh $7.5 million in recurring money um means we're going to have to take Services away from students going to have to hire less people or we'll have to pay people less uh 90% of our money is in people and um and

072so in any event I think that my hope is that we're able to advocate in the right ways that we do think that there's funding that can be spent on public education um in in the budget and that's what we advocate for um but that's the biggest thing happening right now um legislatively that we're watching and paying attention to Jason um yeah I'll just add a little bit to that Dr Anderson um you as I mentioned we met with uh representative bird um who chairs The Joint budget committee um and they were I think uh they were actually just about to meet that afternoon uh to discuss kind of midyear budget projections um and the the number that was thrown around was $24 million in additional funds for K12 uh to address the newcomer students

073and help uh help school districts um provide some relief uh to be able to support those students and so I don't know you know where things are exactly with that but there was a real understanding of the need there um you I know we've had I saw in news and notes 67 students and 200 something since October just to put that in perspective I I don't know the actual number of students but there's an article in the New York Times about the impact in Denver and they've had 40,000 newcomer students 40,000 migrants I don't know how many students that translates for DPS um but so when you think about a $24 million you know uh allocation of funds obviously Denver is is um kind of Ground Zero for where that the need is um and

074so I don't know what that means for Boulder but um you know it's those kind of the conversations across the capital were about just the needs it's affecting every District rural suburban and urban obviously Denver most prominently so um there was a real understanding of the need um I don't know that 24 million is sufficient but um and I don't know that that's where things will end up but that was the number that was talked about uh when we were there last week um another bill I mentioned and S Nicole you raised at our last meeting was about the um the uh essentially the book ban legislation um that would put a process into place for uh challenging books um and I think a lot of other districts casby included uh objected to that legislation

075raised kind of practical many of the Practical uh and kind of logistical concerns that you raised a few weeks ago um so those have all been shared with the sponsors and other folks around that bill I don't know the prospects for that but I think at the very least um they have they now have maybe they didn't when they introduced it but they now have the sponsors have an understanding of um how what this means you know practically for school district so um if hopefully uh if it moves forward some of the concerns will be addressed um but I'm not sure so um yeah and then just a few other we had some conversations around a whole range of other bills uh on charter schools on uh Naran use uh students being able to administer

076Naran other students there's legislation that was introduced that was kind of the hot topic of the day there so uh obviously lots of things in flux were Midway through the session or their Midway through the session um but it was uh yeah lots of things we're following and exciting to be there so thanks thank you for attending that event Jason um one bill I wanted to bring up board members that we are um supporting is Senate bill 24-14 which is the Seal of climate literacy diploma endorsement um that would authorize districts or allow districts to Grant a high school diploma endorsement um if they can demonstrate Mastery in climate literacy attain attain green skills and Technical green skills as well I shared that information with our Green New Deal students ahead of the opportunity to

077provide testimony and lobbyists did offer to bring if they wanted to give public um testimony down at the capital they offered to take them around and and introduce them to members the students because it was a school day were not able to take them up on that opportunity but um they were also given information on how to you know write um right to the legislators and share their thoughts on that one so relevant to the work that the resolution that we just passed and that the work we're doing this District so I want to bring that one to your attention oh Kitty Kitty You're muted yeah sorry my daughter just walked in um I had wanted to go to the legislative breakfast but uh I mean not breakfast um did Kitty you muted yourself again

078yes I'm sorry about that um a couple things I wanted to say about some bills the Jason you brought up the book band bill and it's it's true that it creates this really cumbersome and laborious process but the part I liked about it is it had good protections for public libraries and schools to not ban books and I did like that piece of it so I hope they're going to work on making that a little bit better um what else oh yes the independent ethics commission jurisdiction I'm curious if we know what the um you know what the impact could be because reading the bill I saw that penalty is double the value of a gift if you got a gift however um litigation um fees could really build up and so I'm this is

079just wondering and I can ask you know I could talk to Rob later is that something that would that insurance would cover or not so I'll ask that at another time unless somebody already knows and that's all I have to say about legislative stuff board members any other questions or comments for legislative update okay well um at this time I would like to call a five minute Comfort break if that's okay with the board thanks happened to office I'd like to call this meeting back to order um the next item on our agenda this evening uh is action items consent grouping 8.1 Personnel items 8.2 approval approval of minutes January 23rd 2024 regular meeting 8.3 acceptance of donation Crestview Elementary 8.4 academic fees for the 2425 school year 8.5 licens renewal with Advanced Network management

0808.6 architectural design and Engineering service contract for Monarch High School 8.7 angine Middle School Centaurus High School Extended Learning Colorado Department of Education 8.8 Grant Columbian Elementary School Extended Learning color Department of Education 8.9 Grant Crestview Whittier University Hill Extended Learning Colorado Department of Education 8.10 Grant Justice High School Extended Learning color Department of Education are there any items board members like to pull from this consent grouping hearing none we need an motion to approve the items in the consent grouping before we begin discussion motion by Jason second by Jorge board members is are there any discussion on the consent grouping items no lots of Grants on here hope we get those uh Laura can you please call the role in the consent grouping Chavez yes medler yes nnick yes Quin L AA yes Raj

081Paul yes Sergeant yes hunger yes motion passes okay board members um we do not have any action items on tonight's agenda so we'll move on to the policy items we have three policies up for study this evening um the first is board policy JC School attendance areas Kathleen I will hand it over to you thank you good evening board members we did I do have just a couple of slides just to help walk us through this process a little bit that we're not part of your agenda item so this is the graphic we've showed you before these are definitely intersecting policies so we will be taking the first bite tonight with JC the attendance boundaries policy the Open Enrollment policy and regulation JCC and then the schools of choice policy which is if so a

082couple of reminders we've talked a little bit about the board's evolving policy style book we will have both our grammatic and our word choice conventions as part of the style book and there were a couple of things I just want to recap that the board has accomplished over the last several meetings so so the board will recall you adopted your revised board policy process and established that that policy itself that umbrella is really intended to establish the board's philosophy or Central principles regulations specifically have the force of policy based on this board's work but this tends to be where we place more detail so that we don't lose the philosophy of the policy but we're able to have the level of detail tell that the board believes best serves the community number three now this

083this may be more of a Kathleen Sullivan approach to policy but I'd like to encourage its adoption so one of the things that I have found over the time I've been doing policy work in Colorado for the last 16 or 17 years is that when a board is really wrestling with a particular topic or point of contention you may see that point or that issue strung out in multiple different places in policy to make sure we don't miss it the danger is that when you go into revised policies it can be hard to find all of the tendrils when they're overly intertwined so I really encourage us to think about presenting that essential content in the primary policy and then using the cross references at the end of policy to help people see the other

084place as they may want to look and then the last item is just a reminder of things that we have talked about um eliminating gender pronouns making sure we're using preferred terms like student Community member and school district with some reassurance to the board when you do big work like you're doing tonight and you did on your B chapter policies adopting 20 in one meeting we will go in and make sure that if there are elements like uh board member Sergeant found a hey gender pronoun in the drafts that we do correct those and capture those for the board so with that in mind we're going to talk about four tonight but I want to highlight for you that there are several other related policies that we are going to be touching so there will

085be a few things that we may be pulling out of policy like references to transportation that were littered around to centralize them in the transportation policy so these are items that are currently in draft but I'm not presenting to the board tonight they need a little bit more work but things will clean up over the next couple of meetings to go along with this work okay so beginning then with policy JC um and this first take at a red line is we don't necessarily always do policy in the same order but here we had a series of fall meetings where we talked about these topics and there was a significant amount of board discussion as well as staff input um and so these redlines really tried to capture all of that input as well as

086the excellent input we received from the elra council and from Dax policy subcommittee the board will note that the Dax policy memo on open enrollment is attached to this agenda item and was adopted by deck formally last week all right so JC we start with a nice easy one this is the attendance boundaries policy we had uh codified this policy for our district in 2019 and before that it was really just an old version from 1978 I think the board noted there were some formatting problems with this policy there's stuff over a line under a line under a note so the main revisions that we we did here was just bring everything together into the right format to establish at least a fiveyear review cycle to identify the process for and timing for changes by

087incorporating that language into the boundary modification discussion and then rather than cementing into policy a particular solution when there may be attendance boundary changes putting in language that makes sure that we remember we need to plan for those schools and families that are impacted in the event of a boundary change so that's Redline JC board members who would like to start Beth um Nicole Kitty and I have had the kind of the pleasure of of looking at these policies kind of a couple times um both before we turned over the board and now the new board um and I just I just want to say I feel really proud of the work that we've done here um it's a lot of very deliberate wordsmithing that has some pretty big implications I think this one is

088relatively simple you know one of the biggest changes that jumps out for me um is the board shall review such areas at least every five years we're naming that to my knowledge for the first time ever we're creating a Cadence and Tempo and it might be a little bit of a shock the first first time or two but I think once the community gets used to that kind of cadence and that opportunity provide feedback this is going to be a really helpful policy so I just kind of want to start out out of the gate saying how happy I am with this in general and like thank you and thank all the board members for their hard work on this policy and all the staff thanks Kitty thank you Kathleen and I'm happy to say

089I found hardly any issues and they were all pretty much just typo type things but anyway I'm glad we're doing this I'm glad we're putting in a schedule so that we will continue to look at it I had read an article and I think it was an education week about an AI program that a school district used to change the boundaries and their concerns were making sure that the schools were each as racially diverse as possible and I don't think the article said what the program was or how expensive it was but is that something we would consider doing Dr Anderson I would say that as this policy is revised um you know what our staff would do would be to to to kind of draw up a how they would go about reviewing the

090reviewing the attendance areas I think we would come come up with a a um kind of a rhythm right you know and whether that started with you know bringing this to the public to the board here's any board concerns or doing some type of constituent engagement I'd have to learn more about the program Kitty I think that there's programs out there um that can help us do do the work that we want to do more efficiently and effectively I think that we're going to continue to learn about those as AI evolves um and uh we we'd always look to any product or any um solution that might help us do that better of course yeah it was just a thought and it was just a small blurb in the magazine Alex um I just want

091to did what Beth said I'm I think this looks great and will position us well in a good shape to move forward on the on the thought of as we move forward over five years and revisit this um I'm interested in technology too but there's also some really good people who work with districts on these issues and it's you know folks like Brian ashbacher who's done a ton of work with um Denver and other districts around Colorado and nationally and so when you when you want to figure out how to achieve ends through your attendance boundaries there are some people out there who have that's that's their their jam and we might want to think about taking advantage of them Jason um yeah I agree with Beth and Alex's comments um I wasn't here for

092previous version of this but excited to be part of this version I I thought about this when we discussed at the last meeting or whenever that was um and the word review the board shall review such areas as at least every five years is that too unle I don't know do do we need more specificity there on like what that means uh I don't want to like lock us into something but I worry that that could just be like yeah we reviewed it we were moving on I feel like we the the intent seems to be you know a real um substantive review of boundaries and not not necessarily just kind of a check the box and I just a question I don't know I don't have any suggestions but I just worry that that

093word might be not clear enough Kathleen Rob yeah I I'd suggest we leave it there uh for now and then um I I I certainly understand uh the point you're making in regards to uh you know the threshold to review could be could be light touch but I don't know that that's the spirit in which we're we're we're bringing this forward before knowing and understanding what process we'll use how we'll do that how we'll engage in community I'd be hesitant to have something too prescriptive there um but if the spirit of the of the policy is in this whole Spirit of declining enrollment and what we've said publicly around the ideas of that we need to review the attendance policy re review meaning look at where we might make some changes that might make sense

094to help with declining enrollment um but I don't know that this the policy needs to get that specific um that uh but but you know to it's at the board's pleasure in regards to how you want to handle that that's how I interpret that I think that that's how our staff would interpret that um but but I but I hear U hear the point what you're making Kathleen and I would obviously endorse what Dr Anderson just said and agree I think reev review to me is an active word where in other policies you'll see for the board it's a report will be made to the board those are the items that I think are more passive and review really does for staff this is a get ready present good information and make sure you're ready

095for a very uh robust discussion Kitty Kitty you're muted sorry I want to say Kathleen said most of what I was thinking but just to reiterate about reviews the board never gets down in the weeds to actually do the work of reviewing it we rely on staff for that and they present and like Kathleen said we would have a robust discussion about that um I also wanted to just highlight the addition uh additional language around needing to be considerate of the financial viability and um the board needing to be responsible fiscally with its resources of which uh buildings and capital assets are so I like that addition as well I concur with my fellow board members that this policy feels like it is in excellent shape any further feedback on this policy High degree of

096alignment which feels positive um we will then move on to board policy JCC assignment of students to schools and jccr open enrollment Kathleen back to you those darn mics and the buttons Kitty I feel you um so board policy jecc assignment of students to schools has uh not been touched in 22 years so this is an exciting exciting moment um there are few things that we did and I realized that originally I wrote this slide and said we Consolidated and revised policy objectives and I went when I went back through again I realized that we actually are proposing to incorporate those policy objectives into this policy for the first time these were based on the board's discussion but the bullet points you'll see there in that second paragraph am I yelling into it thank you

097into that second paragraph um come from the board's discussion the other piece that I want to point out that I think is really important is as we talk about issues of Title 9 and bullying working and learning conditions and Equitable conditions in schools there are times where we as a district need to make decisions about where students are enrolled to make sure that all kids are able to access their education so we brought that language forward into this policy the board will see it's at the bottom of page one under that section of school assignment where we talk about other than o overcrowding or these other administrative placement or transfer provision students would ordinarily be assigned to their neighborhood school as is amazing and wonderful about this board I did receive some comment from board

098members after the agenda the red lines were made available and whenever I can I do want to make sure that I review those and can come to the board with some recommendations where it's important I think that one of the things that we did was poll from j-r the regulation where we had the language around the right of students with disabilities to have admission decisions made without consideration of disability status so we brought those items forward into the policy and then board member medler um shared the suggestion that rather than saying we're not going to ask about disability status that we assure our families we're not going to consider disability status the difference is if they're already in bbsd we know their child's disability status so that language really wouldn't bring much Assurance to a

099family that they're going to receive that that non-discriminatory admissions process so I think that's an important suggestion that I would move forward into that next draft it's really just a language change there for JCC and then the other part of this policy on school choice again there were pieces of this that are in the casby sample that are embodied in state law that we just didn't have so those pieces were pulled into give the bigger framework for school choice um and then also including the last item of this policy jecc a discussion and a directive that we have data systems that will consistently provide the school district with the information that's needed to make both good policy and practice decisions so that is the basic summary of red lines that have been made to JCC

100thank you for that overview Kathleen board members any questions or comments on this policy talking J uh on JCC at this time Alex thank you and Cath thank you Kathleen um for that summary of the other change I appreciate that um one thing I I would think about is in in the the first set of bullets on bullet number three we say ensure Equitable access to school choice opportunities I'd be interested in adding a a phrase there um something to the effect of Ensure Equitable access to school choice opportunities and promote the representative student population in our schools that reflects the diversity of our community or something to that effect so it's more than just like making sure that access happens but the full like how we design our schools and programs and the other

101stuff that contrib attributes to it also plays into whether our schools become representative of us as a community or not so I think access alone doesn't capture what we want to have in the principal that's why I would say get to the representative nature of our programming in schools Kitty okay I unmuted um I have a question for Alex um what you suggested what would that look like I mean I like the idea of it the change that's been made in state policy uh which is done at the uh in order to comply with the office for civil rights at the federal level is to make sure that the the enrollment decision is made without access to the information the first part is to say to let people know that you won't make a decision

102based on it the second part is to not ask them about their disability status so someone would disclose it the guidance also clarifies that if the if the person does disclose it you won't use it and that if you already have the information you won't use it and then uh once there it separates um admission to the student beginning to uh attend the school and get Services there so once they're admitted um then you would have the IEP meeting if necessary and then determine if the school could provide fape and then uh some kids uh may be redirected based on the students individual IEP but they would know that the decision wouldn't have been based uh for the original admission on their disability and it would be handled in the IEP the one thing this

103change the addition I'm proposing helps on is that parents of kids with disabilities myself included as a parent of a child with a disability they want to know is the school going to be good for my kid are they are they interested and capable of serving my child and so it makes a lot of sense during a choice exploration that they seek out information and say hey my kids like this what happens to kids like this in your school so you don't want to discourage the exchange of information but you still want to make it clear to them that their admission isn't um affected by what they shared with you during that exploration that's what the addition would change does that help Kitty no because I was referring to the the part when you talked

104about making sure our schools the diversity of our schools represent the diversity of the district and and I may have misunderstood what you said thank you I guess on that one in terms of a principle I think of um access is a big part of open enrollment but there's also the services that kids receive um that are designed for them to succeed there and so we could open up we could improve our choice policies so that they look particularly Equitable and then still not have programming in the school that serves all the students in our community so that they would stay there so you can end up having stuff that becomes um that ends up leading to uh stratification in the students that we wouldn't have wanted our choice to generate but we don't want

105the schools to gener at it either I guess would be the point so not only in the open enrollment and the design of our schools we'd be thinking about not just making sure they're allowed to apply but making sure we've made the schools so that they'd be successful for all our kids and be attractive to them thank you I understand that better now thank you Alex and kitty for that thoughtful discussion um I agree I really appreciate you um adding that priority about having our schools be representative of the old District right it's not just access but making sure that parents have the knowledge and the ability to actually take advantage of them and you know and I think for this policy keeping it simple having it at the Forefront to kind of help Drive

106our decision- making it's going to be all our other policies and I and I want to say thank you to the Dak recommendations that are not detail about what we should be doing but how we should be prioritizing our decision-making right um and so thinking about Transportation thinking about our tennis districts thinking about programming across the District of what it's going to look like and including the longrange planning as as a part of that um and so um the addition of the data at the end of this I thought is great so I really appreciate the work that's got into this and I think it's kind of Taken shape nicely thank you um thanks for that discussion board members um around that third bullet I I like the brevity I I like that it's open

107and um leads one to Think Through the different types of students that we are going to try to provide uh access for I think if we think about I wouldn't want language that might cause us to try to mandate demographic populations at a school so I'd be careful about like getting more granular on that language around um access to um these choices and what they look like I agree with Jorge that um having that at the Forefront is really helpful um really aligns with the DC recommendations and the discussion this board one comment I had um on the last sentence of the second paragraph on page two on jca um I just want to clarify all of our students are placed by a lottery um regardless of whether applications exceed space so I'd recommend striking

108that final sentence or adjusting it to read that students participating in the open enrollment process will be offered seats available by means of random selection Lottery just to really be clear that we will always have a lottery system because of our Focus schools and because of our choade schools it doesn't matter the number of students applying so just clarifying that sentence was um the change that I pulled up there and I really like a lot of the um pulling over the Athletics pulling over the um fape to this overarching policy and really setting the tenor and the tone and the goals of this district and what we're trying to accomplish in this big policy um as we work through regulation um and different levers that need to be pulled or considered as we have schools

109that need to be looked at or focused programs that need to be looked at in the future Alex um on the third bullet I I think what I proposed and you don't I you don't have it written in front of you but it's not not I'm not I didn't propose that we use the language of Ure for both the access and the representation because I don't think we can ensure it um so what I suggested was ensure Equitable access to school choice opportunities and promote um uh the representative student populations in our schools that reflects our community so I totally recognize that we can't make that happen was nothing we could do in policy and it's really tricky board members other comments on jecc Katherine do you Kathleen do you feel like you have good

110direction oh sorry well I I would like to clarify um are people if we use promote instead of Ensure are people okay with that sort of change to the third bullet is that any objections to that I guess I would leave that up to Kathleen to look at in further detail and whether it aligns with some of our other language would be my preference I'm and come back to us with something or because we can't vote today as a study item so I just want to make sure we're not getting to a vote Rob so we're not my My Hope Is that after today's work session that there's real Clarity around what's coming back to everybody because on the 27th as a reminder is when we're bringing the enrollment presentation as well and so these

111should be ready to go right so uh for Kathleen if we hear this is the challenge right we want to make sure that we are responding to the will of the board you know if we hear one member give us some suggestions which is great as long as there's a knot of heads right but if there's some conflicting like if one member says one thing another says another thing it's hard for Kathleen to decide how to kind of work through that so even if we take a couple of extra minutes and folks you know folks who haven't weighed in especially on like items where like I heard you say Nicole brevity I heard Alex promote um a different statement I heard Jorge support Alex share I I I just we we don't we want we

112want these things clean only because of the connection to the 27 so I'd ask for a little more dialogue until we make sure that we have consensus or a majority of opinions leaning us in one way or the other Beth Andia I guess I just wanted to have Alex clarify one more time the his proposed statement um so on the third bullet I would have it say ensure Equitable access to school choice opportunities and promote the representative student populations in our schools that reflects the diversity of our community I think I support that I think it's fine um I appreciate the the point of brevity but I also feel like it does capture something else and thinking back on all the information that Dak gave us around this topic I think promote feels Feels Right

113without locking us into too much uh too many requirements so I feel I feel good about that I also feel good about it let the record show Kitty's thumb uh yeah I I agree with those recommendations I still prefer brevity but we will move on to jccr thanks there's another proposed addition I have but I don't know if this goes in JCC or or in JC jccr um so I'd like Kathleen's advice on that one and that is the one about the right of return to a neighborhood school do I've recommended it for both do you think that's for r that is for R so let's let Kathleen present jccr thank you I do that would be my recommendation is that we talk about it here so that's great I love it when it all

114comes together so JCC are this is going to be a real gift to our community when we give this thing a serious haircut just to pick up on what we talked about earlier today I'm not sure if you realize you also cut the fees list from like 18 pages to one on your consent agenda so well done based on policy work from just a few months ago so JCC dasr so what the board will notice here is that the red lines which look a little bit like a blood bath which is why you got clean copies too is that we're really proposing that we take this back to the right view so that every time we have a technology change or some small logistic we don't wind up having to overhaul the entire regulation so

115in restructuring it we I took out all of the detail what date would it be due when who does what to whom and all of those and really tried to capture the dax's recommendations around what are the most important pieces of this we want to know what the timing is we want to make sure that we've got that information available to our community appropriately and just really dramatically reduce the volume here um the board will also notice that after the board's discussion at the last meeting about where some of the geographic preferences came from in conversations with our team it seems that that really is not something that is leveraged with any frequency in open enrollment so this red line strikes all of those Geographic and non-charter school specific preferences it's a starting point there's

116obviously a lot there the board can discuss we also simplified the employee preference I I think when you looked across the district's preferences and then you look at Charter preferences we were getting into highly fractionated people um it was hard to understand where that number really even came from so just dramatically simplified in this red line and then um the final piece clarifying Charter School preferences I think we had a pretty good conversation at the last meeting about the fact that some of the charter school preferences are tied to their contract so if we were to have a significant disagreement with a charter school about what to do with preferences say today and tomorrow our best leverage would be at the contract renewal but it doesn't mean that that's the only time and I certainly

117have heard every board since I've been in this District have concerns about the equity of those Charter preferences um I the original thought that I had was just a little preface a little paragraph to preface those preferences and then leaving them in place after some additional conversation with board member medler I do I do see utility in actually striking them out of the regulation at this point knowing that we would have to visit them in Charter negotiations if they didn't agree to immediately adopt the district preferences but it does leave us with a much shorter simpler more straightforward policy regulation that I think would be easier for our families and community members to understand so those are the big overview of the prep of the changes to jc- as board member medler signaled there was

118some conversation at the last meeting about could kids who've choiced out of their neighborhood School come back to their neighborhood school without going through the Open Enrollment process I wasn't sure where that landed I didn't attempt to put that into the red line at this point but you'll see that those those kids are currently captured under preference four for the district so if that was going to be something to be addressed by the board then I would do it in the context of those preferences Kathleen may I ask a point of clarification So based on your recommendation about the charter language that is not reflected in the documents that we have would you remove all of that language or would you still leave a paragraph about Charter School preferences and how they will be negotiated

119in Charter School contract period um so I feel like they need to be addressed somewhere to signal to community I just was not clear based on your description how where that would look or how that would look at this point based on the discussion we've had my recommendation would be a paragraph that explains back to our policy style book this is the board's philosophy when it comes to chter school preferences so it would be a short paragraph something like we have now that's very clear that this board would not support preferences that it considers to be inequitable thank you Jason um yeah Kathleen thanks for capturing this uh I really uh appreciate the conversation we had at a previous meeting about this and I think your paragraph here really summarizes that and kind of the

120the goal and um you know and I I would agree if that was Alex's recommendation to I think keeping the language in here with the charter school preferences as they exist is very confusing and so I think a clarifying paragraph about um you know what our goals are you know what we hope to eliminate um you know there was something in the the Dak memo about um I forget the quote but you know choice when unregulated and poorly designed Works to exasperate inequality and preserve advantage and I think about that when I read these preferences and I think we want to you know all of our other policies are kind of pointing the other direction of you know addressing um or you know not having unregulated choice and really being thoughtful about how we design

121these um these Choice options and so I think um you know as you have it with the paragraph makes a lot of sense and getting rid of the charter school language I would really strongly support that as well Beth I basically want to say ditto I was going to say the same thing I feel like this makes a lot of sense for Simplicity um for our community having all this charter school information here doesn't really track um so I think that sounds great Kitty so I have a question Kathleen did you say that a charter school could choose to adopt our open enrollment policy if they wanted to before contract negotiations yes I believe they could but they don't have to I I I think as any good lawyer would board member Sergeant I would

122reserve my ability to make many different creative arguments about why it should happen sooner than later it would probably depend on exactly the language that we were talking about so I haven't yet had had any conversations with our Charters that still have preferences that aren't aligned with the districts so I don't know what their responses would be but I certainly have heard from this board that once this policy and regulation is finalized we'll need to initiate that conversation with our Charters right away I think timing of the year we are in February so at this point we would be talking about changes that would apply to next year years Lottery thank you um because one question I was going to ask is you know do you have a sense of what the charters are thinking

123so you're not so you're suggesting we immediately renegotiate the um attent uh the selection process for um Charters even if their contract is not up is that right yes and that's that's in large part because I believe that's Direction that's been clear from the board board member Sergeant for the last several years that we've been really looking at jc- and I agree with the others that having the charter schools um items in there can be a bit confusing but until their preferences change it would be good to have some kind of cross reference to where somebody who wanted to know what the procedure was or the pref were for Charter Schools could easily find it Jason then Alex just kind of on that point the the language says bbsd intends for Charter School admission criteria

124to be incorporated and I don't you know short of requires I don't know if there's a stronger legal word but that seems pretty clear and intent and um yeah so I I again I don't I don't have a better word I I think that that is pretty clear there um about what we expect effect of the charter schools yeah I would just like to I want to clarify something I I totally support Boulder Valley's great charter schools and I know there's wonderful people in all of them with whom we could negotiate about our goals and intentions and I I really don't think we need to frame this in any adversarial way at all I think we just talk about the principles of our community and um entering into that negotiation I will say uh one

125one point that is good to know is that in the same way a charter applicant can appeal being denied or a charter school can appeal to the state board when they're non-renewed a charter school can appeal to the state board if there's a unilateral condition put into a charter contract so our policies um in order to have the strongest standing ironically should be to direct the staff to negotiate on behalf of our principles rather than to say the charter school is required in its contract to do X because then we have foreclose the the opportunity to negotiate but when we negotiate we can negotiate as strongly as we want and this policy will give us the ability to negotiate with a strongest hand um along the conversation about the charter schools I feel like this

126is something removal of this language is something that I've been asking for for a long time and I think it's also important to make clear that we've removed the names of all schools from this policy we no longer call out any school type or by name at all and so we're moving this language for specific Charters um and calling those out by name would be aligned with that um Principle as well so as Focus strands and focus programs change might you know evolve or change or um what have you not having school names in this policy I think is a strength and we can provide some of that extra detail to Kitty to what you were saying or let folks know what those schools might be on our website and on the information that we're

127going to really be proactive actively providing our community in a different way based on recommendations and board policy jecc so I think there's a bunch of ways to look at um taking that language out I think it's a really positive addition um similar to my comment on JCC I on jccr the last paragraph on page one refers to um if there's a lottery and so I would just again strike that and or simplify it to say that you know the Open Enrollment Lottery shall incorporate the following preferences so um that little cleanup there for consistency and so the public knows that we will always have that lottery I think is really important this policy used to be seven pages or so the removal of the charter school language will bring this down to two pages

128our public will be better informed they will understand what is going on with the clarity um of this new policy uh and I I really commend the work of this board the work of of the previous board the work of the deck to provide some direction for us and for our community that upholds our values sends sends the message of what we hope to accomplish and doesn't over complicate it open enrollment should not be overly complicated and this is a really good first step um to ensuring that is the reality for our famili so um changes that have been made here I just wholeheartedly um agree with and I'm really excited for lenia uh if we're okay on the charter piece I would like to talk about number four students wishing to return to their

129designated neighborhood school um I'm of the opinion that I would not like that to be number four I don't even know if I want it to be in there um I think if you want to return to your neighborhood school that's something given the current state of enrollment that we should you know we we want to give people choice but that is still giving people choice if they choose to come back to their neighborhood school and I think that could easily happen um so anyway that's my opinion on number four so I have a wondering about that um there are not very many schools that we have that are at or near capacity but there are some and so by not having that be a preference and not having to have our students go through

130a process to get back in what might that mean for those schools that are at or near capacity um so before I I would make a directive I would want to understand that um and if that's the reason why this is a choice in here somewhere a preference in here somewhere I don't you you you could potentially have to add staff you you'd pay for the C twice right so when when um if you uh if you staff the school to handle the students coming in through choice right you pay for that seat right through a staff member and then if you allow folks to go back to their home school in some instances it's no big deal right if they're if they class Siz is under capacity if if there's room if you have

131the rounds then they move over that's not a problem now if the teacher say you have one teacher who has 31 kids right and you move two kids in 33 then it's probably $125,000 to split that class up into two now we do budget for that within our instructional Reserve as folks move around right um so the intent probably was uh was in a different time in a different like you know our schools were bursting at the seams you know potentially you know the I wouldn't know the impact Financial impact of that until you did it and that we could try to track it and it could be not a big deal um or could be you know if depending upon the number of folks who were at a school and wanted to to come

132back um so there would there there potentially could be a financial implication but that you know this is if this is the direction of the board we would just have to track it and know and understand what that would look like um and let you all know I don't know that we have a way to track we don't know that the impact because folks don't even see it as an option today right so so we would have to just track that but there could be some staffing implications so I think that' be interesting and then I know Kitty has her hand up only because anecdotally when my kids are both at Foothill the number of folks in both of their grades that decided to leave to go check out Horizons and high peaks and then

133came back the following year every single one of them got their spots back through the Open Enrollment process and so um you're not talking midy year you're talking the following okay all right so we're talking about two separate things um so the following year if we knew that they were they were if we knew they were coming um that would be one thing if we didn't know they were coming um and they showed up after the fact it would just be it would be like we would handle when kids don't and register enroll until the first day of school right and that happens oh so then that wouldn't even be so it's two it's two different things one is an open enrollment point and one is a whenever point of of this policy so it's

134this polic talking opening yeah two scenarios I go to High Peaks I'm there for a couple of months I don't like it I want to come back to my school that could potentially be an unplanned Staffing situation right I go to High Peaks the next year I don't want to go to High Peaks I want to go to my neighborhood school if we know that the child is going into their neighborhood school as a pre as a preference right then we would know for sure and then they would accept it and if you don't put it in as a preference then you would never know if they were showing back up I don't know how you would know so two slightly different things okay um I'm looking at our staff because because I'm I'm guessing

135I have that right Robin do I have that that right do you want to come up to the podium and maybe kind of help us out a little bit Kitty while Robin's coming up to the podium you would you like to ask your question yes part of it got clarified I first of all I didn't realize we were ever discussing a student at any time during the school year can go back you know should be able to go back to their neighborhood school so that's one and my understanding of this um regulation is going back the following or any subsequent school year and then I also I'm confused lania about what your opinion was because I heard you say you didn't want it as a preference so does that mean you didn't you don't want

136them to be able to open a roll back or yeah I just want to make sure I understand what your um opinion on that is sorry I was confusing Kitty anytime a student wishes to return to their neighborhood school I would like to see people have that option I understand the concern about Staffing so maybe it's not possible and maybe it could move to a different position on this list I I do think it's important as we see kids homeschooling and going to PR private school that I would like to incent them or make it easy for them to come back to their neighborhood school which holds a lot of um wonderful incentives about busing and being with the neighborhood kids and I would like to understanding I could be wrong is that any student

137who lives our boundaries who is HCHO in private school who has open rolled out of the district could decide they want to go to their home school the same way a student who moved in in the middle of the Year could do that is that right Rob or am I wrong about that nope that's correct okay so for the situations lenia you were just describing there would be no barrier to those students coming back to bbsd to their home school um and I so that was yeah okay Robin yes so first um in reference to thinking about during the school year transfers of enrollment from one school to another that is as a general rule handled through our handled through our administrative transfer process process that is defined as due to extenuating circumstances however uh

138if a family is going to change their students enrollment during the the school year that does qualify as an extenuating circumstance and so that is a decision based on Staffing and based on Space availability so if a family were to apply then through the Open Enrollment process as a preference to return to their neighborhood School in a subsequent year that is at a certain level also dictated by space available because there are sometimes uh schools that don't have much if any availability for increased enrollment due to open enrollment I plat choice is one example that very often is at its maximum student enrollment um per you know per grade level and sometimes for example it could be that that the maximum number of students that we have in eighth grade for example are already present

139and are articulating up from seventh grade to e8th grade so there wouldn't necessarily be space in e8th grade for a student through the Open Enrollment process to return to their neighborhood school now Choice obviously is is a choice program however what I can say is that those cases are rare and far in between uh a recent example on a broad scale that we had is in the pandemic families were provided with the opportunity to choose Boulder Universal if they wanted during the entirety or part of the pandemic to enroll their child in an online experience as opposed to in a brick and mortar experience and we made the commitment as a system to those families that if they wanted to return at any time uh after a short period of time or post pandemic or

140at any time to return to their neighborhood school that we would accommodate those preferences and and a number of students the majority of the students that initially enrolled there uh were initially enrolled at bu did return to their neighborhood school and we were able to accommodate all of them so this gets a little bit to the entangling of policies that Kathleen laid out in the very beginning because we do have a policy and administrative transfer so thinking through that um a little bit as well Kitty and then Alex so Robin I want to make sure I OD what you said that it it sounded like you said that if a parent in the middle of the Year wants their student who is open enrolled somewhere to go back to their home school and they threaten

141to go outside bbsd that that would be an extenuating circumstance and would the child would be eligible for an administrative transfer um no partially in if a family applies for an administrative transfer from one school to another during the during the school year we do our very best to accommodate those students and those families uh so and almost so many a very high percentage of those we are able to accommodate so it wouldn't be dependent on whether or not they were consider considering an outof District choice for their child it would be dependent upon space avail aable uh and the ability of the school that they would like to return their child to to accommodate them with their current Staffing thank you that cleared that up Robin I might have a question for you too

142um how many students move into our district after October and how what's our rate of student Mobility districtwide that's a great question so I am very happy to get the exact data for you we have a number of students that do come to us after October account and a number of students that that leave however overall enrollment fluctuations are really minimal in our district compared to compared to other districts across the state so let me clarify what what I'm thinking what I'd like to facilitate and this is based on actual experience when I was at community monor and people would enroll a community monor and their three-year-old four-year-old experience might be okay and then they figure out that the monory thing is not working for their kid and they're like okay I want to get

143back into Table Mesa or whatever neighborhood school and at that point those parents were told no they'd had to do it through the Open Enrollment process back into like Bear Creek which was over subscribed at the time so the the indignity to me was someone who's been in one of our choice and focus schools is not able to get into their neighborhood School while somebody else who's been enrolled in Private Preschool actually has preference ahead of them because they don't have to open enroll so what I'm trying to to push for is that at least for the next year the students who have exercise Choice don't participate through open enrollment they just enroll through the same process so we're not talking about a preference we're just talking about the right to enroll for the next

144year and then a second issue is that midyear transfer and I'm I'm hoping that we could accommodate that as much as possible but to uh superintendent's point you know Staffing could be hard and we should treat it with the same ways we do the administrative transfers the other thing I want to raise this will be the I we this is a conversation but I think this conversation is much more important as we continue to do preschool because we're going to have preschool programs that expand not everywhere but we're going to have the expectation that they go from the preschool into the kindergarten and then we we'll have to have the same discussion about preschool students and their access to their neighborhood school for kindergarten you bring up um a number of good points and it

145the circumstance that you reference in in it with your own child and and and enrollment at Community monu you are right in the past either prior to declining enrollment or in the very earliest stages of declining enrollment that often was the situation that when a family wanted to return to their neighborhood school or to any other school for that matter that space was at a premium and very often schools were not able to accommodate midyear transfers that is much less of of a situation now sure yeah just to be it wasn't my child it was a friend's child but to be clear the advice they got at the time was two pieces of advice well just go enroll in a private school for 6 months and then come back and you'll be able to get

146in ironically that that's where it was so perverse and the other one was well why don't you just contact your Schoolboard member and they'll make sure this happens for you so either way I just want to make sure our policy is not as arbitrary or as discouraging of choice as it was in uh 15 years ago ago Rob so obviously the scenario you're that you're talking about doesn't feel right right like to to to to be able to enroll in your neighborhood school you have to jump through hoops that some can and others can't right like that's that's certainly an equity issue that that we that I can understand I guess the question I would have is for us it's just important to know where kids are going to school and not going to school

147right so to the extent that um to the extent that if a f if if if we kept it as a preference and the number one preference the downside would be that if they're not taking open enrollment then they couldn't get the seat uh the benefit of that is that we know then where they're going um and where they're not going right because if if if a parent doesn't tell us that they're taking their kid out of community monu but they very much know and they're going to go to their neighborhood school when we allocate the FTE for the neighborhood school we don't allocate for the kids that aren't going to be there that we don't know yet right but we would allocate for the school that we think they're going to stay at but

148we don't know that they're leaving all right so there's a some logistical challenges around a not letting it get in the way right and if you if you if there I'm sure there's a way if we thought about it you could bump it up to number one and make a statement to saying that you know that uh guaranteed ad admission or something along those lines but for for me I'm just thinking Robin just the logistics of being able to staff our schools appropriately because today when we staff our schools in March we never take staff away if kids don't show up I say that today because that may not always be the case it's a luxury to be able to do that most school districts that I know of that I've worked in on the

14910th day of school if you have too many staff you take the places where there's too many staff and you put them at the places where there not there's not enough staff and what we do is just we add more staff temporarily right we don't want to disturb any classes we don't want to disturb any learning that's happening right um so I think that that's the logistics I understand what you're trying to say which is right like if you want to go to your neighborhood School nothing should get in the way of that and it doesn't matter which we could do we would just have to know I would just wouldn't I'd pay for it once I just wouldn't want to have to pay for it twice if there was a way that we could

150prevent the signaling around that right because otherwise we're going to over staff somewhere and understaff somewhere and then we don't have a good way to sort that out I have one question related to the last comment we have a section in this policy About Preschool saying that pre do the complexi of Colorado law preschool assignments shall not be subject to open enrollment procedures the example you're referencing is a preschool to Elementary and I just wonder if there is a way to maybe make that one sentence stronger and I mean some of our students with a prek open enrollment process they they don't even get to choose what school that they end up and so I wonder if some of what we're after can be cleared up in that sentence about preschools um like preschoolers going

151into Elementary School are starting fresh I you know that I just think that that's an opportunity um and because we have so little control over preschool enrollment right now that I wouldn't I would want to hold those folks harmless for wherever they end up um at preschool and I think that that might be um a place to address that part of the concern um if Kathleen if you feel like that language could be beefed up Lany you had your hand up and then Kitty I do see your hand up I understand Rob what you're saying about that we have to know where they're going to be and if and I was just going over in my head what happens if you put it as the first preference it's it would put people going into their

152neighborhood School ahead of people who've moved away but want to remain sibling and then an eligible employee it's not a I I don't think it probably is a lot of people but what I think it signals is we want you to go to your neighborhood school if you want to but you have to go through open enrollment just because you left right that's all it's saying but it's signaling not you're fourth in line if you moved it to number one and said something alongs of lines of students returning to their neighborhood school would be guarant guaranteed admission right like you you would make it a clear statement but we'd want them to declare that they were doing it so we knew ahead of time right like like that's the trick because if we don't know

153and and this is what happens with kindergarten right like we think we're going to have a bunch of kindergarten kids then a bunch of kids show up uh and you never knew that they were going to show up because you've been trying to round the kids up they actually literally call a kindergarten round up we try to round the kids up uh and and and so if you know and parents know I mean then as long as they go through the process and there's a clear process that everybody has access to and for any situation I mean the only TR challenge would be is if in March or April right you realize gosh this isn't for me now I want to make the decision and then that would be this wouldn't capture that as opposed

154to if you had no if you had no deadline or no notification right the variability of where we put staff because you have to put you know we're already hearing that we need to get Staffing out quicker to school so folks can hire because the markets are getting more competitive which means we have to do our enrollment projections earlier right so you know we're making enrollment projections in February and then if in April May folks are deciding then they let us know in June or July uh you would just have to absorb the variability and it would be difficult to project that what that would be which would create variability in the amount of onetime dollars that we'd have to spend to cover it uh but I do think that you could direct direct a

155preference where it's a if you're on time in District in your neighborhood school and you want to go back there's nobody more important than you being able to go back to your neighborhood school if that's that would be the will of the board you you that's how I would I would suggest that that we would move forward to do that so I just want for the record to say that I will have a high degree of heartburn if a family that has to move out of their neighborhood school because they can no longer afford rent or because their parents got divorced get trumped because we're mandating somebody that made a bad choice gets a spot like that gives me heartburn um so I just for the record putting that as a number one guarantee I

156think there are consequences and we will um I think all of our students to I want all of our students to attend our neighborhood hood schools and I want to do whatever we can to ensure that is a viable option and you know when we move these things around we no matter what we do there will be unintended consequences there'll be some really great gains that we're really hoping for but there will be some unintended consequences and I just am a little bit worried particularly with the rising rates of rent the rising housing costs um the reality of divorce um and shifting family structures death of a parent needing to move in with somebody else School stability for a student it is priceless and like if there's something that I could protect that would be

157the thing that I'm going to protect is that stability for that student who is going through challenging times um so I just wanted to add that as we consider making that a number one guarantee um before I turn it over to Alex um I just want to absolutely support your sentiment there um that's why I would also suggest that once the students's enrolled in one of our schools that they not have to open enroll to remain enrolled through the rest of the grades of that school and that would be another thing to take out of the Open Enrollment process and just say regardless of where you live for the next 4 years this is your school to a second grader you know um and then again that's another thing you don't do uh with open

158enrollment and you keep your enrollment and that's what we want to keep our kids in our school so we don't have to have declining enrollment and then they're not set off against each other but they're both people the one who's in the school is entitled to stay and the other one can also return I feel like that was a point that that I brought up at the last um discussion uh extensively about putting that in the Adu but it wasn't included so I just assume that there was a rationale for why that wasn't included but if there is or is not now would be the time to know about guaranteed admission for in school yeah for families that are in a school I had suggested the last board meeting that we make it an Adu

159update if they move but they can stay choose to stay if they don't want to stay it wasn't adopted which I just assume there is a good wise reason and if there is for um the way our systems work or um knowing where students are I I'd be happy to engage about whether that should be a preference or not but I was leaving that up to District staff for some guidance and then sorry Rob and then kitty kitty then Rob okay um Nicole I agree with you in terms of a kid who has to move for unfortunate circumstances we certain I would not want to traumatize that child again either by having them move um that happened to me but fortunately my ex-husband lived in the attendance area of her school so we just switched

160her address I didn't have to do anything but we might have had to um question about preschool so the Sorting Hat tells where kids where they're going to preschool is that right yes and we're all chuckling at the Sorting Hat reference yes it's not the school district that decides that so A Child finish so a child goes to preschool in a school that is not their neighborhood school does that child have to open a role to go to kindergarten in their neighborhood School no at the at this point the preschool location Open Enrollment starts at Kinder right there's no element of open enrollment either going into preschool or coming out of preschool it doesn't yeah I just wanted to clarify that so kid can go to their kindergarten in the school in their attendance area

161regardless of what they've done in preschool okay yeah and I could support the coming back to your school as you know maybe move it up on the priorities because and I understand that and Alex I understand it more this time when you talked about it when you gave the example um than I did before so I appreciate your position um but I I agree with Nicole I would not want to put it ahead of a kid who has had to move in the middle of a school year Dr Anderson you could just put both groups of kids in the same tier right you don't have to have one and two it can be one which is this or this and that's one if if there is heartburn around that piece if if the if the

162feeling is regardless of this of the of the of the situation we feel like these things should always be true as part of our policy and then to the extent that as long as we as long as we know that that's happening that would help us consider the Staffing implications um and just like moving in sometimes makes Staffing bump up a little bit this might make it would just be part of the equation but there isn't re any reason you'd have to pick one over the other I think you could put them both in the tier but I would say that for both it's good to know it'll help us plan it'll help us staff more efficiently it'll help us make sure that we're not under or over staffed to the extent that we can

163can predict some things and I'm looking at Robin I mean that makes sense right like you just put them both in the same tier yes absolutely there's no reason in my mind at this point that that wouldn't work Beth and Jason then Alex you know my my feelings on this are are largely unchanged I support keeping it um I support moving it up my main contribution to this I've heard a lot of great points is that I think we should add a sentence for the the community that says something like students wishing to return their designated neighborhood school with space available just a hey heads up you can take your kid out put your kid at Horizons or whatever you want to bring your kid back to the home school it might be Creekside Creekside

164might not be available just a warning just be aware of that and then simple right um just a maybe a suggestion maybe I'm missing something but um would it would it clarify this whole process and you know address the notice if in the opening sentence we I mean to me opening roll it's clear it's for the next school year but maybe that is not clear here and so we say something like the Open Enrollment Lottery process for the coming school year shall incorporate and then it seems to address the advanced notification issue I I don't know maybe I'm missing something but it seems like that would provide Clarity there and then however we decide to preference it but at least we're not talking about midyear kids we're talking about like planning and you know in

165like for the very next school year and is that is that all that's needed maybe I think that that clarifies it but I I do think that the the question at hand that that the board is wrestling with right now is um if you if you Choice out of a school and the next year you just want to go to your neighborhood school right should that should you have to should that be dependent upon space available or dependent on a lottery or should that be a guarantee right so um and then should that guarantee be more or less or the same guarantee as a family who's in the school and then for unforeseen circumstances has to move out of the school district so you know if those two things are incredibly important to the board

166and then those two things are the most important things to solve an open enrollment then you would put them at the very top and you would say that these students right are you know basically guaranteed enrollment right and when you say one you've never guaranteed enrollment before except for the kid who is already at the school because they never get disenrolled right they always stay but who hasn't always been able to get back in is the kid who lives in the neighborhood tries a choice program realiz that their neighbor they miss their neighborhood School something happens and and sometimes those kids don't get back into their neighborhood school as with Alex's um uh example Alex then kitty yeah I guess um to to Beth's scenario that's what I'm trying to fix that's the current status

167quo basically you're in open enrollment if there's room you can come back I'm trying to say treat them like um I guess the language I would use which I shared with Kathleen is students that open enrolled in a school other than the school assigned to them according to their attendance area in which they live May return to that school in the following school year without without using open enrollment process on the same basis of other students residing in the attendance area for that school and so there you have put them on equal footing but you are guaranteeing them now the proposal to say take the uh both into the same tier but guarantee them that for me that achieves the same thing um and then you just have to deal with it like you say

168the same way you would families that move in or families that were in private schools and say we now want to show up um and that I'm just trying to put them on equal footing while also maintaining continuity of instruction for the kids who are there who have life changes Rob then Kitty the one difference being that you got to know by January 6 that that's what you want to do and that if you decide between January 6 and the end of the school year that's based solely on availability in the school but that also allows us to staff appropriately based on what we know which to me is the problem I'm really trying to solve for because we you know these the you know teachers come in $125,000 every one is $125,000 right so

169if you get it off by 10 right that's a million dollars more and so to be able to know and understand where things are I think is just from an operational standpoint will allow us to to manage class side is to do all the things that we try to do as we allocate staff Kitty so is do we have a problem with parents not understanding or making themselves um aware of the Open Enrollment policies I mean is it a do we have parents who just want to show up at school because like say in 's example or they were in private no not private school but just not go to their open enroll school and just show up in the fall at their neighborhood school I think it depends Kitty I mean I'm sure there's

170all kinds of folks who show up at all kinds of schools and don't know the rules and aren't familiar with it with the US education system forget the Boulder Valley education system uh I do think that's something some of that you know is is is true um I think that if you if if you make an adjustment if it's the if it's the will of the board to say coming back to your neighborhood school should should be a a guarantee right I would say you you shift that in the same tier as number one is now and then if you do that and you say something like guaranteed admission in if if on time if if you're on time and in District um as ex unless you move out of District then that would be

171the way to solve the problem that you're that you're thinking about the implications of that um I don't know I don't know how many folks would take advantage of that you could shift you could shift Staffing um potentially um what you could do is and and if you also did that then you then the the the choice program would know how much room they had too right so they could fill to it so I think you can solve a lot of the problems and issues and it's just a it's just a it's just a change it's just a a preference change um and um and and you know you could do it for a year and then see what happens and then it's onetime money versus recurring money if if you know something goes hey

172wire I don't I don't see how it would though yeah and what I was thinking when I asked that question is these parents by definition have been through the Open Enrollment Pol uh process those are the parents I'm talking about so are we doing I'm just wondering if we are communicating to our parents as clearly as possible what the policy is so they're not confused Dr Anderson I think what makes it confusing Kitty is that um in a lot of places in not Boulder Valley right you always have a seat at your neighborhood school now maybe not so in Colorado everywhere else I've ever been across the country if you go and it's it's true if you choose a private school or it's true if you choose a um an outof District Choice school right

173and if you choose something outside of the realm of the district and you don't want to go there right if a kid chooses to go to Jeff Co or to Adams 12 and that doesn't work out they just come back to enroll in their neighborhood school because they're a new student and so there's an inconsistency with the choice that people like like there's choices that people can make where this works for it and then there's other choices that it doesn't work for it and those other choices happen to be our choices so there's there's just an inconsistency there that could be confusing thank you so how the current system works and how our new policy language um what it articulates is that a family once they apply receive a spot they have 10 days to

174notify the district if they're going to take that spot or not if we're now saying that you can notify us but it doesn't mean a whole lot I'm worried about the the financial implication of like what if it's not one student that kind of tips over like I'm the cost of staff is real I'm also worried about then the choice deat that becomes V that that occurs after we've shut down our weight list because our policy also talks about when seats weight list will no longer be honored and so a student leaves three weeks in and that like a new student because we're into this start of the school year that vacancy may not be filled it may not be filled by a student that isn't with us that we could have had otherwise that

175is nowhere in our district um so the implications of that and then again I keep coming back to the implications of our administrative transfer policy and how that relates here I don't want to over complicate this policy in a way that is offsetting the the preferences in a way that's working against the process and the timeline we've identified that is working against um our administrative transfer policy I really want to make sure that um it all coordinates together so if it's a change that we're suggesting that we're going to allow we need to look at the rest of the language of these policies and see what sort of how it all plays out um and again guaranteeing I I would like if space is available you get the number one priority but guaranteeing you a

176spot if we do not have space available puts us in a really tricky spot um financially and and otherwise so the the guarantee language I love having them together as a first preference it honors and JCC the language around we really value bbsd students attending bbsd schools um and that policy also talks about space available so if if we're ignoring space available we have to go go back and revisit all of these policies and we did make a commitment to our community that we will have these done uh red lines approved at our next board meeting and so overly complicating this I I just hope this board can get to some language that is clean doesn't have a lot of tendrils which is a priority um and gets us to a place where we have

177some some consistent agreement Kathleen and then Dr Anderson I do think it's really important that were very clear that the Open Enrollment policy is about annual School enrollment that weightless language the other language the preferences this is how all those seats get filled and then the administrative transfer and placement policy applies to those midyear moves for extenuating circumstances that policy will come back to you it was one of the related ones that was on that second slide so we can clarify that in the admin transfer language as well as open enrollment but but this policy governs that annual School assignment that a kid is being assigned to right because the first part of JCC establishes your philosophy for school assignment and then the school choice process so I don't we shouldn't get too tripped up

178by that midyear move because we don't have to fix that in JCC or jc- R we just have to know for purposes of planning and Staffing as Dr Anderson was indicating which I think could be accomplished through that preference alignment make them both preference one I think the point of the Open Enrollment registration is so we know where kids are going to be and where the seats are open that we get to fill it's less about are you someplace in the lottery where you're not actually going to get that seat because you're lower and more about we need that notice consistent with our Lottery process so that we know where the seats are open and where we can fill students in yep Kathleen that's what I was going to clarify I think that um you

179know after the Open Enrollment window is is is closed uh anything else is an admin transfer right like so you start in August you want to go back in in September that's an admin transfer consideration yes um if you if you accept your if you accept your seat back to your neighborhood school right and then you want to go back to your choice school like that would be an admin transfer right right like so so it would be it's just trying to create the right mechanics to say if you went to a choice and you tried something out and it didn't fit that you don't have to pick a neighborhood school that's not in your neighborhood you can go back to your neighborhood school like that's that's how I'm hearing this being described I apologize

180if I'm not being clear with the way that I'm trying to kind of get get you all there but it it would be and then you would do that by aligning that with the first preference and to the extent that I said guaranteed because you could run into the fact that that school would say we're not accepting any open enrollment so if you're First Choice then it doesn't matter but if you were to force it early right if you were to force it early then that would just we you would treat that as just kind of the part of the just the way that the the way that enrollment breaks right you would treat it just like if somebody moved in like nobody moves into the community you say nope we're full like we say

181you're full if you if you want to come back but if you if you show up new come on in so is there a process for requesting a break you pass me a sticky note that says I would like a comfort break and then I call one but usually between topics Beth and then Robin I I Echo Nicole sentiments I mean pretty pretty clearly pretty similarly I don't feel super comfortable with guaranteed emission like that feels too strong to me however I just keep I'm literally just writing the word space available over here because to me it feels like we need to have you can come back to your home school if space is available which is kind of how it already is right like you we're not going to take you in if there's

182not literally a spot for you um so I I feel I would feel comfortable with combining the preferences moving it up and adding a sentence that says something along the lines of if space is available I think it kind of covers all the bases Jason lenia I think yeah I just I just agree with Beth's comments I think uh you know inherent in preferences that it's there's no guarantee and so I'm uncomfortable the guarant I'm uncomfortable with the word guarantee but otherwise I agree with how Beth described it Nicole as well as far as how we move it up um as long as we don't guarantee anything um it seems unnecessary to me to say if space is available because all of this is if space is available so I while I'm fine not saying

183guarantee I also don't think we need to say if space is available because all of it do you understand what I'm saying that's what we're doing um and given that I brought it up maybe maybe there's not that many people in front of this person trying to come back to their neighborhood school anyway but I think it's about signaling that we want you sorry you turn on your mic and I just want to make sure I follow up with that before I go to sure I could add just one small Nuance that um the the point about on time in District First Choice on time so that we do have our number numbers of families wanting to return to their school of attendance in our initial rollup so that in January before we do Staffing

184we have those numbers but just to clarify that our open enrollment process does continue and we do allow families to apply for late open enrollment families can apply for late open enrollment and be admitted if there is space available and for that reason we continue to monitor each school's weight list very consistently all the way through the end of the lottery until September 1st when the weight list period closes the administrative transfer period runs from September 15th through April 15th just as a point of clarification Alex I guess I guess I would bring this back to the declining enrollment issue we're in a district where we're going to have to reduce services and we're going to have to um close schools perhaps because we don't have enough students involved so when a parent who's involved

185in a choice school is not having it work and they can't return to their neighborhood school is a very good chance they'll Choice out of the district or into a private school so I think um and I think uh putting them at the front of the line but still not guaranteeing them the spot is pretty much the status quo because we're going to have as we manage our choice we're going to have fully subscribed schools uh as we're trying to spread them out so I and I feel strongly also to Nicole's point about those uh subject to divorce or other things that make them leave that we should give them the guarantee that we don't put it in open enrollment we just say you are entitled to stay enrolled in our any school that you're

186accepted to for all its grades so it's not part of open enrollment and similarly say outside of open enrollment if you get notice to us by January you're entitled to reenroll in your neighborhood school this is not part of open enrollment it's just signing up and I think that's how we keep a few more 100 students in our school system over the next decade on top of um I guess the reason it stuck on my craw when it was happening at Community monu it was actually subjecting a student to a choice school that the family knew was not working for their child out of administrative convenience because it was inconvenient to figure out late in the game how you would accommodate this child so as long as we want more enrollment let's keep them and

187then the people who are unhappy are probably the first most likely people to leave our district so one of the things we can do is say hey stay in the district come back to your neighborhood school um and I I'm pretty sure the numbers are small enough that they are I'd love to know the data on how much Mobility we have how much in-year registration we have and so we could say hey we're talking about 15 kids a year in a district that may has 400 kids um move in throughout the year or move so that's like I'd really like to know what the status is and if it's a small number and we have a lot of Mobility um then uh then I don't it's not a problem for me to guarantee it and

188it helps us do what's right for a kid educationally even if it's inconvenient for us as adults lenia then Rob I just wondered if you could tell you guys could tell us how you've seen this other places how neighborhood schools work um so so a couple things the data you're asking for I think would be an incomplete set Alex only because that folks don't ask for because they know they can't have it right like the the data we could get is the folks that apply under preference for that don't get it like we could pull that right I mean that that's what you're looking for right that that at a for preference with no guarantee unless space is available how many kids over the past couple of years have actually applied through that preference and

189have then been denied like we might be able to get that information that's that's the data point I would think we'd look at the school choice law in Colorado is unlike any other place I've ever worked um not bad or good just very very different right the idea that you pay taxes one place you can send your kids to another place like very very like in Florida and in um in Georgia the choice is all district or Charter it's not any District school so it's just different it's more comprehensive and and it really prevents balancing you know if we had the cining enrollment in a in a place like um Atlanta you'd just redraw the boundary and you'd call it good you'd balance your your population problem we have is you you can do that

190but then folks say nah I'm GNA I'm GNA keep going to where I'm going and but if not then I'm going to go somewhere else and if you keep doing it and keep messing with it then I'm going to go to take another Choice that's not bvsc at all like and there's a balance that is so so I do think that it's complicated um you know potentially to move us forward we could draft a couple of versions right one that keeps it as is one that moves it to a number one preference and then another that moves it to guaranteed number one preference like those are the three things I've heard right and then you could you could then you could vote it up or down as a board because I just feel like we're

191getting to a place in the meantime we'll look to try to get that data to to to on how many folks um applied under that preference and and we're shut out of their homeschool right and we would have to that before we'd have that in the I'm looking at Kathleen cuz I'm making all kind of promises here and I got to make sure so so you could have the versions you know 1 a 1 b 1 C you could have the data and have it to the board before because maybe it's no this hasn't happened in five years right this is no longer an issue um and then you could all move forward because we I mean philosophically we're a little bit blind in really the impact of what's happening so I think I would

192suggest that moving forward um and then we as long as everything else in the policy this is the only point of contention which is pretty good uh we could do that we could and then you make a motion second discuss amend vote up down as long as on the 27th we can get this thing across the line perfect or imperfect because that'll help us moving forward that would be all that I'd ask I really like that suggestion Rob and it's a practice the board has used uh previously when there is some disagreement and clear clearly not a willingness to or ability to come to consensus so I like that you'll provide Kathleen will provide us a few drafts we will come to the meeting prepared to make an upward um vote on one or more

193of those um so I think that is a great way to move this conversation forward board members any other comments or on this policy before we take a small Comfort break and come back for schools of choice no no okay with that I'd like to call a [Music] recess e like to call this meeting back to order uh our next and final policy to study this evening is board policy iff schools of choice Kathleen uh can take it from here uh thank you so much so this last policy was um had not gotten a lot of attention and the board had a lot of Rich discussion about this last time it sort of um ran a foul of all of the policy principles that we started this discussion with by being very redundant incredibly detailed

194and then did not finally have any sort of ultimate review process or ability to make sure that the school remained consistent with its original identity that was approved so here's what we've done we have dramatically shortened this policy as board president Raj Paul mentioned we pulled out specific use of school names that where it really they were only tangentially connected at this point anyway so the red line does hopefully what we want policy to do which is establishes the board's broad principles of supporting um high quality educational alter alternatives for all of our students will provide uh relevance and framework for those current schools and the way that they're structured and does provide for monitoring and review of focused status I would say I put an asterisk there because I do think that that language

195could be strengthened needs a few more sentences about actions that could be taken at that point but those were the initial efforts with board policy if the last thing I would note is that the last time we talked about this policy the board had some questions about why it's coded as iff why does it sit alone for example in the instructional policies when our other choice references are either in J which we just talked about with student assignment or the board's final policy chapter is chapter L it's about education and agency relations it's where our charter school policies live so I would put out there I didn't uh propose a specific new code I think we need to attach a new code to this policy and file it in the right place so that we

196can all find it when it's um and make sure that we keep it current and actually follow it with our schools thanks for that Kathleen Kitty since I can't see you right now I just wanted to start with you if you have any questions or comments on policy not right now Dr Anderson I think the only thing that um and we can is I have a sense that that this may have to shift and change once we get the report around schools that have met that less than round and a half um uh less than 50% capacity because in that case it may be the district driving Focus programs and this is more how do schools ask for those and I do feel like that uh that if we're going to try to use this

197as a strategy to increase enrollment you have to consider things Beyond a neighborhood right because if you're trying to get kids from outside the neighborhood uh then it might have to be more so I don't know if it's um if I know exactly what that might look like today uh but I do think that it's you know it's framed as like a bottom up versus a top down process and maybe it's a two-way street um but there's definitely going to be another Street I think that we're going to have to add here so I don't know if we want to but you know we could pass a policy and then amend a policy as we have kind of comes to light in regards to what that other process might look like or you could take

198out all of that stuff and just end it after the definitions or the principles you could just take the rest of it out um and and then you could plop that all into a regulation that we could develop and and and sit alongside that if that made sense Dr nerson you brought up a point that was weighing on my mind I was trying to think about how we can allow the district opportunity to create Choice create focused schools and programs and I agree my where I was originally thinking um was that that first line in the process the principal the district or or like I don't know so including the District staff alongside the principal or representative a group in there um as a way to kind of create some of that flexibility but as

199I said last time I would also be you know um willing to to take a a larger knife to this policy um and cut more of it out because it's not entirely clear what we're trying to capture um so I just because you brought that up wanted to piggy back on that I was also wondering how without having to change this policy right away we could add language to allow the district um to and their recommendations to be honored in this policy Alex then lenia I guess i' I'd start with um I I think we should maintain as you were starting um to have discretion to create things in order to attract and retain students so I'm I don't want to lose um The Clarity that we want to have those tools in our belt

200and I also like the idea of responding to the community so we keep the community in our schools by being responsive I I I have this sort of a first question though like how does Boulder Universal New Vista and a rapo ridge fit into these so we have they're not focused Schools they're alternative schools um and but we still have programmatically decided to have them so that's that's like those are historical ones like the superintendent suggestion we consider where the district created a thing it is a School of Choice it's not a focus School uh and it's not a neighborhood school so I think if we're going to have a policy that reflects things people choose and gives us tools then it should at least accommodate all the things we've already built why would those

201not be Focus schools like may we haven't been calling them Focus schools but under the definition here a focus school or Focus school program I mean nista has a focus for sure we were there today arapo Ridge has a focus for sure but if we had we have some that we've sorry but we've had some that we've called Focus schools and part of the issue is like how do we evaluate them would we we make that go away and I don't know what our stance would be if we declared tomorrow that New Vista now has a three-year review cycle or something um since it's been there for so long yeah I'll have to think about what you you know there's certain things that I think that I think yeah because what you're saying is that

202if you're a focus school then you're subject to review to make sure you're meeting whatever it is that you've stated you've met and then you have long established programs that just are and aren't uh this just are right you have an alternative high school right that allows kids to accelerate credits you have New Vista that has a very different approach that's a more of an Al it's not an alternative Center it is a high school with an alternative approach um and then you know the question would be then some schools you would just rate them like you would look at all other schools and then Focus programs or choices you might have different outcomes or objectives whether you're dual language monor right those types of things and so I don't know I have a clean

203answer for that I would say that you know you we could we could consider like what that might mean um but it's hard to yeah yeah it's a it's a it's because that that almost goes a Step Beyond of what we're saying here in the in the policy because you're talking about review the policy doesn't state that but what I hear you say is that there's a set of schools that don't really we haven't we've never called New Vista a focus school right and so it may just be a it's like that might well I think I have good answers right nephew Alex I mean because it's like a magnet program it's like a magnet school but then how is that really different than Community monu or um uh High Peaks or bcsis it's not

204really not we just haven't called it that so do you have a solution um I I want I think the discussion we had last month was about giving the community clarity about what's what so that they could exercise choice and we could promote it give them information and my point is just that we our language is developed in a way and we're sort of streamlining this policy now for a set of the words but that those words don't yet accommodate all our schools in a system of choice where we need to accommodate them all that's all I don't know what to do about it it makes two of us all right I don't feels lonely I think you could offer changing like making Clarity provide Clarity on the website when we list all of our

205schools that was part of the reason why we moved the names of schools out of our other policy because we did not Encompass you have to open a role in New Vista but it was never listed so I think we can use our um promotional tool schol for our parents to really be clear about what schools fall under what buckets and I do think this this definition um around Phil different philosophies and themes provide some clarity so because you were asking for suggestions I decided to jump in ahead of my line of lania and then Jorge so apologies there yeah I think my first comment was that the nomenclature is closer but if we're going to consider New Vista a focus School than number five in our process is it grandfathered in and we're not

206looking at it every three years so I think that's that's confusing and but I really really like your suggestion Rob of having this policy be our principles which does encompass all of our schools it no matter what we name them maybe we still have to work on nomenclature I don't know but the policy seems to Encompass what we believe and then if you could take proposal and process and put that in a regulation then we could keep working on that and get this done by the 27th I think it's I think that makes the most sense if we could just get that nomenclature maybe we all come to accept that everything that's not a neighborhood school is a focus have neighborhood and Jorge I think Nicole um and Len have now addressed the points I

207wanted to make that the idea was to kind of capture with the new labels right every school and that we have to apply that and advertise that so that it's really clear and consistent and I like the idea of removing the process and procedures and proposal from this just here's our definitions here's our prior priorities and where we want to go with it and that's our policy yeah thank you kitty I'm looping back to you anything yes um sorry I had problems reaching my mouth um what if we just called them all choice schools and not differentiate between whether it's alternative or Focus or something else would that work or are there some categories that need to be labeled a certain way because of funding or something we could um you know I guess the

208the question that we have to ask is how much specificity do we want if you wanted to put them in a category they are choice schools right but do you do you differentiate between choice schools a little bit differently only because you have wh school choice schools and then you have Focus programs in schools that also have a neighborhood neighborhood School component and a strand that should be specialized and different but sometimes isn't well could we say choice schools programs and strands I think I just need a little bit of time to kind of think about that I'll bring back some options to the board and I do think and I do agree lilan I think your your suggestion was right that we throw this in a regulation get get iff right so we can

209land it on the 27th and we can move forward with our conversations um based on the elra presentation Alex yeah I just have one note um because I know we'll be pressed on it but I really do think as we consider what our options are with the cting enrollment and how to retain and and recruit parents that we explore the Strand concept more because I think um like if we ever are closing schools people will propose Charters the next week and um they're going to not be very viable and it will be really fractious for our community but if people have an idea that they think would attract parents and keep them in our school system if we can find the space for that to happen um we may be able to keep or retract

210some more students so I do like the I don't The Strand is like I think we could call the rest choice schools but like when you hear the strands described they don't sound very coherent henia could you please explain a strand versus a focus Dr Anderson now I can explain it in PR in practice it could be different depending upon we you know again we're just we're we're putting folk we're putting attention on on something that that we have not as paid as much attention to but a strand would be you would have an element in a neighborhood school that would give a specialized experience right sometimes the way I I Envision it is strand can be like a school within a school maybe that's a more kind of popular concept where you have a

211team of teachers that does something specialized and then you have the rest of the school that operates like a neighborhood school and then the strand of kids right the cohort of kids um integrates with the neighborhood school so lunch electives so on so forth but the academic experience would be specialized in different well bcsis is um everybody in bcsis is getting the bcsis experience right but if you say say you said oh we want to expand bcsis to ABC Elementary right and then what you would do is you had ABC Elementary they're running and then you'd have a team of teachers that would give you a bcsis academic experience and then your electives and all those other things they would be with all the kids like all the fourth grade kids would go to recess

212like they wouldn't go to a separate recess all the fourth grade kids would go to lunch right so think about it as a team of teachers right that have a focused um academic experience right that might be different than you know um the typical curriculum and standards that are being taught in neighborhood schools so that would be what it is now what the way that it's been implemented from what I understand is that they we have some Focus programs where they just got additional resources that spread across the whole school so folks who choose and folks in the neighborhood get very similar experiences but it's a it's a minimally enhanced experience right so like I'm thinking about like if we had you know I think one of our schools we have some extra gifted and

213talented resources right so it's not a strand per se it's not all that different from neighborhood schools but it's a little different in a certain area but if if what if what Alex is talking about it would be more of a school within a school mind model and if we have schools that are under two rounds right if you have a school that's a round and a half right and you need a half round right you could fill up you could take a half round from the kids that are there add another half round then you have a two round school and the half round that are there plus the other half round that you would add to make one whole round would be something different and exciting that folks would be interested in right

214and that would be more on an application type of a basis so you but then you there'd be integration at these points like electives recess lunch extracurricular stuff does that make sense so I see Robin making her way up and I think she has a is it that slide you were going to show that has articulated this in the past to the board right so yes well done Dr Anderson you're right so this this is a slide that we have used with our long range advisory committee to help explain it however I do see one little tweak that we need to make so specifically the concept of a strand is is a subset so some schools within a neighborhood School experience slightly different or or significantly different programming as per the description from Dr Anderson

215so for example steam at at well so here's a better example uh dual language at Coline not all of the students enrolled at Coline Elementary participate in the Dual language program but some choose to attend that school specifically for the Dual language program another example would be the Arts focus at Manhattan so you can choose to take all of your electives in Visual Arts or in musical arts or in theater arts for example um and they are expanded but that's not every student the The Tweak that I do see here is Whittier IB which is actually a it's a focus but every student in that in that school participates in that Focus um at high school but they all don't choose that school right so it's neighborhood school and other folks opt in but they

216all get the same thing exactly and I think that's the trick like a pure Focus school is everybody chooses it right and doesn't have it doesn't have an attendance boundary right the Strand is you have an attendance boundary and folks choose it is that maybe a better way to articulate yes that is correct so our our peer Focus schools are one 100% open enrollment they do not have a neighborhood attendance or catchment area thank you Robin board members so I have a couple questions comments on this policy um I'm thrilled that we've cut the length down a lot um I also like how we have really listed the principles that have an equity lens and are really taking into considerations the impacts of um focus schools and programs the impacts that they might have on

217neighbor BR in schools during declining enrollment uh I'm glad that we're going to move the chapter of this policy because it's a hard one to find where it ex lives today um and maybe somewhat controversial I actually think as we consider how we are naming schools and try to create a greater degree of consistency I and as we continue to think about um leveraging choice and programs to to improve enrollment I actually think our non- neighborhood schools that have existed for a long time should be reviewed to make sure that they are providing the philosophy that that they that they say that they are providing um in a way that is pretty consistent um we we review our charter schools on a regular basis you know we we review our academic philosophy in priorities for

218all of our neighborhood schools we have standards for those so I don't think it's a bad idea idea um particularly early on um and then with some regular Cadence much like we're looking at um our attendant zones with a regular Cadence to say like are you offering the program that you're saying you are to Fidelity is it still relevant to our community are they actually choosing it for that program or because of other reasons like maybe you just happen to be high achieving but nobody really cares for the program itself um that may or may not be carried out to Fidelity so I don't think I don't think that there's a reason why we shouldn't evaluate existing programs if we are exist going to evaluate new programs and if we already evaluate our Charters um

219with their renewal so I will throw out there I you know I think whatever we put into a regulation should have language around that's stronger around a process for review and include all of our schools that are not neighborhood schools and then those strands to are they um how are they providing are students seeking those focuses um and having some more information as we are navigating this uh changing landscape so those were the couple points I wanted to make Alex um I think that's a great idea and I would add I would want in the policy probably to to have it be about information and so there's a chance step feedback might be change um but really also even if it's going great we can just better describe it to the community and say this

220this is pretty intense the way they do this or this is a slight you know flavor of what they do and then parents can make more informed choices and then and and a board can make more informed choices about what to do I like the idea Kitty sorry so for our schools like New Vista or well I guess everything are they aren't they evaluated by the state based on test scores the same way neighborhood schools are I'll accept a rapaho ridge which is an alternative education center they have a different kind of analysis but uh but yes so I'm just thinking about how we would treat a school like n Vista differently from how we treat our traditional Comprehensive High Schools I mean I do like the idea with new programs that we evaluate them

221to make sure they're doing what they said they would do but I think of longstanding programs and I feel a little differently about it I I think New Vista would welcome the opportunity to show off the things that they do uh because I do think that they have a very clear different model with advisory with student um opportunities they have these huge presentation days at the end of each semester so alternative assessment um um of all of our schools I think that they would probably score the highest on their original 30 years ago Vision that they talked about today at the at the the topping off ceremony um I think where it gets fuzzy is when you had schools I'm thinking particularly in the in the Lafayette area where the it was called a destratification

222plan where they're added something a little special to the neighborhood schools so folks wouldn't leave the neighborhood schools right there was this fear of I understand white flight um folks moving away from schools in Lafayette and so we called those that you know your focus strand schools that's a lot of them that were part of that plan the problem they were trying to solve is so we keep the kids in these neighborhoods we're going to give all these schools a little bit something special and then all the kids in Lafia can pick one of these schools but Lafayette kids are going to stay in these Lafayette schools right and so those that little something special like the problem they were trying to solve they did the kids stayed right the those programs weren't necessarily to

223attract kids from out like we just have it was a different time you know and um and it worked right but for today right um the evaluation might be you know what's the next iteration of that or where we at yeah and I think just to piggyback evaluation doesn't have to be punitive but it's just to really get an understanding of the state of of programming in our schools and it can be celebratory um depending on what schools are providing and even having some clarity around that I think is a good opportunity for messaging and Communications to our to our students any other thoughts on this policy board members Kathleen you have the direction you need yes thank you very much okay board members next item on our agenda our future agenda requests board members

224as you know this is the time in our meeting where we bring up items we'd like to include in our next prior board prioritization meeting which I did want to share if not everybody knew that that has been moved up to May um to accommodate potentially some new work earlier rather than later um we were we heard lot un clear that folks wanted the opportunity to add new items so we did make that change to um to move that to an earlier date so that will be happening in May um and then given that are there items that board members haven't previously brought up I would like to add to that running list of potential board priorities to discuss in May Kitty uh excuse excuse me I would like to revisit our cell phone policy

225okay other board members it's okay if there are and there's a long list we've got generated already Alex uh I I know we've had discussions about this so I'm not sure whether it needs to be a new priority for a separate meeting or work session but I am really interested in furthering the idea of evaluating and assessing our mental health and social emotional learning stuff and how Partnerships can stuff can help and I know stuff's in in in the work so it maybe that that'll fit right in the plan but that's still a priority for me to get back to anything else board members before we Alex on behalf of my colleagues on the board who have small children and jobs um I'd like us to reconsider our start time and I know that on

226Tuesday nights at least a couple of them have problems getting here on time and it's a it's a hassle and can be distracting so I'm not I'd like to propose that we consider a 5:00 instead of a 4:30 start for everything I don't know if that's an agenda item or just something for us to consider otherwise are you mean starting dinner at 5: because our meetings don't start until 5: so starting okay thanks you for clarifying okay uh last last go around for final additions to that list um and is there a motion to adjourn this evening's meeting move by Alex second seconded by everybody okay meeting is Jed