Board of Education Meeting August 8, 2023

001testing testing I can hear you foreign I'd like to call to order this special work session of the Boulder Valley School Board on August 8th Laura could you please call the roll Garcia here Gephardt here miznick here rajpal here Sergeant here Sweeney Moran here this here thank you the first agenda on the item is board member compensation on the item first agenda on me let me start over the first information item on the agenda how's that is board member compensation and we have our school district attorney Kathleen Sullivan here to walk us through the slides and I'll turn it over first to Rob and then you can introduce Kathleen thank you board president Gephart members of the board so good to see you all excited to continue this conversation from last semester I'm here to

002discuss some of the same information as a review and then open some space up for dialogue and conversation is our legal counsel Kathleen Sullivan Kathleen I'll turn it over to you good evening board members welcome back nice to see everybody so we are here at the board's request to talk again about the issue of board member compensation as Dr Anderson indicated some of this is information that we touched on last time when we first looked at this issue and then we do have some additional information particularly from the Colorado Association of school boards that has now prepared a FAQ document that touches on some of the issues that we looked at last time so the board will require will recall that this conversation and the board's authority to discuss board member compensation was uh put

003into play by our state legislature through house bill 211055 which authorizes School boards to compensate board members for official duties we talked a little bit last time about the statutory Provisions that do set some caps boards May adopt plans to compensate board members of up to 150 a day up to five days per week for a total of about three thousand dollars per month for those official board duties there has been no new action across our neighboring school districts or other districts in Colorado that I could find so we have the same one two three four five boards who've taken some action on this Sheridan which has allowed compensation of up to a hundred and fifty dollars for a full day and 75 dollars for a half day of work when we looked at that

004last time we took note that although it's authorized the total Sheridan board has not uh they have not requested or received the full compensation that their board authorized some members have been taking some compensation and others have just not taken it there's not a lot of explanation about a formal process that they've gone through but we do know the total amount that they've been reimbursed so far Denver public schools has also taken action on this issue they have authorized up to a hundred and fifty dollars a day five days per month up to seven hundred and fifty dollars a month for attending regular and special board meetings committee meetings training sessions and other activities approved in the future they've had some conversations about the volume of email that they receive and looking at compensation for

005communicating with constituents they're the only board to date that's talked about that particular issue Aurora and Adams 14 have talked about this they have not adopted a formal position at this point and Cherry Creek is the only District that I can find in the state of Colorado that has passed a resolution stating that members will not receive compensation don't think that that's required by the statute to say officially we're not going to compensate board members but we'll talk a little bit later about the process to be followed in the event the board does want to do so oh oh it's a little bit later because this is a nice short presentation to get us back so in order to implement compensation for board members the statute requires that the board adopt a resolution they were

006very specific about that piece in the statute so we would have to start with the resolution and then as always the board has the ability to adopt a policy if the board would like to put more specificity or incorporate this type of action into the board policy catalog which is really where your staff look when they're looking for the board's positions tend to really look at policies we do look at resolutions also but as you know those policies live forever and are something that we revisit um increases to board compensation would also have to be adopted by resolution so if we were going to make increases to the number of days or not to implement the full statutory Authority up at the first go of the resolution any subsequent increase would have to be by

007an additional resolution uh we had a question actually at the last the last time we talked about this about how it would roll in and looking at the casb FAQs and looking at the specific language of the statute and I think board member Sergeant you had a question about this um the statute itself says that no board member can vote on their own increasing compensation so it would in fact take two election Cycles to phase in Foley board members would become eligible for compensation at their first re-election after the board was to adopt a resolution so if the board adopted a resolution in September or October we had the election in November anybody elected through that election would be eligible immediately for compensation and then after in two more years our next election then the

008rest of the board would be eligible for that compensation and I believe that it was my representation the last time we talked about this that caused the confusion so I'm grateful for the opportunity to clear it up other considerations that I don't think we talked about the last time we looked at this uh the statute this change this bill change was to the statute that authorized board members to receive reimbursement for the expenses associated with your board work and they did tweak the language when they uh when they change the statute to permit board member compensation so that now that language reads all officers and members of the board shall be reimbursed for necessary expenses incurred in the performance of their duties in an official capacity in amounts approved by a majority of the board

009in a public meeting so I think reimbursement to this point has really just operated as a very administrative task and now we would need to see those requests for reimbursement on a board agenda could happen as a consent item Could Happen really in whatever way the board determines is best to complete the business but it does require a vote in a public meeting um I think this is pretty clear uh to our very experienced board members all board member compensation just like all district employee compensation is publicly available under quora salaries are not protected information so we as you know from looking at our core requests we get those somewhat regularly so any requests for reimbursement or a stipend or compensation for board work would be a public document um the casby FAQ talks about

010this directly board members don't have to accept compensation for the work they wouldn't be required to but in the event that a board member wanted to do something a little different like maybe donate it back to the school district there could be tax implications as well as para implications and with that short update I'm ready for your questions who goes for Stacy I have a few questions so in the spring I submitted a request for information RFI about if we looked into providing health benefits instead of monetary compensation and I'm just wondering if someone maybe it's Dr Hill I don't know can speak to those implications if we chose to do that what are the pros and cons of doing that and then I have another question after that so I think that that's an

011interesting question I think we we talked about this the last time we addressed this topic because we looked at some comparative compensation or stipends for other City officials and I believe it was the Boulder City Council that had specifically noted that they also receive access to health insurance benefits so we've looked been able to look at that from one angle the school district is self-insured for health insurance so we have quite an extensive plan that indicates who's eligible and how that operates we have spoken with our health advisor or health insurance advisor and it would be feasible it's something that may require some changes to the language of that plan but would be possible when I Revisited after receiving that information so Hub is our consultant that we work with and we do have some

012additional information available when you look at the exact language of the bill I think it's interesting because they certainly are specific we had reimbursement in statute now we have this very specific amount and capped stipend that the board can implement so I think it would be a novel question of law as to whether this would enable the school district to provide health insurance as an additional benefit because the statute itself doesn't talk about other benefits beyond that compensation so I think from our perspective as an organization it could be feasible I think that the language of the law as I said would be something that we probably would want to look at very carefully before we were to take that step thank you um my other questions about para so how does that fit into

013if you get a 150 check for one meeting how does para I don't know how pero works really so how does that work into all of this and the implications if if you do accept the hundred and fifty dollars let's say per meeting and if you decide not to how does that all work and I can't look behind me at Bill Sutter or James Hill as our para experts but let me just talk about the first element of that I'm not sure Pera would know that either at this point they've only gone so far as to say that because of the way they Define employees and compensation that they do think school board members who are compensated would be considered employees so there would be para implications exactly what the extent of those are I

014think would have a lot to do with what your employment is and how that operates but look Rob and I would have to guess uh this would really impact former teachers you know folks that are retired that are coming back because I believe that there's stipulations in regards to when you come back in Pera like I think the impact would be greater for that if the only compensation that you're receiving is 150 a month I mean I think the para impacts would probably be minimum I mean but I don't know that that would be considered a year to vet like you've got a I mean I don't know the question I don't know the answer to that I might have an answer to that I have worked as an election judge what yeah I'm sorry

015I have I've worked as an election judge and if it works the way it does for an election judge which is just for when you're there when you're training when you're working it's withheld the way anything else is withheld you know they withheld taxes and they withheld for Paris so I've got five dollars and 75 cents I think in Para but it does if you have any amount in Para it entitles you to the para Medicare plans so it's not a bad idea to have something in there Stacy was that all you had okay Lisa um I just wanted to follow on with a healthcare question um I certainly think we should all have great health care and it should be paid for but in terms of this situation a few things come to mind

016one is any board members that might be on Medicaid I'm not sure how that would affect their eligibility their status and their claims and the other is anybody who is the primary Insurance holder for their children could be in a complicated position in terms of trying to switch over and also obviously just the timing of how that would work if we're not employees so I'm not sure if we need to wait till December and switching plans like I like the idea in theory but in practice I wonder if the people who would be most positively affected by the offer would also be the ones least able to take advantage of it appropriately Kitty and I still have a couple of questions I realize looking at the email I sent you I referenced something below that

017I didn't put there so you can be excused for saying what the heck okay so you answered my first question and then I just want to get details voting for expense reimbursement so is that every single time you need to be reimbursed is it something we could say at the beginning of the year we will we are going to reimburse whatever the federal mileage is plus meals for anything School Board related and vote on that um or what I mean I know it could be on the consent agenda so it's not going to be tedious well and I thank you for that question I do think it's this statute here is really very limited we only have a few words I think the point is that the statute would require a specific vote regarding the

018amount that could be authorized when I read it I do think that the board could adopt or incorporate into policy This Is How We Do expense reimbursements and these are What will what we would reimburse for if the board wanted to put a cap so that the amount was approved up to a certain limit I do think that the statutory language there where it says amount we're going to have to have some sort of numerical approval yeah and for mileage it's easy because whatever the federal rate is but I know for meals it depends on where you're going you're eating at the broad War it costs more money than if you're going out to McDonald's and then the other question is there is a section in the casby Q a and it refers to board

019members being dismissed by IEC and I don't know what that means but how can a board member be dismissed and I think I might have accidentally closed that window well and you did include the quote for me it was just below your signature line so I did see it so honestly I think that this is a typo by casby I think that what it has be meant to say so the independent ethics commission is a commission that's established in Colorado law that looks at ethics complaints that are brought against state legislators we had a decision in 2009 when I was at casby that found that the IEC did not have jurisdiction over board members so I think that sentence that caused confusion means to say the complaint brought against the three board members was dismissed

020because the IEC definitely did not dismiss any elected officials nor would they have the ability to do so and that's why you have to write things correctly they don't have the benefit of you as an editor yes anything else Kitty anybody else Richard we have a board election coming up in November don't we and we'll have four new board members and those four new board members if we were to vote for board compensation would be getting board composition when they get on board right yes they would be eligible for board compensation if the board took action prior to the election yes they choose to and they chose to I mean they have the option not to take it they would they would have the option not to take it unless we wrote that resolution to

021be a mandate which I don't think would be a benefit to anybody yeah uh I I think I'm looking at the [Music] possibility of having more board or more potential candidates that may not fit uh a particular category that does not need board compensation so I am really in favor of board compensation I'm not sure what the next step would be for this board to move this along The Next Step board member Garcia would be consideration of a resolution and who would draft a resolution well a lot of people could draft a resolution if I were to receive direction from this board then I would be pleased to carry out the board's wishes in this recipe well I guess I was going to say am I looking at her yeah I said last time I

022would be in favor of 150 for regular or special board meeting uh up to 600 per month Stacy I was I was going to say I'm still undecided however if a resolution is going to be drafted I would concur with what Lisa just said about only regular board meetings and the off special board meetings no email no receptions no teacher roundtables on and on and on and on and on only our business on Tuesdays is what I would suggest I agree with that but I think that the new incoming board member if they wish to change that resolution they would be able to correct yeah it took me almost five hours to get through the board agenda information items today just reading it word by word and stuff like that so it was quite a

023bit of a task for to for tonight's meeting actually uh and it does require work and it does require work if other people are doing other work you know and they take time off to do this work uh I think it's uh uh justifiable for board members to get compensated absolutely and then I want to say a little bit about the para thing I also participate with the Community College systems as a board of trustee and they give you a whopping fifty dollars a month and I'm also a retired uh para person so I get this little note from Pera every month saying that I have been contribution uh the system has contributed fifty dollars towards my para and I am supposed to uh put my share in of that particular fifty dollars for whatever

024that is you know so I think it's about 18 percent so so what I'm saying is uh to want to be helpful and be a public servant you have to actually pay to be a public servant anymore you know and then I look at other governing boards and they don't have to pay I mean it's this school board stuff that is like come on are we the orphan of of compensation in the world of public servants Nicole you had your hand so I just wanted to add um I don't know where I stand on this yet I'm concerned about declining enrollment our funds overall you know our employees um really thinking hard about how our finances are spent there was a Denver Post article last towards the end of our right after the last time

025we discussed this we're DP and some of the DPS members said because some board members were choosing to be paid and others were not it created a perception from the public from the board members themselves warranted or not about the hows and whys and who is choosing that pay and so I think that is something that um I would like us to consider if if it doesn't feel good to mandate people taking pay but also what is the public perception of when some people choose to and some people choose not to particularly when it's all horrible and what what are the implications that might fall out of of that I think shouldn't be taken lightly and then [Music] I wouldn't want to get into a place where it might take person a longer more time

026than person B and how are we micromanaging or second guessing what time was actually involved for different people so if the majority of the board decides to improve approve this I think having some really tight and very specific and not leaving after like this meeting took a really long time or this took me a particularly long time having it be clear and then I know some districts reimburse like you have to submit paperwork to get paid and so is that a choice or is it like it would just be automatic because I think there are in that same Denver Post article I was talking about some problems around reimbursement for time spent and so how could we avoid if we went down that path that um uh hurdle that might be experienced greater or less

027than for certain different individuals I have an add-on I'm kidding you sorry I saw Beth moving your microphone so go ahead I have an add-on to what Nicole said and because I also have concern about possible peer pressure amongst board members for declining or accepting um I mean the pressure I'm imagining is to decline because you don't really need it right I mean I I don't know if somebody would say that but that is a concern I have but I am totally in favor of paying board members I've made myself clear on that Beth I I share a lot of the same concerns I am in favor of doing this I think it's it seems like a pretty straightforward and right thing to do um I'm really glad that we're talking about this ahead of

028the next election cycle as Richard was saying I think this may be an incentive to have other people join us here at the board table and I think that's great so I would suggest as soon as possible we move forward with it and get it get it rolling Stacy in order to impact this election though we basically have to do this now because aren't the aren't the petitions due August 30th so if we're going to impact this election then we have to do this yesterday correct petitions will need to be turned in no later than 4 30 pm on September 1st September 1st so to actually impact this election I'm not sure we can actually do that since we're not prepared to vote today and so I don't really see that happening um and then

029the other thing I just want to bring up and I don't know if it matters but just an acknowledgment that half the board then would be paid and half would not that's awkward all right a cold and kitty I have some questions too but I'll wait till the end so another question I have I guess is around if we would then be employees of the school district and does that trigger any professionalism requirements around board conduct attendance like mandating attendance or mandating participation or just the way in which we show up at board meetings with would anything else change if we become employees of the district as a result of being paid at this time I don't think so based on the information that we have I don't think there would be uh the the

030answer for the only people who can regulate board member conduct or board members and voters so by receiving compensation it wouldn't make you subject to any sort of action as a staff member I think that as an elected official our board members already carrying off a lot of responsibility um in terms of professionalism compliance with board policies but again the answer then still sits with the board's Authority which is to censor censure potentially or for voters to not re-elect a board member or to seek recall if there's concern with conduct here I know what you're going to ask me are you going to ask me if the board could put in resolution that you don't get paid if you behave badly no that's not what it's going to do okay because I don't want to

031answer that question no so on that point Kathleen in your former District the former board president was sued for campaigning and it was found that she couldn't be sued for campaigning because she wasn't an employee so can you make the distinguishment for me that we would be able to campaign if we're if we're employees because I think the fair campaign or whatever Fair election laws would change that it may not be hugely material but it was a big deal in Cherry Creek when she was sued because she they were trying to pass a bond and she was at a school supporting the bond and she got sued over that and the only reason that she didn't wasn't found liable As I understood it was because she wasn't an employee so there may be a distinction

032I don't know but that was one of my questions and maybe we just need to look into that opinion to see if there's nuances in there that I just don't remember well and and I don't want to be Cavalier about it I do think that the fair campaign Practices Act is a particularly important but also technical and uh I think that some of the case law that has emerged around the enforcement of the fair campaign Practices Act is uh is problematic I'm not sure that I think it's actually all been interpreted correctly so far in those decisions that we've seen I think that when you look at the statute that was adopted that were permit board member compensation there is not a fundamental redefining of board members roles responsibilities or authority it simply tweaks the

033language to say that members of the board may be compensated for their services and I think that it's really important when we think about what the statute said before and what this change is it's not going to convert you to make you fully responsible for all of the same issues that employees are in the district to board member Raj Paul's about different board policies that would impact employees I don't think it will change there but there could be some additional cautions or restrictions that we would want to think about in terms of how the fair campaign Practices Act is really implemented so I don't think that that adopting a resolution would permanently uh impair board members abilities to do the things that need to be done in order to be elected to run but we

034would want to look at that carefully and make sure that we we really look at the do's and don'ts and are very careful with that campaign hygiene and really fidelity yeah that's that's where I get concerned and then layer over that first amendment issues and the board talking publicly about Bond measures and other election measures I think we need a little bit more I need more Comfort on where those lines are before because I'm not really sure where I am in this but I think that we act right now thanks to the fact that we are volunteers we can take those positions at the board table and have and I'm wondering if that changes because of the issues that we were just talking about so I would like some more clarification on that so that

035um because I think it would my gut is it would cause us to act in a different way when it comes to anything around elections but I don't know like I said I think you overlay First Amendment stuff on there and it gets really fun which is why I'm glad you're looking at it and I would say I think um it's it's getting harder and harder to be an elected official in some ways and maybe more exciting in others I think the fair campaign Practices Act itself and then our public expectation are you talking to me as a person are you talking to me as a board member and being really careful about making sure that you're clear about the role that you're in at the time that you speak is something that I think

036our public has become accustomed to and is important for clarity Kitty do you have another question because I have another line of questions so go ahead yeah I was just going to say because addressing Stacy's concern about whether it would be awkward or not and as a person who will not get paid and actually I'm glad to hear that because it didn't feel right that we could vote ourselves pay raises before we get reelected but um I I don't I wouldn't feel awkward I would feel awkward if the other circumstance was you know that I was able to be paid um you know you have to be elected before you can be paid that's pretty clear but I know I mean maybe other people would feel awkward any other questions so here are a couple

037of my questions um Richard you said you could just change the resolution but I'm not sure you could because I'm wondering if you can change the compensation when you're an acting board member so I would think that you would have to wait till another election cycle potentially to change what you were being what you're allowing yourself to get paid that would just be my gut because it seems to me that the intent of the laws to not have board members voting on their own composition so I think to increase it I think you'd have to wait that'd be my gut I don't know obviously it's not been decided um the Sheridan issue did hit the papers because there was one board member who was taking compensation more than other board members and I don't know

038what the ramifications were of that and on the reimbursement I think anyway we go on this I think we need a really strong policy on the reimbursement and I don't think we need to leave it up to staff I think we need to figure out how to please ourselves I don't want to put our superintendent in a position of saying you went to a board meeting you didn't you get this much money you don't get this much money I think we need to be perhaps already said he won't do that but I think we need I think we can lay out pretty clearly like kitty says what the mileage is and what the reimbursable expenses are really clearly because I I read it the way you do Kathleen which is you need to have an

039amount that's approved so after it just needs to get embedded in the way the new board acts which is after the Cosby convention you know you'll get reimbursed for mileage there's actually governmental allowances that you can't exceed so you can't like say I had a hundred dollar dinner at the Broadmoor you get whatever the allowances for the Colorado Springs for that date so I think we could put that kind of thing in policy and just make sure that and that would be the one exception Stacy I would think too um board meetings has gone to the casby conference not just not to get compensated by money but to get reimbursement other than with us already that's already happening yeah kind of but the public doesn't see that so I think we just need to be

040really clear in our policy as to exactly what is compensated and what's not what's not compensated so I see a need for a policy there um probably sooner than later does that do I see a thumbs up at least on that from the board to add it to our lengthy policy conversation um and then this is where I'm dangerously not even just dangerously but completely ignorant but isn't it true that if you get para Medicare you don't get other Medicare so I think we would need to look into that if it's seen as a benefit and you could you can always choose not to get pair on Medicare like I think we just need to be yeah really clear when we talk about it what you're giving up and what you're not giving up but

041if you say it's an option then people will be like great but then it's like it's an option but it's only an option if you do the following things like give up your other Medicare and that kind of thing or you say something like talk to your health care advisor well I assume you would choose the one that you think is best for you no I was just worried Kitty about making a blanket statement without people understand just ineligibility but I do think you have to be taking disbursements and is there a tax consequence if you don't accept it if it's something that the rest of the board gets I don't know the answer to that either I can't imagine it would but who knows the IRS would always love to get five dollars out

042of everybody when they can right um so I think we still have a few more questions that need to be answered at least for me and to Stacy's point do we think that we could act quickly enough that it would actually impact going people running out and getting petitions and doing this because we would decide this Laura's like crying back there or can we can we do this a little more deliberately and take a little bit more time to get this done I'm just looking for responses from the board for timing Kitty I think we need the take the time so that we all understand it and we do it right um in future elections it may impact whether people run but I I would not like to see us hurry this up this month

043so somebody who felt like they couldn't volunteer that much time would then run because they wouldn't be able to give a lot of thought to running either because it would come up fast and what I'll say is that at every candidate potential candidate meeting I've had I am very clear about the time commitment so that people before they decide they're going to run understand the time commitment because that's really important to me that people understand that so that they don't get into this and think oh my goodness you told me it was going to be two meetings a month right which is what our governor likes to say um so I agree with you kitty anybody else worried about the timetable or can we take the time as long as we get this decided before

044the next election we're okay right Kathleen as long as the resolution is adopted yes were you say next election you talk about November election so what I'm seeing is we have questions still we'll bring this back for another study item because we'll have time to bring it up for a resolution is that the to get a few more of these questions answered board members as long as we can put it on a timetable that gets it to a resolution for the board to look at before the November election so I just want to be certain that we have all of the questions that we'll be seeking um answers to and then it would be it would be my recommendation that then this would go on I don't know that we we've built into the schedule

045more work session time is is it the board's desire to bring this back as a work session or as a study item in the agenda I mean are we talking another 40 50-minute conversation discussion that you think you all would need um because that would be out of if we're if we put that on study toward the end of a meeting that would be probably pretty tough to so I guess the question would be does the board want this to come back with um after we verify all the questions that were asked and we can send that out to you all uh this week this is the questions we heard add any other questions you might have get those answered and then um would it be the board's desire to have another work session or

046a study item on the agenda I hear study from Beth others study yeah especially if we get all the questions exactly yeah I think your process rather sending out the questions and if we have other questions we'll share them and then you can show them back so we can see what all the questions are so we're not repeating each other and then bring it back to study does that work Nicole I wonder if it would be helpful if in addition that we had an example resolution because I worry about going from study to study to so if we could have a draft resolution I think we've passed precedence we've done that before and then kind of work through that and I would support that and that would be consistent with this board's practice for Resolutions

047they've been considered on study and then introduced for action so I would be able to answer the questions on the fair campaign Practices Act in particular and then the para potential Health Care implications those questions and then the study item itself would be a draft resolution and if you could look at Kathleen just to make sure that there aren't any other potential implications by us being employees that just is what makes me nervous if for example [Music] we have immunity because we're a volunteer board if we're an employee do we have different immunity issues if we get sued I don't know the answer to that we're we're covered by the Colorado governmental immunity act so those protections would remain in place but I'll I'll verify that okay are we good on this thanks Kathleen thanks

048Rob thanks everyone as a thoughtful conversation okay so the next agenda item is casby resolutions board members Kitty well as hallways I think we should repeal the Claire Davis act speaking of qualified immunity because and it Tina had made this point a lot unless there's a lot of money that comes with it to make sure that you're going to know what every kid is thinking it puts everyone at risk and I think it's unreasonable do you all know what the Clare you all know what Claire Davis Act is okay kitty can you put together what you've put together in the past and we can look at it at the next meeting so okay just cut and paste I think anybody else I have one um we'll talk about it during legislative update but Rob has

049been appointed to the accountability committee um task force sorry and there's some discussion about whether after they do all their work and they want to change if they come to a conclusion that they want to change our accountability system that we would need a waiver from the feds and CDE needs basically to be directed to ask for a waiver from the feds so I thought we could have a resolution keep it really Broad and not put any parameters not knowing what the task force is going to come up with but just say assuming that the findings of the task force require a waiver from the Feds that we would ask CDE to request or to waiver something along those lines did People Are People okay with that Rob does that seem all right all right

050I'll take the Lion's Share of putting together something it'll just be like that Top Line because I don't think we want to be prescriptive as to what it would look like okay any other ideas for resolutions and the one thing I've been thinking about is you know the past legislative session the failing of removing the Science High School science cmass test I mean participation rates are really abysmal I'm if science questions are covered in the PSAT and the SAT I'm just curious about how bbsc perceives the value of having the science cmass in 11th grade and whether that's something that we could take off of our the plates of our schools in coordinating in our students and having to sit for if we're not really getting great participation rates and valid data as a result

051so that's just something I want to question like how do we find Value in it or not and if not I would really like us to Advocate and help see if we can get that off of the CMS schedule for our students Dr Anderson I'm wondering if that would require a federal waiver I don't know the answer to that I think we can look into that in regards to you know what analysis what data do we use we have such a small sample size it wouldn't be responsible to use that for anything other than we offered the test for those students who decide to show up and they get the results of that test we don't use that test of the results of that test for any learning for any analysis of learning it's uh

052probably the least valuable data that we get from testing Nicole maybe we could just say um we support only testing that's required by the feds and then wait and see if accountability comes up with something and get a waiver that way if we need to some language like that I think that'd be fine and um looking through our 2022 policy platform there are a few and this isn't for casual resolutions but some of them can be wiped because of change in law some of things that have happened around accountability so I think when it comes time to re-look at our policy platform I'd like to have a deeper dive into the ones listed but I know that's not for today's topic all right any other resolutions ideas for resolutions okay that's it for our work

053session I think we have time now to take a 10 minute break so I'll call this part of the meeting adjourned until we start again at six foreign I'd like to call to order this regular meeting of the Boulder Valley board of education for Tuesday August 8 2023. Laura would you please call the roll Garcia here gephard here nesnick here rajpal here Sergeant here Sweeney Moran here is this here thank you we'll begin our meeting as always with our land acknowledgment board member niznick would you please read the land acknowledgment happily Boulder Valley School District resides and operates on land that is the ancestral Homeland and unjustly an illegally taken territory of the Ute puebloon Arapahoe Cheyenne Apache Navajo and 48 other tribal Nations historically tied to this land who have called This Land home

054since 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 bvsd 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 bvsd recognizes the histories of the land in Colorado and the survival of many nations that carry their oral Traditions into the present it is bvsd's responsibility to educate ourselves our communities and our students so we can embrace the wisdom and knowledge of indigenous peoples and actively stand together to address injustices in offering this land acknowledgment we affirm and honor the history wisdom oral traditions and resilience of indigenous people and recognize the responsibility to care

055for and appreciate this land together thank you to remind everybody that the mission of the Boulder Valley School District is to create challenging meaningful and engaging learning opportunities so that all children Thrive and are prepared for successful civically engaged lives good evening everybody thank you for joining us electronically on bv22 we're glad to have you observe and participate in our meetings at this time is there a motion to approve our agenda for this evening by Kitty seconded by Nicole or could you call the roll please Garcia yes Gephardt yes niznick yes Raj Paul yes Sergeant yes Sweeney Moran yes this yes motion passes thank you we'll begin as always with the superintendent's report Dr Anderson good evening good evening board president Gephart members of the board it's exciting to be back hopefully everybody had a

056wonderful summer um I know that many of us uh hopefully at a time had some time to rest recharge and get geared up what I know is going to be a busy and productive school year last week I had the opportunity and the honor to welcome back our district leadership team DLT with some opening remarks and then our I think we've been doing this for five years now our annual DLT barbecue I want to thank Kathy and Richard for being able to stop by and say hello and really celebrate with uh with all of our leaders lots of really great energy amongst the group we had an opportunity to celebrate some of our successes that we that we were able to accomplish together last year is just really a great way to start the school

057year and um on yesterday I was able to uh welcome back all of our new teachers along with uh bvea and our bva president Patty Delgado we also were honored to have Amy olaboker from a cea there with us as well to welcome our new Educators it's always inspiring for me to be able to welcome folks that are new to the field and then also uh you know over a hundred Educators who left their District to choose ours and we talked a lot about our commitment to providing the very best District conditions we can for all teachers to be successful and and that you know I view that as my job as our job to make sure that we're doing that and was just a it was really great to have them have them back

058our team's been hard at work throughout the summer and over the last couple of weeks really getting our buildings ready for our students to come back as we come back next week isn't that hard to believe um I'm sure that if you were by schools or folks in the public were buyer schools over this summer even the past couple weeks you've seen our team hard at work making sure that everything's clean shiny ready to go um as a reminder next Wednesday and Thursday are our first days of school on Wednesday we'll be bringing back just sixth graders and ninth graders as part of kind of an orientation through a program that we have called 360 and on Thursday all students will be back in school so board members will be giving you a more thorough

059update on the 22nd our welcome our back to school update so to speak this is just a little bit of a of a just kind of an update on where we are today and because students aren't back in school yet no student moment this evening which I know is a disappointment so that's all I have for my remarks happy to answer any questions Nicole thanks for that Dr Anderson out of curiosity how many of the new teachers that were welcomed back are brand brand new to the district versus somebody that maybe went from a limited turn contract has been with us but made a transition yeah I'll be able to give you all that information in our actual welcome back we're still finalizing some hires and so on the 22nd we'll have that information for

060you board members any other questions it's my understanding Dr Anderson that we actually have sufficient board member or sorry bus drivers to drive our bus routes is that which is actually awesome news well I would say that um our transportation team has done an amazing job making lots of decisions that will allow us to not cancel routes I don't know that would go as far as say that we have enough drivers this is an ongoing challenge for those that read the paper today you saw that in one of our neighboring districts they're doing rolling cancellations so at any point in time parents will be without transportation and kids will be out transportation and I think that it's just a a tribute to our team Tony Scala Rob Price everybody over in transportation pulling together making

061things work so we haven't had to do something that drastic and we're continuing to hire continuing to make sure that we have everybody we need so that we can keep those commitments to families I think about my own experience as a kid and uh you know I'd be missing some school if my bus school buses were were canceled when I was growing up and you know I think about that really deeply in regards to making sure that we provide for all kids and so luckily our team has done a great job we haven't had to do that I was just going to say hats off to the team for all the hard work to be able to start the year in such a strong position so thank you board members anything else all right we'll

062now begin the public participation section of the board's meeting members of the public who wish to speak at tonight's meeting were asked to sign up prior to noon today by submitting the request to speak during public participation form that can be found on the bvsd website or by contacting the board secretary Laura Shafer public participants have the option to attend the meeting in person or join and present their meetings via Google meet the board respects the rights of the public to speak on matters concerning the operation of the schools the board does not endorse the comments of any speaker and reminds all who speak that they are responsible for their own speech please know that this is a listening opportunity for the board and the board does not engage in a dialogue or answer questions

063as part of public participation the Board needs time to consider the comments made and may include items on future board meeting agendas to address issues raised by our public and Community to ensure that our meeting is conducted in an orderly manner we ask the person to address the board one can find your comments to matters that are germane to the business of the School District Two recognize that students often attend or view our meetings speakers remarks therefore should be suitable for an audience that includes kindergarten through 12th grade students the board president me May interrupt warn or terminate a participant statement that is unrelated to the business of the district or inappropriate for K-12 students please submit your presentation to two minutes if you run out of time and you would like to share additional

064information you may email the board we all read all of our emails you will see a yellow card when you have 30 seconds remaining when you have 10 seconds you will see the orange card Please wrap up your comments at the end of your two minutes a timer will sound and your microphone will be muted we have several speakers this evening addressing non-agenda items the first person is virtual is that right Laura yes but I have not seen him online so the first person would be Sean Ward and we'll go on to that we only have two other speakers after that and we'll come back and see if he is logged on to give his comments the next person is Donna Farrell um I'm really sorry I'm having a hard time hearing you talk my

065comments are about the immoral publication gender queer being included in the school libraries both of my children are deceased one son died at the age of four months and his brother died at almost 29 years I have no grandchildren I have however paid taxes to support the Boulder Valley School District since 1973. I have a vested interest in the future of our country and the education of the children I would like to thank every teacher my son had in Boulder Valley for not spending any time trying to convince him that he was really a girl and I'm grateful that his education didn't include sexual practices bvsd records a 50 proficiency rate in math and a 67 proficiency rate in Reading according to public school review both stats are better than other public schools in Colorado

066but it's reasonable to assume that both could be significantly improved with the greater emphasis I would like to see my tax dollars spent on traditional curricula and other subjects that will benefit our country libraries should not house pornography a glance at genderqueer certainly exhibits obscenity where Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said in 1964 I know it when I see it according to a recent Gallup poll the population identifying as lgbtq has doubled in the past 10 years to 7.2 percent of Americans which obviously proves that recruitment of young people is successful please don't allow yourselves to be used in this recruitment effort that harms our children while offering zero benefit to our great country thank you next we have Dan Grabowski thank you I'm here to let you know that some schools in the

067district are making available a book with a drawing of a child being sexually abused by a grown man and the author describes it as the best fantasy the placement of this book contradicts the district's commitment to the safety and well-being of students in case there's any doubt that the image shows the abuse of a child I'll refer to the rape abuse and incest national network called rain it states child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse that includes sexual activity with a minor a child cannot consent to any form of sexual activity period the book is called genderqueer so some people believe that defense of the book is the same as standing up for lgbtq kids but it's actually the opposite the book's description of child sexual abuse as the best fantasy distorts the

068ideas of consent and appropriate behavior between minors and adults in fact rain reports that perpetrators often tell children the activity is normal or that they enjoyed it so telling vulnerable kids that this book is a good resource for them is irresponsible at best now let's be honest a book is not being banned from public view just because it a school stops providing it schools must choose what to provide to students and not everything makes the cut it's not controversial for schools to decline books that fantasize about harming yourself or others a school library is not separate from the rest of the school we still trust staff to select materials that promote student safety and well-being now that we know the book genderqueer distorts the idea of child adult sexual relations as something good we must

069consider it selection to be a mistake to follow through on the district's commitment to student safety and well-being I'm asking you to correct the mistake and stop providing this book within the district thank you thank you I can only see part of my screen on here um I think I teach juicy if Sean Ward is on I haven't seen him but I don't think I have this as Clarissa I didn't get host privilege so I don't see okay I don't see him amola does not see him I think we're good to go if given our technical difficulties if he appears we just let me know and we can certainly take his comment out of order if that's all right I shall okay so that concludes public participation tonight assuming that Sean Ward doesn't show up

070um we appreciate hearing from our speakers this evening we'll move on next to board communication board members who wants to go first I know it's our first meeting back don't be shy Lisa yeah I mean I'll start by saying that I'm not here to listen to homophobic anti-trans trash like that um secondly Rob I just had a question about the edus that we're not doing anymore the annual data updates I was just a little surprised when I got there notice as a parent that we're not doing them I think um they're kind of a hassle but I do think it was a great opportunity to update things like emergency contact and people who can or can't pick up kids and all of that I know there's a way to contact and do everything but it's

071sort of nice to be able to review every year and I'm wondering if we're thinking through ways that maybe the Adu could be less onerous but that would still let parents check in and review emergency contacts data settings Etc and update things that were needed yeah I believe our team has has a plan on how to access that data in another way let me check with our team and get back to you anyone else Richard Stacy all right Kitty so one day while I was out walking my precious dog the best dog in the world by the way her name is Maisie um I saw a teenage girl riding her bike with her earbuds in and no helmet so I just want to remind parents to please make sure your kids are wearing their bike

072helmets she could easily have been killed and not heard somebody coming up on her so I just have a couple comments um along with Richard as Dr Anderson said we were at the back to school barbecue and just the excitement and energy was really palpable and having Dr Anderson there greeting everybody was just a great way I thought to start off the school year so thank you for including us and thanks for hosting that event and thanks to everybody for showing up and then I attended two events one was the CU in Boulder event with the chancellor that was at the Boulder Theater and it was just really nice to see the university engaging with different um parts of the community and to start off their school year in such a positive and enthusiastic way

073and then just a shout out to our Congressman Congressman Goose I went to a book signing and he has written a book about eight outstanding Congress people and he didn't say this but my gut was people asked him to write a book about himself and the way he is that wasn't what he was going to do so he did a lot of research I don't know how he finds time to do it he's a dad of a newborn and a three-year-old and also a congressman and still manages to do all amazing work that he does but it's a really good read and so if people get a chance I can I was going to bring it but I forgot my prop so anyway it was just nice to hear one of our locals be there

074and kind of be extolling the virtues of public service and extolling the virtues of being engaged in ways that people probably including him had never heard of so the one quick story told and I'll be very quick I promise is the reason they swear in all of the members of the House at once is because when the first African-American or black Congressman was about to be sworn in the speaker was worried they wouldn't swear him in because they used to do it by State and so decided that the only way to make sure that this person was sworn in was to do a swearing-in on Moss and so that's what they did and they're continuing to do that and that Congressman went on to fight the segregated lunchrooms that they used to have because if

075you can imagine it was 434-1 and he was actually able to actually get the lunchroom segregated so those are the kinds of stories that are in that book that kind of make you feel good about kind of we still have a long ways to go but when people stand up for the things that they believe in I think it's really important so that's all I have to offer so we will now move on to one of our four information items this evening I'll turn it over to you Dr Anderson to do the introduction thank you board president Gephardt um so our first update for you all today will be an update on preschool learning and enrichment Universal preschool upk uh you know board members we've been talking about this topic for uh a year and

076a half I think that it's I was really clear to our community and to our board on some of the concerns that I had going in to the the quick roll out of upk we've felt all the growing pains that you could have imagined and many of what we had predicted trying to make this work for our families and for our kids you know I we gave you um brought forward an update uh in the spring on the information that we had uh literally I believe we were updating information today in the deck uh so we're here to give you the very best information that we have today and to the best of our ability answer the questions the many questions that I anticipate that you'll have um I you know the spirit of of

077this law and and to try to make sure that we're increasing access to preschool high quality preschool for all kids is noble and right but I also think that the rollout has been incredibly challenging not just for the Boulder Valley School District but for every school district throughout Colorado I was recently at the Colorado Association for School Executives case our annual conference in Breckenridge and sat in on a session of um of an hour that was packed uh with maybe a hundred individuals and just hearing about the challenges and continuing challenges that that are going on in implementing Universal preschool as you all I am sure read recently I believe it was in chalk beat the cdac the Colorado Department of Early Childhood has had to break its promise of upk for many of our

078preschoolers across the state because the funding just wasn't there and I think that was one of the concerns one of our major concerns going in was our at-risk three-year-old students making sure they're being served appropriately so I do think that we have some good news and and our team is here to share that with you but also uh there are a lot of challenges and still a lot of unanswered questions so with that introduction I will turn the presentation over to Robin Fernandez good evening president Gebhart members of the board and Dr Anderson as Dr Anderson said we are here to provide you with an update about Universal Pre-K both in Broad terms but also in terms of our rollout here in bvsd as we prepare to welcome our youngest Learners to preschool later this

079month I am joined this evening by Dr Emma Herzog our newly appointed executive director of early childhood education Dr Herzog was with us last year in bvsd as a Harvard resident so it comes to the position already knowing a lot about bvsdn having had the opportunity to develop relationships across the district prior to taking on her new role she was previously in elementary school principal and primary grades teacher so she has significant knowledge and experience in the teaching of Young Learners also joining us this evening is Theresa Clements our director of early childhood education and also our administrator at Mapleton Early Childhood Center and Jasmine Balon our community schools child care programs manager who works with PK enrichment so at this time I will turn the presentation over to Dr Herzog thank you assistant superintendent

080Fernandez and good evening we wanted to start with a quick review of some context as a reminder House Bill 1295 Colorado Universal preschool program or cup was signed in April 2022 by Governor polis it created a new Colorado Department of early childhood education which we are calling cdec the new department has oversight of all birth to five quality programming in the state of Colorado all Early Childhood programs previously in the Colorado Department of Education and the Colorado Department of Human Services have moved to cdec special education however has remained under the Colorado Department of Education and as a result of HB 1295 the governor now has a cabinet level position for early childhood education HB 1295 has also created a new reporting structure program guidelines and a new Statewide Universal preschool application system called Bridge

081care the changes we have made here in Boulder Valley to our preschool programming are in response to this legislation and districts across the state have also adjusted their programming as they align with HB 1295 together we represent two departments Community Schools preschool enrichment and early childhood learning and we're working together to provide increased options of full day programming for families throughout bbsd as you probably remember all school age four-year-olds in the state of Colorado are eligible for up to 15 hours of preschool funded by Colorado Universal preschool program our bvsd preschool learning program is 15 hours and classrooms will be multi-age threes and fours the enrichment program provides tuition-based programming beyond the 15 hours prior to cdec taking over enrollment we were able to create class lists and determine enrollment location in order to best

082balance our classrooms and meet the needs of all students now class rosters are mostly determined by the state seadek initially shared that any child with just one qualifying Factor would be eligible for up to 30 hours just two weeks ago programs and families were notified that only families who have low income plus one other qualifying Factor would be eligible for the additional 15 hours this was a surprise to many families and we are working with families through this change in eligibility as a reminder only four-year-olds are eligible for the state-funded 30 hours to provide families with increased access the district is tripling the number of enrichment sites from 5 to 15 locations due to space constraints this year we have 15 sites that have both preschool learning and enrichment programs and 10 sites with learning

083only for this coming year this is the typical weekly schedule as a family would experience it in their seven and a half hour day most locations across the district consist of two classrooms and the cohorts are depicted visually by learning in red and in Richmond in blue a child in these cohorts will move between the classrooms throughout the week from Bell to Bell Wednesdays are important this is protected intentional collaboration time where ECE and enrichment staff can come together to engage in the following ways active participants in late start professional learning within their school communities kid talk collaboration time between teams as the student support team this time continues to support intentional planning and information sharing related to Shared children and it supports a smooth transition between program environments for students and Families it also

084is in alignment with the district's late start let's focus on the implementation timeline of this new program one barrier we've been experiencing is the delay of enrollment information from the bird care system typically our enrollment and recruitment for preschool begins during the bdsd Open Enrollment window in November while we anticipated this later start the multiple delays and postponements of receiving Bridge care data were unanticipated this visual shows the timeline for the bridge care application system rolled out by the Colorado Department of early childhood initially the information from cdec was that rounds were intended to conclude every two weeks resulting in a match notably here the initial process for matching in round one was delayed by over 80 days for various reasons all of which were out of our control leading to our receiving our first

085batch of final enrollment data being mid-may the largest enrollment numbers pushed in during round one in the last week of July we received anticipated guidance for August and coming and ongoing rounds of enrollment data this is new we were under the previous impression that once school started the match and acceptance process in bridgecare would immediate and no longer be in rounds our two departments have been working tirelessly to stay current with ongoing changes support parents through this complicated process demonstrate flexibility and move as efficiently as possible I'm very clear with our public and our board that this is the state's timeline not pbsd's timeline and uh as board members you may recall we had concerns around this idea of rounds where although we had opened seats that they were holding back seats and and um

086and rolling them out in different rounds and um I think what you'll see in the following slides are some of the consequences of that in regards to enrollment when we think about the number of students we were anticipating who wanted to be with us and the number of students who today are actually formally enrolled so just wanted to highlight that the headline there this is the cdec enrollment timeline so on that note where are we at this time last year with our previous enrollment system and preschool structure we had 599 seats filled in our Boulder Valley preschool program this year we have new guidelines from the state New structures and new processes we are not implementing the same program that we did last year at this time and while we certainly have some ongoing significant

087work to do it is exciting that we already have more three and four-year-olds in preschool than we did last year at this time as of August 7th we have 930 seats accounted for out of the 1274 available learning seats we have allocated I say accounted for because the process to move families through enrollment from the state's Bridge care system into fully and completely enrolled in our Boulder Valley Infinite Campus system is time consuming and inefficient we have our own internal tracking system that the early childhood education team has been using for years and the team is keeping track of all families that have matched and are in in process of finalizing their enrollment in our district in this internal tracking system as of yesterday we have 728 students who have fully completed enrollment are in

088Infinite Campus and are done with the process we'll talk more about this on a later slide but moving a student and family through the new enrollment processes have been clumping clunky and time consuming both because of the State's new processes and our own internal systems and we're continuing to work diligently to address that challenge we are excited though that we are currently anticipating about 930 students to enroll in learning with more students continuing to come through the state's Bridge care system regularly we have more work to do and we're also increasing the number of preschoolers that bbsd serves we also wanted to give you a sense of where we are for enrollment in both learning and enrichment by School site let me Orient you to this graph on the bottom you can see the names

089of every School site and the total allocated seats at that site the light orange bar indicates how many learning seats we currently have assigned in our internal tracking system for each site so for example you can see that Birch highlighted here and Meadowlark highlighted right next to it are at around 85 percent assigned or in other words are at what we anticipate to be 85 capacity once all enrollments in Infinite Campus are completed the darker orange represents the number of learning seats that are fully completed enrollments in Infinite Campus so for Birch you can see we're currently at around 60 percent of students that are enrolled in Infinite Campus and at Meadowlark we are much closer to that 85 percent having completed all enrollment steps and in Infinite Campus the yellow bar represents enrichment and

090we have separated our schools on the left that do not have enrichment sites from our schools on the right that do the yellow bar shows what percentage of enrichment seats are currently accounted for at each site so putting this all together if you look at El Dorado over there for example our internal tracking document currently has El Dorado at about 80 percent of seats accounted for with about 75 percent of those enrollments fully completed and in Infinite Campus in Richmond the yellow shows that we currently have about 50 percent of enrichment seats accounted for at El Dorado it is important to note that with our structure of families enrolling in our learning program and then having the option to add on the tuition-based enrichment program families must complete their learning enrollment before they can apply

091to enrichment the rollout of unit Colorado Universal preschool program has been quite challenging we're all adjusting to a new way of doing things this enrollment process includes many steps and a longer timeline as noted as you saw with the timeline slide initial timelines were delayed there have been numerous issues with the implementation process the data that we've received from the state contains errors sometimes families do not realize they need to go in and click accept for the match families who have moved out of District but did not decline the match continue to show up in each round and sometimes names have disappeared from The rosters we spend hours working on data cleanup and ensuring that we have accurate information previously families would only need to work with the district to get enrolled now the family's

092first point of contact is often the state and the bridge care system families applied through Bridge care and then have to wait to get matched to one of our schools one reason enrichment enrollment is lower right now is because families need to be matched to us in Bridge care enroll in the district and then they can enroll in enrichment this involves three separate systems that families must navigate finally there are numerous issues with funding and communication around funding initially cdec stated the first payment in August would include funding for all seats even seats that we have to hold for students who go through the child find process and may enroll later in the year the most recent information stated that only seats where children are enrolled will be funded they have changed the funding timeline

093from quarterly to monthly and we will not receive payment for our three-year-olds until November while there are numerous challenges we do have an amazing Early Learning and enrichment team and we're working hard to ensure families are supported and students are enrolled in our program consistency and collaboration between our two departments has been key with the amount of changes implemented by cdec coming together to address and remap our approach to be a seamless and synchronized as possible is vital in order to support our families as much as we can in order to respond to the needs we've taken an individualized approach for each family in order to meet this increased workload several of our community Liaisons worked additional hours this summer in order to Shepherd each family through this complicated process our team has remained flexible

094and Nimble adjusting to the quick and often unpredictable changes our team meets internally on a regular basis in order to change and adjust our process in addition to having regular and frequent meetings with our local coordinating organization or lco having a strong collaboration with our lco has been key to moving through the rollout of universal preschool throughout this coming year we will continue to advocate for the needs of our families and change and adjust in order to ensure that all preschool students in bbsd have access to our high quality preschool learning and enrichment program we would be happy to answer any questions at this time this is um first and foremost I just want to thank you guys for all of that the work you're doing that is incredible it sounds I feel like I

095have a headache just listening to all the complexities that you're addressing so thank you so much when you said your families are navigating three separate systems I I think I heard all of us kind of sigh because that just sounds so complex um so first and foremost thank you secondly um one of the questions that I'm not sure we talked about today is what additional supports are we providing for our bilingual families in this extremely complex system do we have translation services what what does that look like we have Community Liaisons who speak another language we work with our translation Department again I'll go back to the term we really are shepherding each family through this process our community Liaisons are calling families over and over giving them the resources they need they feel like

096they're enrolled because the state system says you're enrolled but they're not really enrolled in our program so one-on-one individual attention meeting them out in the community meeting them here in person whatever they need so that we can support them is that your only question this round okay kitty I want to Echo Beth's thank you you all deserve a break for this um so I just want to make sure I understand how this works and I'm betting that I don't so let's say a kid who was at preschool in El Dorado last year and was three years old they don't get to just stay at El Dorado unlike if they had been in kindergarten last year correct so they go into this bridge care system are they guaranteed to even be in bvsd or could they

097get matched to a private preschool that's the first part of my question that's a great question and that's part of the complicated process so the matching process involves some prioritization and one of them is if you have a sibling at that school or you're a returning student you do have some priority but that has been the problem because typically if a student was at El Dorado we would re-enroll them at El Dorado now we tell the families fill out the bridge care system and let's hope you show up in El Dorado when we get the spreadsheet and so so that's step one they may or may not get to be where they were or anywhere near they live is their um a limit in there about you know a certain number of miles from where

098they live that they're going to be matched or could we have a kid who lives in Gold Hill gets matched at Birch so families choose up to five sites okay and so they will be matched to one of those five sites and if they're not matched to one of those five sites then they I believe go back in the round or they're they're somehow notified they need to pick another that they won't match to anybody so families can choose it's um open enrollment so families anywhere in the state can apply in Bridge care to any licensed Child Care Center that's participating in Universal preschool anywhere and then they go through their process of matching so they choose five sites so I'm going to go back to this hypothetical four-year-old who was at El Dorado and

099now is matched to some other school let's say it's Meadowlark then they get through all that and they need enrichment so Meadowlark doesn't offer enrichment so if you you know they have known enough to get the help they need to now apply for enrichment what happens so Kitty I think the theme Here is that um we're not going to have good answers your questions the the because we don't control Bridge care and here's the example that was provided in a session I was in a case right so there was a school district in Colorado they went through the bridge care and they had a classroom of all boys that the system just put into Bridge care uh now if we had access to the bridge care system we would say man maybe we should you

100know we should probably balance these classes out right so the work that the team is doing and again I really appreciate you all thanking them the work they've done this summer is uh is just truly incredible and I know frustrating um you know without access to the system it's all workarounds it's all trying to fix things but then then the parents have to go back through the bridge care system because we can't access it which is one of the big issues that we're dealing with right now if we could access this system we could iron out a lot of wrinkles but we're doing a run around and it was really frustrating for me to sit in a session uh that session at case and learn that the state uh if they would have bought a

101more upgraded version of bridge care it would have been able to fix a lot of the problems but they didn't do that they brought the cheap version of bridgecare and because of that when we're requesting things the answer is well the system won't do that so I want to get back to my kid so when parents are choosing five do they see that this school offers enrichment in that school doesn't so chances are they are going to only select the schools with the enrichment how many have not done that and still needed enrichment I mean I I'm sure you don't have a number at the tip of your fingers but has that happened that has happened a lot um so yes families have gone in and they've gone through the matching process and they've been

102matched somewhere that did not have enrichment and then they need to go back in and change their selection and be processed through an additional round and then their name and information comes to us and hopefully they're matched at an enrichment location so it's essentially as if they hadn't even started it when they did so they're that far behind with all these other kids in front of their kid who is at El Dorado last year correct okay this yeah this is awful is that all Kitty Kate Nicole and then Richard I just want to say thank you to your team and the community Liaisons who have been um incredibly flexible throughout this process both from the districts and reaching out to serve our families to the extent that you have I'm grateful for that I also

103want to say thank you to the families who have stuck through this process as well I mean my hearts go out I I every time I hear this update I'm thinking I am so grateful my kids are out of preschool age because this sounds incredibly complicated and the bright side is we're getting more students in our Pre-K than we did last year which speaks to the quality of our programming it speaks to the degree to which you guys have really helped these families find seats within our district so I think that is a really big bright side um amidst what has been a really awful rollout of this program and I hope the state really hears that question what implications are there for us if we're not receiving State funds until November for these students

104and for these programs are there any Sutter [Laughter] uh we won't meet the revenue budget which means we'll have to put some more money in from the general fund ing sorry so we'll kind of support that from the general fund up front and then move that money around when we get the payment from the state well the model was built on the funding amount the annual funding amount for all the students and so uh if that if we don't get funded for a student for the full year since they've moved from month from annual payment to monthly to quarterly to monthly like if a student isn't in the system we're not getting funded for them ever throughout the for the year oh no like if today the student's not there they come in next month

105we'll get funded next month but not for the August payment that makes sense but but the challenge is we can't do the same with the expenditures right we have staff that we need to support at these levels of expected enrollment so that that's kind of where I was we'll work it out next time we see you in the budget meeting yes anything else Nicole Richard thank you again uh good job we talked a lot about the state level and what we're doing here and then we have this thing called local coordinating organization could you talk a little bit about what their role is supposed to be in all this process and are they supposed to make the process easier and not harder so ideally ultimately the goal is that the lco is our bridge to

106the state and that they are the ones supporting us so I think because the rollout has been so quick um and lcos had to stand up so quickly they are struggling with getting answers from the state as well and so I think the end game is that they would be our connection but they're still learning and they're still coming across the same complications of what they have access to in Bridge care and what they don't have access to I do know our contact with our lco is very responsive to us and we'll ask the state for questions it's just that sometimes there's not answers to those questions can you give an example of some of the questions that you provide to the lco and the lco takes on to the state just give me a

107sample well for instance we wondered why families kept showing up round after round when the family had told us they were not going to enroll and they kept showing up and nobody told us that they keep coming and showing up in each round and so we asked the lco they weren't sure and then they found out oh well it's because if they don't decline they just keep showing up round after round after round um we have questions about funding we asked the lco first we have questions about just the spreadsheets and how to access them oftentimes the lco has to go to the state and ask questions and then um come back thank you for that I appreciate it um it seems to me like the lcu has a great responsibility because we're not just

108talking about Boulder Valley School District we're talking about Boulder Valley School District Valley School District and all the private providers I and non-profit providers it seems to me like a big task and I'm wondering if the lcu is equipped enough to be able to handle that task I'm just a kind I will say that one big responsibility of the lcos ones when this is up and running is ensuring that the programs are meeting quality standards and I know that cdac has provided I mean they're not even close to being there with any of what that might look like you know board members I think that as we expanded our seats in our district you know that was a big concern for us in regards to making sure the kids are ready for kindergarten by achieving

109a high quality preschool opportunity um and so that I think that that's a great question Richard I think time will tell um I just think that cdec is is running in an incredibly chaotic way just trying to get to school year started uh um and and I think Tom will tell in regards to our our lco which is the Early Childhood Coalition of Boulder County correct I know who they are uh and the uh the question that I think about a lot is the fact that uh when there's our possibilities to even increase more funding for Early Childhood in our in our County then we have issues with other entities that harp on the fact that we have an extra level of bureaucracy or another layer of government blah blah blah and it seems to

110me like we could just get rid of that lco and US handled it directly with the state department and not even worry about them just a comment anyone else so Richard to your comment I think you're referring to the petition that was in front of the County Commissioners and the problem with that bill was that it was a 2019 bill that didn't reflect the new law that was laid over that which now requires lcos so you're right there's there wasn't enough thought given to that as to what we could do locally and they're just trying to put a square peg in a round hole my understanding is the applications only in English is that correct I know we provide services but it what I've read is that the applications only in English is that true

111think I can come to the mic to say we're not actually sure but as the newcomer to this conversation we can get that answer what I am sure about is even if it were translated English was my first language and it's still confusing um so there's just a lot of layers I think at Play we can get that answer I know that the cdec said that they've given school districts access to the bridge care list is that true did you guys get access and it was just inaccurate or are you still not had access we do I mean we have a list of students who are matched to us one of the issues is what Dr Anderson spoke about is we have no control of things so and it really comes into play when we

112have a student who has an IEP and we need to determine location where the IEP services are going to be and so we have to work through many many layers to support those families and students to be located in a location that can meet their needs and so we don't always know all of that information or perhaps there's a student with an IEP that might be at a private site and you know looking at our responsibilities and things like that so there's several layers to those spreadsheets and we don't have access to make the changes so we have to fill out Google forms and and talk with the state and do different things and you know work through data privacy and all of those pieces so that we can meet the needs of families so

113before I ask my next question I just want people to remember thanks to the efforts of Dr Anderson when this bill dropped and we had about two weeks to go through a 450 page bill and we were told no changes would be made part of the issue was the lcos because they wouldn't tell us how many there were going to be and we at least got it so you couldn't have an lco cross county lines which is how we ended up having the lco was Saint Vrain at least so that was the only change I think that was made to the whole bill despite all the changes and so I just want people to remember how we got to where we were because it wasn't because we all just said oh this is a great

114Bill looks like it's going to work fine we were just told pound sand there will be no changes basically Richard were you going to say something then I had a follow-up question of this because just very quickly now that you mentioned uh uh Saint Vrain and lcos and counties and stuff like that we work in two actually Three Counties I believe right uh and uh four and and there's lcos in each one of these particular counties uh how is that working with you all I mean for example in Broomfield uh do we just use one lcyon to use two or three or four what if so that was the change that we lobbied for we didn't want to be we be uh in an lco and Gilpin or an lco and Broomfield and an lco

115in Boulder imagine how complicated it would be if we had to go to three different people like so uh so every the entire School District the way that the that the law was changed is that a school district cannot be separated into multiple lcos so um we are all in so it's it's same frame and Boulder Valley are in the same lco Broomfield uh are part of Broomfield that's part of bbsd is in that lco the parts of Broomfield that are announced 12 other districts are in those corresponding lcos and the other parts of the statute that was troubling is that there's no accountability so there's a new department and there is a review board that's supposed to look at the rules that's appointed but has no accountability so there's really no way for us

116as a school district or any of us to hold anybody accountable for this and instead the school district takes the black eye because people are used to using us and they think we're the ones that are screwing this up and coming up with this great system and we have no ability to go to anybody to try to fix this is that true Rob pretty much I mean so um I think governance was a chat was one of the things that we brought up right if there was governance with representation of people from across the state um would they be able to uh two weeks before school starts uh take away services from thousands tens of thousands of students or then say oh we're just going to pay you on a monthly basis so they don't

117you know you see what happens there right so if kids aren't enrolled right or they're enrolled they're not paying for us that our kids are you know that are eventually going to be enrolled and that's just not how our finances work right you see these nuanced changes trying to make up a budget difference right that everybody was saying was going to be there and uh and and and to to your uh Point Kathy you know if there was some governance or some oversight would those be decisions would as things were starting to fall apart would there have been somebody who said hey wait a minute stop you know I don't I mean those that's all speculative and I think that that's dangerous but uh to your response you know all we can do is call

118the number right that's our we call the number maybe maybe to Nicole's point when we figure out our legislative agenda maybe we need to look at the governance structure of cdec because having this whole system with no accountability is really challenging and we all know that being accountable is what you we need to be to the public when we're spending public dollars and I just don't think that's what's Happening Here um just a couple more questions I don't mean to monopolizes but I think the board kind of gave you a sense of where we are which is kind of stunned and trying to figure out where to go next and we don't you guys are doing amazing work into Rob's Point thanks to the families for their patience too but I'm wondering I have two

119more questions one is around sped because if if you have an IEP and you want to go to a private provider my understanding is that the school districts are supposed to be the default provider for children on IEPs is that right and and my understanding was the way we used to structure that pre-sea deck was we would try to have a third or third a third in our classes now we don't have any control over that are we able to have any say over proportionality of of students on IEPs to students not on IEPs just students who are learning a language do we have any control over that no so um and I'll ask the team to correct me if I get this wrong I don't think I will in response to reduced funding available

120the state changed the ratio of number of students on IEPs to students not on IEPs in classes and raise the number of students to 20. and uh that's a change for our teach that's a big change for our teachers and for our community I would anticipate as this gets rolled out the implications of that we'll hear from families potentially from our Educators um because it was a way to make the numbers work not something that was that was decided because it was necessarily in the best interests of kids and I think that you know we've had challenges especially you know working with our our preschool program and our employees that we value because we've had to change those ratios in in um in response to the funding that's coming in from the state and so

121we anticipate some challenges there I know that our team has been working really hard with our Educators and trying to find ways to to soften you know maybe some of the impacts on that uh but by funding a ratio and changing those ratios uh you know to the dollars aren't there to to to to to drive those things down I'll let the team add any other context to that I think I see lots of head knots Rob so a couple of our neighboring districts have said that what they will do if there's any way to figure this out is that if a family has one qualifying requirement and they were going to get kicked out that we will pick those families up and provide them what was promised by the state can we do that

122Rob I'm not sure I think that we'll have to um get a little bit more settled into in regards to how many students I know the team was was looking into that today on how many students that potentially could have been um that went from 30 to 15 hours where those students might have been located and how we would make that work I don't want to make promises we can't keep certainly um I think that you know I joined my fellow districts and and that being a a big concern but we'll have to kind of do some more analysis to understand what that would potentially cost us as a district to move forward and you know given the fact that that it wasn't something that was budgeted and given the fact that we know that

123we're not going to be getting the funding that we had anticipated because they've changed the funding structure right to monthly versus uh quarterly or annually and because the system is clogging people up where they won't be enrolled even though we know they're coming to us um I think that we're just going to have to do some financial analysis to see what we'd be able to do speaking for myself if there's any way that we could provide the 30 hours to those families who were originally promised that and they're mostly the low-income families um and find out who they are and figure out if we can afford that I just think that would be if we could afford it a really good step forward because of all the research we know and we know we offer

124a quality program and I'd hate to see low-income families kicked out at the last minute because they don't have another qualifying Factor so if there's and I know what time is of the essence so if there's anything we can do at the board level to support that or anything we could be doing you know I'm sure we would be willing to step into that because I just think to the extent like I said that we can provide those resources to our low-income families who were promised the 30 hours and then the state reneged if there's any way we could backfill that I think I think we all would stand behind trying to figure out how to do that but I understand has a budgetary impact and I am deliberately not looking at Bill Sutter if

125I understand correctly that that was the that that income was the first Factor right so the the students who no longer qualified had two other factors besides income no yep so this is why we have a team here yeah if you can make it it was just one qualifying factor to get the 30 hours and that changed two weeks ago right yes there were five qualifying factors originally and if you had any one of those um you would be eligible for 30 hours now there is a caveat in there right based on eligible funding so that's what cdec goes back on however information to families said you're eligible for 30 hours so they believe they're eligible and going to get it so yes then it changed to you have to have low income plus one

126other one and is it fair to say that the probably the largest number of qualifying factors was low income at least in Boulder so we probably had the most kids for that um yes and students with an IEP yeah and that's a whole different candle worms that's a CDE and other statutes protecting those kids but there aren't really any statutes protecting the kids who are low income to get their 30 hours correct so that's what I was hoping we could figure out Rob if we could find a way to do that I'll Circle back with the team this week and get the board some information on kind of where we are with that and keep you all updated as we try to figure that out kitty yeah I just had one follow-up on all of

127that so let's say you have a dual language learner living with their grandparents and the the child is on an IEP because they're not low income they don't get 30 hours no they would get it because the IEP would decide how many hours they get so the IEP is the controlling document I'm looking to Kathleen the IEP would decide how many hours that child gets and the district would be as the administrative unit would be required to provide those services I saw some looks over from our panel of experts uh feel free to weigh in yeah Teresa if you want to weigh in yeah I'm hesitant because sometimes I don't know if my confusion is shared confusion or if it's I'm new to this confusion but I think I'm right on this which is we're

128not necessarily writing IEPs to dictate the number of hours a student is participating in upk no but the IEP team can write the number of hours they could I don't know if that's been a practice that we have um approached yet Kathleen it's okay uh we just um had a meeting with cdec and CDE today we have monthly meetings with them and so it's really important to remember that the IEP team determines the needs of the students and how those needs will be met that doesn't necessarily automatically mean that they will get 30 hours because there's a potential of 30 hours so we have to look at all of that it can't just be like we have a 30-hour program so your IEP is going to give you 30 hours it has to be what

129is your need how many hours do you need to meet the needs in your IEP but the it is a qualifying factor that would allow you additional Services over the 15 potentially if you're low income too yes if you are low income and have an IEP you are eligible for 30 hours low income first thank you all for your patience and you're still smiling which that's a lot Richard did you have another question in the slide number six a little bit again I'm trying to understand the 30 hours the difference between the learning room and the instrument room uh and the purpose of the universal Pre-K program uh you know was it to provide learning room hours or enrichment hours I don't understand any of that stuff if you could explain that that would be

130grateful I can take that and then feel free to chime in um so we designed it or the team designed it and now I have arrived such that the 15 hours gets you time in the learning room or the learning side so if or when a family has 15 hours they can enroll in the learning side now after that a family that has 15 hours has a choice they could choose to pay to also engage in the enrichment side or they could choose or if a family qualifies for 30 hours then the enrichment side would potentially be covered but if they need learning time so learning time is covered for all families who qualify for the 15 hours but if they qualify for the 30 hours I just I'm mixed up here if they qualify

131for 30 then they get both learning and enrichment without having to pay the same tuition-based enrichment I guess I'm trying to say they need learning hours not in Richmond do they qualify for 30 hours of learning so again so I'm I'm trying to understand the difference between the enrichment and the learning if a child needs 30 hours of learning time and not enrichment I got it so the terminology enrichment and learning they're all learning the enrichment time is the way to separate the school age care provided preschool which meets the requirements of preschool by the state and then our typical preschool program which would be the learning room which is the preschool program that we've designed and that we've had and so the idea here is that uh that students many of our students you

132know and and when we originally designed this it was the idea that if you did four half days that that didn't meet individual parents needs that we wanted to develop programs that gave full day services so to your point Richard there's learning happening in the enrichment room there's learning happening in the learning room um if you qualify for upk those funds are are dedicated to those learning rooms the enrichment rooms are also supplemented by individuals who want to pay right for additional care but learning happens and that's why Wednesdays I believe are so important that's when both teams will be coordinating and working together to make sure they're meeting the needs of each individual student so anybody who would qualify for 30 hours would get four days of services two of those provided by our

133preschool team and to those provided by our school Age Care Team all meeting the requirements of preschool a follow-up question to that Rob are they all certified teachers or are they different teachers depending on whether it's a blue or red sorry Richard I didn't mean to jump in I I'll turn that over to the team too they're all certified but there there may be some differences in credentialing if I'm if there are differences in credentialing and I can let Jasmine speak I know that for the um for the learning side there I'll ecse qualified teachers which is a dual ECE and special education license and for the enrichment side they are all they meet the supervisor qualifications so director level qualifications for the child care licensing um portion of the day sorry one more question

134what what kind of data will we have at the end of this mess to figure out if it's working will we be keeping our own data I mean well I mean I think we start from the assumption that quality preschool makes a difference but how can we show that so we can continue to advocate for more funding and better programming I'm gonna have to think about that okay I'll be honest with you I um and I think that that's an important question to be asking and I think over the course of this year analyzing the the the system that we're providing is going to be important to decide whether this is the way to go or is there a different way to do it uh you know it's been it's why it's been so hard

135you know I think that our team has been doing the very best we could be to operate within the means that we were anticipating um in regards to funding with a reminder that many areas don't have any certified teacher like you know teachers with with degrees that they they they're certified for sure um but not necessarily degree Early Childhood Educators the funding doesn't provide for that at scale uh that we're be that we're being provided so uh to answer your question I do think that I don't know that there's a real clear Clean Program evaluation piece that we can do I think that we're just going to have to continue to assess um find the information that we probably the most I mean we're going to have TS gold information for remote for kids and

136taking a look at some of those outcomes as we move on I'll need to think about it a little bit more all right board members any other quilt our heartfelt thanks to all of you and I've received a sticky note asking for a comfort break so we're going to take a quick Comfort break right now call the meeting back to order and we will move on to our information item 6.2 and I'll turn the meeting over to Dr Anderson again who will probably turn it over to Kathleen board members the next two items there's not much to discuss these are just presented as information um I can turn over to Kathleen to say just something very brief around 6.2 and 6.3 and then we could move on to 6.4 if that's um okay with the

137board procedurally uh board members I know it has not we have not had occasion to consider a recommendation for dismissal since you've been on the board procedurally at this point the board is just informed superintendent Anderson has initiated the process that would then proceed to an administrative hearing when an administrative decision has been issued that decision will come to the board for Action that's the reason that at this point we're Limited in the information we can share with the board and that's the reason you have the very short uh summary board members any questions so Kathleen will there ever be a need for the board to have a hearing or will it just come to us as a recommendation from the administrative officer it will come to you as a recommendation all right anything else

138on those two items we'll move on to 6.4 which I think will be brief the reason I left it on there we've hinted at Dr Anderson being appointed to the accountability Task Force if you want to say two minutes or two seconds about that yes um I'm very uh thankful to senator fenberg who nominated me to to serve on this Statewide accountability task force our first board meeting our task force meeting will be August 24th um I'm very very excited to engage in this conversation uh there are I think 20 something individuals from the cross the state of Colorado representing both Public Schools Charters schools advocacy organizations uh to really come around this idea of accountability and accreditation at case I was able to sit on a panel with the other superintendents uh I'll be

139joined by Dr Don Haddad from Saint Vrain um Aaron Kane who's superintendent in Douglas County uh Wendy bizaral who is superintendent in Harrison 2 and then Lisa Yates who's superintendent in Buena Vista so I think we have a very competent experienced group of practitioners representing school districts throughout the state and you know my hope is that uh that these uh meetings are productive and we can figure out a way to put aside some of the differences that I know are going to exist between members of the committee and find Common Ground uh for the betterment of students across Colorado so I'm honored and excited to be participating in this task force and we'll continue to provide the board updates on the progress um as as we meet and Dr Anderson it meets for two years

140right so that we shouldn't be expecting any recommendations at least in the short term no uh no recommendations again you know hopefully uh you know just just some common understandings of what we work we're working towards which is making the system better not protecting the system where it is or making the system worse and the other update is that Steve enberg appointed me to the school Finance task force but it is moving at a snail's pace because the minority party has yet to um identify who they want on the committee even though they had a July 1st deadline so we don't have a time to meet we don't have a facilitator so I have nothing else to update you with but I will let you know all right any other questions all right we will

141move on to action items consent we have quite a few so bear with me I will read them as quickly as I can 7.1 Personnel item 7.2 approval of minutes June 12 2023 special meeting 7.3 approval of minutes June 13 2023 special meeting 7.4 approval of minutes June 13 2023 regular meeting 7.5 acceptance of donation Mesa Elementary 7.6 approval of contract iStation 7.7 approval of contract IXL learning Incorporated 7.8 approval of contract renewal with hop skip drive to provide alternative transportation services for the students of bvsd 7.9 approval of contract with Renaissance Learning Incorporated formerly illuminate 7.10 liquid propane gas purchase and delivery 7.11 petroleum purchase and delivery 7.12 Professional Services agreement between Boulder Valley School District number two and chessmates 7.13 profession Professional Services agreement between Boulder Valley School District number re2 and kids

142to Pros 714 Professional Services agreement between Boulder Valley School District number re2 and little Medical School 7.15 Professional Services agreement between Boulder Valley School District number re2 and Rocky Mountain Driving School LLC DBA 911 Driving School 7.16 Professional Services agreement between Boulder Valley School District number re2 and strategic kids 7.17 yearly Halcyon mlu service agreement with mental health partners for Day program Services 7.18 Grant Boulder Prep High School electric school buses Colorado Department of Public Health and environment 2023 7.19 Grant Boulder Prep High School electric School Bus rebate Xcel Energy 2023 7.20 Grant Community Schools Esser expanded learning opportunities Dash Colorado Department of education-23 7.21 Grant just as high Esser expanded learning opportunities Colorado Department of Education 23. 7.22 Grant peak-to-peak Mentor program Colorado Department of education-23 7.23 Grant special education idea Parts B and

143C Colorado Department of education-23 7.24 Grant student services rise thriving schools Kaiser permanente-23 7.25 Grant Transportation demand management research Denver Regional Council of governments-23 and finally 7.26 Grant Transportation electric school buses Colorado Department of Public Health and environment 2023 are there any items board members would like to pull from the consent grouping is there a motion to pass the consent agenda moved by Richard seconded by Kitty is there any discussion on the consent agenda Kitty yes I had a couple of questions just looking at the Personnel list I noticed we're hiring a couple of behavior analysts and I'm just curious what they're going to be doing just give me one moment let me let me pull up the personal job should I ask my next question first okay so our community schools and Justice High

144competing with each other for these Esser funds for credit recovery you know those are they're um they've both applied for the same Grant but there's a there's there's lots of folks that have applied for that okay so it's not like a limited pot of dollars okay and I presume they would be serving different students yeah okay absolutely was that it Kitty okay Nicole um I was wondering if you could provide information on who we who hop skip Drive serves or when we decide to use hop skip Drive we too address your question um we started using hop skip and drive a couple years ago in response to the bus driver shortage which hasn't gotten much better we can utilize hop skip and drive for any of our students and usually it's for try not to

145use it for special education however there are times when we you do use hopscape with the drive for that it's typically for general education a lot of times we have routes that might only have one or two students on a bus so we try to use that and then use our buses for routes that serve more students than one or two so so maximizing efficiency I was just wondering if it was for McKinney Bento specifically or other folks but and then my second question is not related to that thank you rob um for the purchase Professional Service agreements the lifelong learning charges fees for some of the participation in some of these programs for folks that can pay is that correct and then if so like how much does that cover for the cost of

146these services like checks chest mates and the like so I may I may have Kathleen weigh in so um for you know so um lifelong learning can enter into one of two types of agreements from my understanding one agreement is somebody um just is a facility rental agreement right and so they rent the facility and then they take care of all the enrollment paying so on and so forth all the back end systems and then some of our partners in lifelong learning it's a a profit sharing type of an agreement where um the the profits between the the the the business and the district are split in the business does handle some of the back end things because we have the infrastructure and that we always are able to provide scholarships um to students who

147who qualify and need those and while I'm talking kitty so Behavior analysts I'm sorry I'm sorry that I had to look that up we refer to them as bcbas board certified Behavior analysts and those are individuals that work um primarily in our schools that serve our artistic students as part of their caseload and it's actually a pretty Innovative model we're one of the only districts in the state that employs board certified Behavior analysts and as you'll remember we've we have um increased our number of uh and I believe we call them rise programs for our students that we serve with autism and so we had to add a few Behavior analysts board certified Behavior animals Rob I think there's some everybody seems to like to use the Ackerman rise so there's rise that are Kaiser

148Permanente grants their rise that are state grants so we're just on this consent agenda just dealing with the rise it's a Kaiser Permanente Grant is that right absolutely and we don't have the rise Grant from the state we did not qualify for the rise one Grant from the state okay board members any other questions or should we call the rule I don't see any questions Laura can you call the roll please Garcia yes Gephardt yes niznick yes Raj Paul yes Sergeant yes Sweeney Moran yes sis yes motion passes next we have our policy action items consent grouping and we have one which is 9.1 retire board policy efb and efb-r free and reduced price Food Services not going to ask if anyone wants to pull anything from the consent grouping is there a motion to

149pass this consent grouping moved by Nicole seconded by Kitty any questions or conversation on this consent grouping Laura can you call the roll please Garcia yes Gephart yes niznick yes rajpal yes Sergeant yes Sweeney Moran yes this yes motion passes I believe we're next on to policy study items and I will turn the microphone over to Rob who's turning it over to Kathleen yes Kathleen thank you so as part of our commitment to getting a lot of policy done this year this is the first this is really um some policy changes and revisions that are necessitated by the actions of the state legislature in the most recent session we will have a few more coming at a future meeting also but I'll talk you through the seven we have today um items 11.1 and 11.6

150are changes that the board adopted at your last meeting in June we did that on an emergency basis so that they would be in place for the very beginning of the school year so these do not have any additional red lines those items are just brought back pursuant to your board policy that requires us to go through the full policy process if we've adopted things on an emergency basis the next revisions and a number of these are technical so um with your permission I'll just roll through all of okay so 11.2 we had changes that were necessary to the student conduct and discipline code because the the legislature adopted a state law prohibiting the use of corporal punishment and when they did so they specifically required that the language be included in the student conduct

151and discipline code we already had that language in place in the restraint policy and use of physical intervention but because they were very specific we needed to make that change so I added new language and in so doing just it looked like the readability would be improved if the implementation language was moved to the end so it's not new language it was just moved within the policy uh revision 11.3 uh has a partner a little later here these are some very minor language changes that were made to address the use of artificial intelligence so the point of the language change was to make sure that our teachers understand that if kids are using AI inappropriately on something that's going to be graded or scored for them the teachers are able to find that that could

152be misconduct there are also hopefully permissible uses of AI we spent a couple of days this week learning about it I'm most excited about the possibility of it writing my replies to emails or at least creating drafts so that would be exciting um so just a few language changes there that we work through with our CIO Frankie Elmore and that we think will be helpful as we navigate this new technology and new world actually I have a couple of questions one back to JD and Jr and Jay I'm sorry jdc jdc on page two number 11. talks about bringing not being able to bring dangerous weapons and I'm just curious is there such a thing as a non-dangerous weapon and if so are kids allowed to bring them to school I mean I'm just wondering

153why that's qualified we use that term because it's used in statute frankly okay and then did we do jdse you not yet okay that's my next okay so following your lead on this one board policy jdse there was a bill that had a fair number of revisions to the procedures to be used when students are being expelled this is one area where I think our policy has the appropriate level of detail and doesn't go into many of these are training requirements and some other elements that we already had in policy and that we will make sure that we implement but didn't need to be fully Incorporated so in this section we again just made minor changes to the factors that need to be considered before a student can be disciplined and to the requirement that

154the information to be used in that expulsion process be provided to families in advance of the hearing this was something that was already our practice but now it's being embedded into the regulation so I have a question on that one actually a suggestion so under definitions number five um talks about it student with disability does not include a student who's determined to be disabled solely by virtue of being an alcoholic or a drug addict and I am wondering if we can change that terminology to say struggling with alcoholism or drug addiction you know trying to not label kids and I actually thought of another one for jdc when it's looking at when it mentions all the things that Colorado law says you can expel a kid for could we add a link there because nowhere

155in the policies do we enumerate those and I think it could be helpful if you know parents specifically want to know okay what are the things instead of having to go look it up [Music] yes thank you right now our policies and the legal references at the end of the policies are not linked to Colorado law we provide the specific citations that support the policies but because the Colorado Law changes all the time in those links don't stay as current as we'd like them to um but I have another idea that I'll I'll work on and bring back when we look at this again thank you and another one on jdse sorry there's in section e it talks about a teacher removing a kid from a teacher's classroom and I wondered if we could put

156a pronoun there instead of using a teacher twice in the same sentence foreign yeah it's right the first thing under e on page four a teacher May remove a student from the teacher's classroom for one day for causing material and substantial disruption and I just wondered is there a reason we would say the teachers I mean I understand why we didn't say his or hers I think that may be what you're seeing you'll remember that the board cost was it almost a year ago now gave us the authority and the directive to replace gendered pronouns throughout our policies and there are a few places where it might be a little clunky so I'll look at that again thank you is that it for that one kitty okay so the next policy that we are reviewing

157is 11.5 it's the board policy on the use of physical intervention and restraint the board may recall we had enacted many of these uh practice changes previously our district has required for over a year that any use of physical intervention or restraint be documented and reported to families in the last legislative session the legislature codified that into state law requiring that any use of physical intervention that lasts more than a minute needs to be documented in accordance with the state board rules we do agree that that's an important priority making sure our families are aware so this policy is just updated to make sure that we embed those State specific requirements into it uh any comments on that no well just that um I can't remember who but a couple of legislators said they want

158to bring up next session outlawing um seclusion rooms is that a suggested change or just an FYI okay and just to be clear and we did I know uh when this story hit last week with Denver public schools alleged use of a seclusion room we want to make it very clear to our public we do not have seclusion rooms we do not have seclusion rooms that are designed for children uh to be placed within and as alleged and DPS with a locked door that does not happen we do not have those we have de-escalation spaces we have an amazing Wellness Center at one of our high schools we have a lot of spaces for students who need uh to have maybe reduced stimulus so they can get regulated and get back to class but we

159do not have seclusion rooms and we would not use them so unless I misread jka-r mentions seclusion rooms so jka mentions seclusion and this may be a slightly longer conversation but the definition of seclusion means a student is in a room alone and their egress is prevented so there may be an occasion where a student has a behavioral escalation inside a classroom in which case the other students may leave that classroom and the student may be in the classroom with the door open and a teacher's standing in the hallway in the doorway watching the student monitoring them for their safety that student would be technically secluded by Colorado law but they would not be in a seclusion room and I found it in here and thank you for clarifying that okay and 11.6 I mentioned

160is one of our emergency policies it's just back for regular review 11.7 is that partner regulation to the earlier revision to address artificial intelligence and that gets us to our last one 11.8 which is our quora uh well it's intended to be a quora policy but it really was a regulation that had been abandoned as kdb-r so we're taking this opportunity to turn that regulation into a policy and bring it current with the Colorado open records Act and the way we respond to our public when they're seeking information Nicole and then Kitty so um first I want to say I'm grateful that you that we are putting some light AI language into our policies as we continue to work through what that looks like in bvsd thank you for making those changes with kdb I

161the number of core requests that we get has required us to dedicate additional budgetary resources and staff Personnel to that my wondering is is the timeline of three to seven days reasonable given the number of core requests that we receive and the degree the complexity that some of them are no so do we have are we tied to that should do we need to adjust it is that state right state law and regulation that we have to have three to seven days I'm just trying to be mindful of um the burden it is and our what we need to do for our public so yes thank you for that question I think that this is an area that has really changed over the time that I've been working with public schools in the last 25

162years um the three-day time frame to respond and then a seven day with an extension is statutory so it would require a state law change and I don't know that sounds like an interesting caspi resolution but I'm not a board member um we are really grateful that the board allocated some resource for this I assure you that the paralegal who is now uh really uh taking the lead on our quora request has many other responsibilities and contributions that she's making to our organization and I'm deeply grateful um it's a lot of work and it depends on what those requests are but we see more broad requests give us every email that mentions a particular term and our best rate of review right now is about 125 emails an hour so when you have an initial

163search that yields something like 5 000 emails you can see very quickly how that three-day seven-day window becomes almost impossible so I'm really grateful to our team including our partners in it that help us make sure we comply anything else Nicole other than a potential resolution sneaking in here right or if AI open AI can help us sort through those emails to make us more efficient you know wheels are turning yeah good Kitty so this is just a question how do we determine the cost per page for a hard copy is that determined elsewhere it's statutory okay we don't get many hard copy requests do we we don't I I can't think of one that we've provided a hard copy of lately we almost always are manipulating these documents or finding them through a digital

164search and them were compiling them digitally and we're making them available to the requester digitally Rob I'm going to put you on the spot I think you are taking your board to a new level and adding policy to it is that correct so that we will kind of have a sense we have 400 and how many policies so I'm just excited that that your great management and organization is now influencing our ability to look and I see Kathleen nodding so I just wanted to let people be aware of that because I think it's a great idea well we we have big plans for to efficiently allow our board to be able to get through policies in a way that makes sense and also shows you in in a quick look what you've touched what you

165need to touch where our priorities lie and so yeah so we're excited to to get an opportunity to share that with you it's exciting all right so these were all just information if I'm right or at least yeah so policy study so do you have what you need to take these back are there any other comments on these from anybody for the good of the order Kathleen do you have what you need yo we will be bringing these back on August 22nd a number of them are for immediate implementation so we'll certainly reply respond to the board's feedback and bring them back great all right I think we are on to agenda setting board members are there any things we want to add to agenda setting I am not seeing agenda is very full but

166we did come up with some great ideas for a casual resolutions and changes to our legislative agenda so I look forward to having those conversations all I would say is I think the sooner we can start working on legislative action items and things it's easier to get to legislators this fall than it will be when they're in session so to the extent that we can think those things through a little bit ahead of time and engage our lobbyists and others I think that will be more successful that way so I think we are adjourned until a work session next week if I'm have that right thanks everyone it's good to see everyone meeting over [Music]