001Welcome same frame Valley School District Board of Education meeting of June 10th 2026 please stand if you're able to join me in the pledge of allegiance Thank you Christie, would you please call the roll? Sure. Mrs. Babs absent. Mr. Berthold present. Mrs. Gilligan absent Mrs. Horanek here. Mr. Lechuga here. Mrs. Solomon absent. Mrs. Weiss here Thanks, Christy. Are there any addendons or changes to the to the agenda you're aware of? No, I'm not. Okay. Thank you This meeting is being streamed on our website Where recording will also be available if you in our live audience, would you please be sure? Device notifications are silenced. We greatly appreciate it The meeting is being translated into Spanish and headsets are available for anyone in our audience that would like them I'll begin the night's meeting with our
002district's mission statement to educate each student in a safe learning environment So that they may develop to their highest potential and become contributing citizens This mission provides clarity of our purpose and our focused leaders make all decisions within this context First on our agenda our visitors And I guess it's a robotic presentation by Axel Good evening. Vice President Berthold members of the board. Dr. Capuchin. Thank you for having us here tonight I'm Axel Reitzig the executive director of innovation at the Innovation Center and for the past 15 years robotics has been a big part of my life, which is the privilege of my career And tonight I'm very happy to Present to you Alex downing and our roboticists from this season to share an update on where this program or what has become of it
003Recently Paige Gordon as I think, you know, she was the principal Spark discovery Is retiring or has retired and so in her process? She's been cleaning out her digital files and sent me a couple photos from the very first VEX tournament We hosted here in the district which was December 2012 and in those photos reminded me of the handful of students and teams We had at the time doing robotics And as you'll hear what this has grown into in those 12 years It's just a really exciting thing to share And the final thing I'd like to add or share is Without your support and leadership over those years to help us build this program This of course could not have happened and over the last few years I really would like to highlight the exemplary
004leadership that Alex downing has Provided our district in helping manage the growth and stability of this program So with no further ado, I'd like to have Alex I think come to the podium Thank you members of the board and dr Caputian I am honored to be here tonight to share the incredible reach of our competitive robotics program Our mission is simple is every student have the opportunity to engage in a life Changing stem experience and this past year we opened doors for over a thousand students across 265 teams in our districts and thanks to a dedicated crew of 16 high school students who manage all our operations We hosted 20 tournaments for a state championships and that officially lead We're officially leading the state of Colorado in both the amount of teams and the tournaments
005that we've hosted the dedication of these students resulted in 27 state awards and a historic milestone of 23 teams qualifying for the world championship where four of those teams came home with awards Beyond competing we are local volunteers also stepped up to represent our community at the global level We had a student from CU She is a graduate. She was a division manager We had a student from the SWAT program went and see the whole a division in worlds as well We also had three seniors of ten and we're scorekeepers So are a lot of us were on that global level to support all of our teams that survived the season just To show what this passion looks like in action We have four of our outstanding teams here tonight to share their robotics journey
006with you. We're gonna start off with Prairie Ridge Hi, my name is Decker Jacobs and I am on the Prairie Ridge robotic rattlers team six six three two D Over the past nine months. I have gotten so many opportunities through robotics that benefit me in life I have learned about true teamwork that has not only served me in robotics But in the classroom my baseball football and basketball teams and Ultimately careers down the road. I have learned how to listen to others ideas brainstorm ideas together and set goals and achieve them in the beginning of the year our engineering notebook lacked in detail and information, but after getting feedback from coaches and judges we Continued to to add and make adjustments to put our team in the running for multiple awards Ultimately after designing a
007new bumper on our robot and thoroughly Documenting the process we were able to an innovative word not once but twice including the innovate award at the state championship Which sent us to worlds in st Louis I got to meet so many other teams from across the world and See their robots, but most importantly learn what made their team successful I am excited for my future in robotics and grateful for the opportunity st Rain Valley schools have has given me my name is Jackson Johnson Johnson and I want to tell you what robotics means to me robotics has helped me learn To work with other people before I join robotics I usually like to do things by myself But being on a team taught me how to share ideas work together and help solve problems My
008favorite part about robotics is coming up with ideas and documenting them in the notebook Everybody on the team has different ideas and sometimes Someone thinks of someone something that nobody else would have thought of when we put our ideas together And helps make our robot and notebook even better one time our team really showed perseverance Was at state we started getting a lot of points, but then it got harder. We started getting fewer points It was frustrating, but we did not give up. We kept trying our best and working together Because we kept working hard. We ended up making it to worlds robotics has taught me teamwork Creativity and to never give up when things are hard Hello, my name is Haciel over. Here's my teammate Mattel and we are part of the sunset middle
009school sunset team Throughout the season there are many moments where robotics definitely had an impact on us There were times where we all had to work together to resolve problems on our code robot and notebook Over time our team has grown in our weaknesses and strengths at the start of the season each of us Weren't sure if we were capable of building a whole about that If we could complete more than 50 pages in our own in our notebook and what type of code we would be using During our tournaments as a season went on we completed our robot had more had over 75 pages in our notebook and went from basic coding to different types of code Before robotics still had no plans on what I was going to stay for in high school
010or college and now I have my eyes I'm working with with machines to hopefully becoming mechanical engineer For me my favorite part about being in a robotics team is being able to cooperate with your teammates in order to make a Successful team which in my opinion includes of a capable code a finished robot and a notebook and overall It's all about the teamwork for me in robotics I would say that my favorite part about being on a robotics team is going to the tournaments and being able to cooperate Not only amongst ourselves But with other teams as well as being able to drive on the field and competing with other teams from different countries at worlds a Moment throughout the season where our team persevered was during the month of April We spent time as
011a team making sure everything was good to go for worlds It was the first time that anyone from our school ever qualified for worlds. I had to make sure For me, I had to make sure that the robot was legal which meant It couldn't extend beyond the limit and to do this we had to take apart the whole robot This caused a lot of strength among us at the time Mattel spent time working on the notebook machine making sure to add more pages and our other teammate Israel spent time completing and improving our code Hello everyone, we are the Phenomenons from Altona Middle School the only full sixth grade team to make it to worlds from the state of Colorado this year I am Nico Will Tawny and Eli This past season our team has
012won ten tournament awards and even a judges award at worlds This we were very proud of this because there's only 580 middle school teams and only ten were given the judges award now. It's your funny Robotics has had a huge impact on us beyond teaching us engineering skills like CAD coding and building robots First it made us better playing players We learned how to listen to each other and learn that everybody had a valuable role to play on the team Second it taught us perseverance at the world championship We were losing matches early on but we focused on enjoying the experience rather than the wins and losses Then we started winning matches and even earned an award The biggest lesson robotics has taught us is simple never stop trying. Let's hear it from Will Hey,
013I'm Will and during the course this year We discovered how important it is to persevere at the beginning of the season We used a block based method of programming by our second tournament. We were all frustrated with its performance To fix it We tried different ways of making the robot move and it even different programming languages at a tournament in Erie middle school Something clicked with the program It worked as we wanted it to helping us qualify for the Colorado State tournament and eventually worlds if we hadn't persevered I would hate to think of what would have happened The robotics experience prepares us for life because it teaches us how to use tools how to do building strategies and how to do other Hard things that are very high school level Then when we were
014in high school robotics We could we could be learning very high level stuff that could prepare me for a job as an engineer Which is what I want to be when I grow up since an engineer is a job that uses building materials and building strategies Robotics is very helpful for that. Thank you for inviting us to speak today. We are already working on next year's robot. Hello My name is Toby Jaeger, and I've been elected the spokesperson for our team This is Alex Shores Blake Hopkins and Anderson Harnish and together we make up robotics team 3743 C from Erie high school our team has been together since seventh grade and we have combined 31 years of robotics experience as a team We have qualified for world championships all seven years. We have competed together
015We've competed from elementary school all the way into our senior year of high school this year We won nine awards including the innovate award at the state and the world championships These awards from state national and international levels recognize superb design documentation excellent teamwork and professional conduct at both the tournament and in team interviews I want to start off by giving a huge. Thank you to the St.. Brayne Valley School District and the Board of Directors For providing us with this amazing opportunity Robotics has provided us an incredible opportunity to develop our skills in math language engineering coding and teamwork Starting in elementary school. We are introduced to the basics and we have had the opportunity to build from there throughout middle school We learned to be able to code in basic block language do
016rudimentary documentation and work with other teams from across the world One of the hardest times for our team was the transition from middle school to high school as we joined the high school community We had to compete against vastly more experienced teams We crawled our way up through the ranks learning as we went and became one of the most competitive teams in Colorado this year This year we competed at eight tournaments all across the world Placing in the top 40% at every single one our engineering notebook has grown to over 400 pages including documentation of advanced coding concepts Computer aided design and a complete set of build instructions for our current robot All these skills that we have learned through robotics will provide us with an advantage going into college and eventually the workforce Robotics
017closely resembles a real-world engineering problem and all of the steps We have taken to be competitive at the state in the world level over the last years Over the last eight years have become learning experiences that will be invaluable in our future I've been talking a while, so I'm gonna wrap it up But I want to give you guys one more huge Thank you to the board of directors and the St. Rain Valley school district for inviting us here today and giving us this amazing Opportunity, thank you guys for listening to these wonderful students. They really Enjoy robotics as you can see and it is really it is because of what the district has done for us that they've had this Opportunity to grow all the way from elementary to high school. Did you have
018any questions? Yeah, anybody anybody on the board question or a statement? It was Really good to hear I know I stepped in a little bit through some of the presentations But it was really good to hear the skills that I heard that the teams are learning particularly I mean we know that you learn math and coding But the language piece because a lot of people tend to miss that piece because it's very important to understand So the presentations were on point The gentleman who first when I stepped in I think was Prairie Ridge that was reading His presentation so eloquently stated and so I'm so proud of all of you for all the hard work I know I've seen and been to worlds and it can be a crazy time But it is so amazing
019to hear some of the teams say that even though they were there to compete they came there To just have fun and enjoy the moment So once again proud of each and every one of the teams and all of the teams across the district that have always competed Yeah, you know Being an athlete and or a coach most of my life I I wrote some words down that that these students just use that really go hand-in-hand with what I've been taught And so I really appreciated them bringing up things like never give up when things get hard perseverance Problem-solving working as a team And never stop trying and I just thought that that really connected with me and a lot of people in the audience, too And I do have one question for whatever group
020wants that wants to add to this. I'm just curious. What did your robots do? So the main purpose each year is the company that releases this makes its own sport or game for these robots to compete And then when they release them at the end of the year at worlds you get to sit down and see a big reveal And people are already strategizing. Okay, how do we play this new game? How do we build a new robot specifically for this? How do we tie into our teammates or our opponents? How are they going to play? How do we need to counteract it the entire point is to create a unique robot each year and a unique code To play its own sport every year and then it iterates and changes so that keeps teams
021on their toes Amazing job guys. Thank you for that answer so Alex You how many teams do we have district-wide you made about? 265 teams from third grade to 12th grade and then we have exploratory robotics in PK through second grade 265 teams so I would imagine over a thousand students participate in robotics and I love that a Because it's academic. It's an academic competition Essentially, and I love that we have that many Children involved beyond the school day and on weekends on something that's really productive and they're so smart and we're so proud And I will tell everyone in this room that it would not have happened Without the ingenuity and the hard work of people like you Alex. I have been to I've been to some of the tournaments. They are a lot
022to manage. There are a lot to set up and You do it better than? anybody Axel I also know that you had a hand in building this robotics culture as did Danny Hernandez and others And I want to thank all of you for the opportunity that you have provided to our students in st. Brain. So, thank you You want to get a picture? All the team members come on about one big picture as they're getting ready you'll find some coaches have joined their teams as well from Chris Schmidt and Joe Rovere Jen Macy's definitely Wilson and Amy Hamlin Definitely good guys come up there, too Oh I Only comment as well That's an unbelievable direction and over the period of time that We started this and the growth and the people involved those coaches and
023the community members It's a real blessing to have all that activity in our district and Our name gets around a lot easier that way. So Alright, someone next on the agenda is audience participation I have a list but is there anybody here who wants to address through the board? Please come to the podium, sir Okay. Thank you for joining us tonight. The Board of Education greatly values feedback and respective from our community We will hear up to 30 minutes of non agenda topics and up to 30 minutes of agenda topics for meeting and each Speaker will be limited to three minutes of speaking time Is gone standing practice on the board to not address or respond during public comment section of the agenda Please know that we are actively listening The first speakers up Could
024you please state your name and address before you three minutes starts? My name is JP Manza 51 Jordan Lane Thank you. Good evening. It's VVSD board. Dr. Capuchin My name is JP Manza. I'm here as both an SVV SD parent and the vice president of the eerie youth football league I'm here to speak today about the decision. You guys have recently made to close the athletic fields throughout the summer I want to start by saying that we truly appreciate the challenges you're facing drought conditions and Resource management are serious issues and we respect the responsibility you carry in making decisions for the entire school district At the same time, I'd like to share what that decision looks like from a local perspective Specifically eerie The reality is the town of Erie does not have a
025single dedicated athletic field The parks they do have is fully reserved for town-run activities for over eight years We've been unable to secure meaningful practice space through the town Because of that our partnership with SVV SD has been critical Access to school fields has allowed our program to exist and serve students in this district for over 20 years Today we have approximately 250 kids registered for this season 98% of them are attend SVV SD schools These are your students kids who sit in your classrooms Represent your schools and are part of this community They are the future of the football program at Erie as well as mead Frederick silver Creek and other high schools in the area Without access to the fields our program may be forced to reduce participation or participation potentially cancel our
026season altogether And that's deeply concerning because as a youth sports You know because youth sports provide far more than just games they offer structure mentorship physical activity and a sense of belonging They help kids build confidence develop leadership skills and stay engaged in a positive environment We all share the same goal supporting the kids. That's why we're not asking for a reversal of closing the fields without compromise We're asking for collaboration We recognize that the fields are under stress and we are committed to helping protect them We are ready we are ready to make meaningful adjustments on our part including delaying the start of our season Eliminating home games reducing practice frequency and spacing outfield usage rotating across multiple schools to allow recovery time and actively managing the practice areas to reduce where a Blanket
027closure may be the simplest approach but it has significant impact on communities like ours where there's no alternatives At the end of the day these fields were built to serve students and the kids in our program are simply asking for the opportunity To participate grow and be part of something positive We ask that we work together to find a balanced solution that won't send the message to the kids that grass is more important than they are Thank you for your time your leadership and your consideration Thank you anyone else We have two people listed It was Steve McCracken Same thing like We'd add a whole statement again, but you have about three minutes to state your name and address first in the three minutes We'll start sure Stephen McCracken 7788 Country Creek Drive, Nihau, Colorado
028Thank you all for allowing me to speak here tonight I support a bell-to-bell cell phone ban Our kids deserve focus and connection during the school day Not to be captured by tech companies algorithms Building in-person connections is more important than checking texts or looking at influencers while at school again Thank you for the time and consideration Thank you there's another person who signed up on the list a Courtney Same thing if you please speak your name and address in then the three minutes will start. Yes, sir My name is Courtney cuff. I have two boys in st. Frank district. I live at seven six seven five thirty fifth Street Thank you all for everything that you do for kids I believe that one of the most important things we can do one of the biggest
029gifts we can give them is human connection Face to face eyeball to eyeball really building those relationships in real life That's why i'm here to support a bell-to-bell cell phone ban Cell phones are distracting right? They're distracting for all of us They there's research that's been done that's shown it takes a minimum of 20 minutes to refocus after looking at your phone or getting a buzz I think we've all experienced something like that They are distracting in their algorithms a lot of disturbing things can come across A child's screen and other kids can be exposed to that Which is troubling and they're distracting during times of an emergency the national association of school resource officers have come out in favor of a bell-to-bell ban noting that These devices can be distracting and can clog important
030telecommunication pathways during an unfortunate emergency I really encourage you all to be on the right side of history About half the states in our country have now adopted a bell-to-bell cell phone ban Districts as far away as mesa or as close as denver public schools have adopted a ban Let's get these predatory things out of our kids pockets And again, thank you so much for all that you do Thank you any other People haven't signed up want to make a statement If not, we'll move on to the next agenda item, which is our superintendent report Yes, thank you So we have had a very good year academically. We have received our State results for our assessments. They are embargoed until august, but the board will get a board report on our results likely in september
031We've taken an early look at them and they are very very good Both our sat our state assessments as well as our graduation rates look really good So we're proud of the year that our students have had academically we also Kicked off our itech committee last week. This is the committee of parents and educators in saint brain who are Looking at some of our decisions related to the use of technology in our classrooms They're doing a lot of thoughtful work It is a great committee that will make some really good recommendations to myself and the board in the coming year We also have summer school going on at a number of our middle school and elementary schools I've been out visiting our summer school sites. It looks amazing and so fun to have kids want
032to come to school in june so We're proud of the work that they're doing tomorrow. I get to speak at the sustainability summit happening at mead high school They do a lot of work with their energy academy around sustainability, which is a growing career path For students and we're having the state sustainability summit there tomorrow So i'm excited to see what the kids are working on there We also have the ap institute which will be held this summer in saint brain and many educators from across the state Come to learn better strategies for teaching advanced placement classes. We're proud to host that here Otherwise many of our educators would have to travel to other states and other locations in order to get that training And then finally we have had a flurry of communication related
033to cell phones given that the policy deadline is july 1st Across the state. We have actually had a policy in place since last august that is posted on our district website The policy was widely communicated last august to all of our families across the district It's working well However, we will continue to monitor the feedback monitor that implementation collect data from our educators and adjust accordingly and we'll continue to have those conversations as a board as well And that is what we have going on as of june the beginning of june. It has not quieted down Thank you, thank you Okay next on our agenda are our reports I have justin coming up to turn a public hearing of the superintendent's proposal proposed budget And uh, I would ask justin before you start. Have you
034had Have you had any any people's comments come to you and how are they and what's going on? Uh, yes, would you like to start there? Yes, please Um, well, good evening, uh vice president berthold and members of the board and dr. Capuchin Um, so yeah, so we can just jump right there. We did have one comment from a community member I believe that communication was provided to the board of education And then I did have the opportunity to reach out And speak with that member just to make myself available for discussion and answer any questions Okay. Thank you. Yep No problem Um, so two weeks ago I had the privilege of introducing the superintendent's proposed budget for st. Vrain valley school district for fiscal year 27 That was previously presented to the finance and
035audit committee In compliance with statute and in the spirit of transparency and community engagement I'm happy to assist the board of education tonight to conduct a public hearing on the budget and in doing so Bring forward any comments and questions received from the finance by the finance department And to make myself available for questions from the board or any community members who might be present tonight Pending any changes that fiscal year 27 budget will be brought back to the board in two weeks on june 24th for adoption Since two weeks ago, there have been no changes to that fiscal year 27 proposed budget an electronic copy Copy remains on the svvst website and a printed copy remains available for inspection By the public at our district office here Related to that to the public hearing
036we did post a public notice in the long times call off that ran from may 29th To may 31st Uh, and as I mentioned previously we had one member Uh, i'm, sorry one comment from a member of the public Aside from that it'd be it would be my pleasure to answer any questions that the board may have or from any members of the public That may be here any board members have any questions? I know we had a pretty thorough review of that. So if it hasn't changed, we're all established on what's going on. So thank you and uh That's that's about it then. Thank you gustin You'll see it. We'll see in two weeks Third time's a charm. Yep All right before we go to consent items We have a new hire Coming up
037and with kate Like to come up and able to deduce her Good evening vice president berthold and members of the board along with dr. Capuchin It is my pleasure tonight to introduce. Mr. Tyler. Zappia is the new assistant principal and athletic director at Frederick high school Mr. Zappia brings over 15 years of experience in education and athletics including roles as athletic director assistant principal dean teacher and coach He's currently in his second year as an assistant principal and athletic director at broome field high school And prior to that served as an assistant principal and athletic director in adams 12 adina students and a math teacher His coaching background encompasses roles in local districts and out of state in the areas of girls and boys tennis and boys basketball Mr. Zappia volunteers as a board member
038for the colorado athletic directors association And he is also a member of the colorado high school activities association Gymnastics and tennis committees welcome tyler Caught me off guard Good evening vice president berthold dr. Capuchin and the board of education First I would like to thank dr. Capuchin. Mr. Bissonnette. Ms. Slick. Mr. McBride and principal swanson For giving me the opportunity to contribute to the amazing community of Frederick high school or Frederick My family and I are beyond grateful and excited to become members of the golden eagles community I believe deeply a public education and in the opportunities that same frame valley school district offers We just saw a lot of fascinating young People talk about the opportunities that you guys have given them. So we're really excited to be a part of this Thank you
039again for giving me this amazing responsibility and go Frederick. Oh congratulations and good luck out there According to program All right on to consent items Did any of the board members have? Any requests to pull any of those items out as are shown on the agenda? That being answered of no I'll look for a motion to approve the consent items on our board jacket So moved second move. I'm me. Oh just second by jackie Let's see. Would you? Yeah, could you call it? Could you call the roll? You got it. Mrs. Babs? Yes Mr. Berthold. Yes, mrs. Gilligan absent. Mrs. Horanek. Yes, mr. Lechuga. Yes, mrs. Solomon absent Mrs. Weiss. Yes All right, there's passed now we'll move on to the action items and we'll first recommendation approval of the bond resolution And looks like
040we have tony good evening Members of the board. My name is tony whitely chief financial officer. As you know, i'm here to introduce our Municipal advisor matty prudonovic from hilltop securities matty and her firm has done a great job at shepherding us through the process of not just issuing our initial Bond, excuse me bond issuance back in 2024, but it comes time as we spoke previous Previously to issue the second issuance to keep our construction projects funded Going forward. We've got a brief presentation here. We'd like to run you and the public through if you wouldn't mind I'm going to turn the time over to matty at this point. I know i'm very impressed with the moving. I've been watching it all night Um Okay, perfect. Uh, good evening board. Uh, thank you for having
041me Uh, I believe you all were on the board I think when I was here about a year and a half ago, um in 2024 after you Successfully passed the election in november of that year to issue the first tranche of bonds Um that tony mentioned, uh, so i'm back yet again Because the district has successfully been able to spend a lot of money on the projects that were approved by voters, which is great Which means that we are ready now to go issue the second tranche of bonds So, um, the resolution itself should look relatively familiar to what was presented about a year and a half ago as will some of this presentation Um with one kind of minor tweak as it relates to the refunding of some outstanding bonds of the district so
042No further ado. I will jump in. Um So, uh, I am here this evening to discuss an authorizing resolution that is being presented to you for your consideration As well as the accompanying documents that are approved as to form with that resolution Um that bond resolution approves the issuance of general obligation bonds both new money and refunding Uh and doing so approve certain documents that i'll talk about in a little bit It provides parameters. This is the same structure for those bonds that we talked about Again a year and a half ago and then creates the formal legal structure for the district's ability to actually issue said bonds The resolution this is where it's a little bit different when we were here in november of 2024 We were just asking for the approval of one
043series of new money bonds That was the money that was had been approved at the november 2024 election. We were issuing one series Pursuant to that election We are also approving a different a second series this time, which is for a refunding series of bonds so municipal bonds when they are sold in the public market typically have Uh an optional redemption provision that starts at about the 10 year mark meaning anytime prior to that 10 year window We're not able to prepay or refund Those bonds on a tax exempt basis beginning on that 10 year date and any time after We are then able to do so so unlike your mortgage where if rates go down You can go refinance really as many times as you want We are a little bit prohibited by that
044due to irs rules to do so on a tax exempt basis for municipal bonds The 2016 a bonds that were previously issued in early 2016 Reached that optional redemption provision actually last december And then the 2016 c bonds that were issued later in 2016 Which is why there's a little bit different in that optional redemption date will become callable and therefore available to refinance this december So speaking to the financing background for both of these series the 2026 a bonds are the new money series So those are what are being issued pursuant to that election authorization from november of 2024 There's some details on here that I won't go into a ton of detail on because you all can obviously read But I did just want to note from a parameters perspective So we are
045currently anticipating issuing approximately 265 million dollars of bonds this go around However, the parameter allows us to issue up to 300 million and that just gives us a little bit flexibility as we continue to work with district Staff through the actual pricing of the bonds which won't actually happen until a very early september To make sure that we're getting the district as much money as it needs to complete the next phase of projects I believe we talked about this when I was here in 2024, but When the district issues bonds it has to certify that it has a reasonable expectation to spend 85 percent of proceeds Within three years that is why we break up these larger authorizations Is very common into multiple tranches so that you are able to meet those restrictions, right? We
046are almost well I guess we're a little over a year and a half into spending from that first tranche that was issued in november of 2024 We will now have another three-year window basically to spend the proceeds from the upcoming issuance And the current plan is to issue the remaining authorization because there will be Approximately 130 million or so left. We'll do that likely In another two or three years depending on how the spending schedules go For this next tranche of bonds that will issue this september A lot of it the facilities folks can speak to this much better than I can but obviously a lot of it has to do with how much you're spending over the summer when kids are out of schools and then Larger projects new construction obviously those dollars get
047spent pretty quickly once you actually get going so We do like to we provide a little bit of flexibility when we actually go to issue the bonds for the structuring to make sure That we're able to incorporate that final future issuance Without any issues from a debt service mill levy perspective And then on the refunding side of things. So again, the 2016 a bonds are currently callable There's approximately a little shy of 92 million dollars of those bonds currently outstanding There's approximately 39.3 million of 2016 c bonds currently outstanding and those will become callable this december Um, they this may sound a little bit familiar because you actually defused some of the bonds from the 2016 c Obligation in 2024. So if you recall, um, there was some bond redemption fund balance available And the
048district prudently used those dollars to prepay some bonds through an escrow essentially So that escrow is actually still sitting out there But it is no longer a legal obligation of the district because those funds are in the account We would be refunding the remaining series but that is why That amount looks small relative to the 2016 a bonds I did just want to call that out because it is a little bit funky just because we have already prepaid some of those bonds Similar to what we did with the defusances in the past and we are planning on contributing Somewhere between 15 and 20 million of bond redemption fund balance towards that refunding again this year if you'll recall From 2024 the dollars that are in that account Accumulate solely from revenues that are correct collected
049from the district's debt service mill levy Those revenues can only be available to be to pay debt service or prepay bonds. They cannot be used For any other operating purposes or anything along those lines of the district They actually can't even be used to pay for capital even though they're paying for debt service that paid for capital, right? And so those dollars do tend to accumulate over time Particularly in the current environment as interest rates have been relatively high over the last few years Interest earnings have accumulated a faster rate than maybe pre 2020 as an example And so as those balances have accrued we've worked really closely With district staff to you know Ensure that there's a sufficient balance there to manage for potential downturns in assessed value or property values With having to
050impact the debt service mill levy while also keeping that balance and at a level that is not unnecessarily high and using those dollars to Pre-pay or assist in the refinancing of bonds to help lower overall interest costs to district residents Yeah Yes Yes, so sitting here today. Sorry. Let me flip ahead On my pages and then i'll get there in the presentation itself, but sitting here today We anticipate approximately 33 million dollars of savings from that refunding again Assuming we are that includes a contribution of that 15 to 20 million So we're talking some more more in the 13 to 18 million dollar range of actual savings And i'll talk a little bit the the net present value savings That's sort of how a lot of folks judge the benefits of a refunding Are at
051about 7.3 million dollars or five a little over five and a half percent of the par amount that we're refunding Three percent is kind of the threshold that we typically look at government finance officers association used to actually have that as a recommended threshold Somewhere along the lines without making any formal announcements. They removed that recommendation and now I think to leave it a little bit more flexible for governmental entities to proceed with refundings That may not always necessarily be for savings purposes in this instance. We are doing this for savings We are actually just going to shorten the term of those bonds So similar to like if you went from a 30-year mortgage to a 20-year mortgage But kept your payment the same to pay lower interest over time Just because of the district's
052debt structure And honestly your propensity to be able to pay debt down really quickly Particularly relative to a lot of your peers. It just made sense rather than Capturing savings kind of equally throughout the repayment term to given we are loading more debt on anyways in the coming years It just made sense To generate additional savings by doing that because you again you're going to pay principal down faster, which means you pay less interest over time No, it's okay Okay So on the bond resolution um this again other than the addition of the refunding component here is pretty much identical to the resolution That you all considered in november of 2024. I highlight here the key terms I should preface that I am not an attorney but I read a lot of these resolutions And
053work very closely with your bond council as does the rest of the district's finance team So we all have reviewed these documents thus far There's a large paragraph at the bottom that I do just want to caveat There are some other documents that I believe are included in your packet that are approved as to form Such as the paying agent agreement escrow agreement bond purchase agreement Those will not be finalized until we price the bonds Part of what the resolution does is it delegates? To certain members of the district to be able to execute these agreements and go forward with the actual bond sale Which includes your superintendent chief financial financial officer and your board president And so the resolution is essentially delegating that authority both for those documents As well as a sign off
054on final pricing of the bonds on our pricing date, which we are currently targeting for september 1st Um key parameters here as you might imagine most of the parameters for general obligation bonds are dictated by what was in The ballot question because we obviously cannot exceed those Um, the only one the only distinction in that regard for the 2026a which is your new money bonds is that par amount? We could conceivably have You the authority to issue all of the remaining par amount here But I think in talking with staff We're trying to be a bit more transparent of the realistic amount that we expect to issue In september, which is why we have that not to exceed 300 million dollar amount And then the net effective interest rate, which essentially your borrowing rate has
055a maximum of five percent I don't want to steal the thunder of the next couple slides But we are anticipating it being much lower than that sitting here today And then on the refunding side of things, the final maturity and par amount and repayment parameters Again are dictated either by the current structure of those refunding bonds or the authorizing elections From those original issuances which are 2008 and 2016 The biggest piece when issuing refunding bonds is we are required under state law For the net interest cost on the refunding bonds to be lower than the bonds. We are refunding which makes sense Why would we go forward with the refunding if you didn't have some form of interest savings? So that interest rate That we are trying to get below is 3.811 percent on those
056bonds that we're refunding So looking at the remaining timeline We are here I think last time maybe when I was here because we were trying to do it so quickly after the election to get you some Dollars and get ahead of some anticipated supply in the market We were kind of in the middle of our financing process this time around When we have a little bit more time to plan we are here in the beginning of the financing process So really a lot of the document work on the disclosure document which is pos stands for preliminary official statement That is the district's I caught that when I was reading that yeah Pos is the the preliminary official statement which eventually turns into the final official statement That is the disclosure document similar to a prospectus
057That includes all the financial information about the district including your property tax base assessed values mill levies, etc As well as your general fund historical statistics and things like that We are anticipating have rating calls in mid-ish august early august The district is currently rated by moody's and s&p Double a1 by moody's double a plus by s&p Those are one notch lower than the highest possible rating that you can have across any rated product Uh, I believe there are only three districts that have a triple a rating from moody's and there are none that have a triple a rating from s&p so you are Very highly rated that has a lot to do with your financial management your historical reserves Your financial practices in general obviously you're at the support from the community to be
058able to authorize both debt and override Funds and revenues to be able to support both capital and operating Needs of the district And then one one key thing here on the bottom right is the resolution does not require the district to do anything This is just giving you the opportunity to go forward with this transaction We will work very closely with tony and justin over the next three months to make sure that This is the appropriate time for the district to be entering the market to issue these bonds We obviously will be watching what's going on in the interest rate market for those of you that um Turn on a tv At any time you'll know that it's been a little volatile over the last really like six months or so, um, particularly over the
059last four Um, and so for the most part interest rates have continued to kind of move up and down Candidly without a whole lot of rhyme or reason, uh, but transactions are still getting processed Particularly colorado school district debt is still getting priced very well meaning is being received by investors Relatively low interest rates, but I will say overall interest rates are slightly more elevated So higher than when we went to the market in november of 2024 Okay, and so then our anticipated preliminary financing results So on the new money side again, we're Anticipating a net interest cost of that district borrowing rate of approximately 3.74 percent, which is well below The five percent parameter. I will say it is about 30 basis points. So point three percent higher than when we sold the bonds
060in 2024 Hopefully interest rates move in our favor as we get through into september fingers crossed Um, and then on the refunding side of things, uh talked about that a little bit But um, right we're sitting at about 33 million dollars of cash flow savings But I think the one thing I want to highlight Again is the saving structure. We're capturing all those savings on the back end of that repayment keeping essentially the payments the same between 2026 through 2031 Which allows you to pay principal faster reduces your overall interest costs and enhances those savings So that's all I have in terms of prepared remarks but happy to answer any questions I'll just step in just for a moment. I wanted to say thank you to maddie and her team once again uh, you know,
061i've i've been around the block and i'm Familiar with this process and the parameters here, but it's not my expertise and maddie and her firm It is theirs. They are really really well apprised in the lay of the land helping Not just us but other districts similar to us shepherdess through this process She's been just an incredibly valuable asset and um From a dollar's perspective has produced a positive return on investment in our work with them in terms of savings In various steps and procedures through this and so it's been a pleasure working with her I know she threw a lot of numbers at the board tonight and there's a lot of information that's been up on the screen In short, I would just like to recap summary as as well as I can, you
062know I like to translate as best I can Number one the refunding that's associated with this process is going to save taxpayers about seven million dollars in interest over the the term of those outstanding maturities But the main issue here is that this is an authorization to execute a whole bunch of documents and to move forward with the sale of the second round of the 2024 authorization in the amount of approximately 265 million dollars depending on market market conditions at the time And uh, there's a lot of documents in that board packet There's a lot of blanks that you'll see in there and I wanted to just definitely highlight that those blanks are there because The majority of these documents are being approved as to form and those blanks will be filled in once we
063encounter that pricing Step in this process in september At that time those blanks would be filled in and then they will be executed by the board president myself superintendent Depending on the document, so I hope that clarifies and summarizes the situation and again would Offer to answer any questions that you have at this time. Thank you No questions, I guess very thorough very and uh Very complicated. So yes so We know we trust Tony a lot, but we also trust your that company that works with us You've talked to those people privately and you know, really really solid And smart Doing the best we can for our community by doing all this. So i'll thank you all Do we need to have a vote on this resolution now? Christy, would you call the roll, please?
064Can I get a motion? Yeah. Oh, yeah somebody go moved second Okay, moved by Gina second by me asia. Mrs. Babs. Yes, mr berthold. Yes, mrs Gilligan absent mrs. Horanic. Mr. Lechuga. Yes, mrs. Solomon absent mrs. Weiss Yes Okay. Thank you all. Thank you Next on the agenda is a recommendation first reading and adoption of revisions to board policy Ika grading assessment systems and we have jamie to go through this with us. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you and Good evening. Um vice president berthold members of the board and dr caputian I'm here this evening to talk about the revisions to board policy Ika in regards to the paper and pencil and paper testing option In spring of 2025 legislation was passed in house bill 2512 78 That made a lot of recommendations. One of
065them was to speed up the time We received the data from our state assessments and as Such this change from the colorado department of education Um, they made an adjustment to not allowing us to select Paper as an option for whether it was a classroom of school Which was past practice and so in order to be able to speed up that deadline to give us our data Everything had to go streamlined to online testing and so the update to this Policy is to remove the whole entire first option where we had the policy around how I would move forward To let the colorado department of education know that we potentially have a school Or a couple classes or a grade level who would participate in the paper option So we have had schools up until
066this year who have engaged In paper pencil testing options And so that is no longer unless it is a student who is on the iep or a 504 where that's written in To their plan and so I just wanted to share that's kind of the reasoning why this is coming up And why the changes are taking place and so my recommendation is um to adopt the updates to this policy So quick question. I just want to make sure I summarize and clarify so essentially The paper pencil option will only be available to students on a 504 or an iep vices the In any individual student that is correct if For some reason a student feels they need to do that. Is that an option or are they restricted to just a digital Test taking that's
067a great question. Um colorado department of ed has Has made that decision that only paper testing will be allowable if a student qualifies Under an iep or a 504. Okay, so it's there is a restriction. Yep. Thank you. Just want to make sure Yep, great question Any other questions? So we need a Motion to accept this recommendation, please so moved jackie moved second by sarah Christy to call the roll, please. Mrs. Babs. Yes, mr. Berthold. Yes, mrs. Gilligan absent. Mrs. Horanek Mr. Lechuga. Yes, mrs. Solomon absent. Mrs. Weiss. Yes Thank you Well, that's sort of getting us near the end so Next item is last item second last item and dust discussion items and those report reports do any Members want to take some time and report on activity or whatever you think about? No,
068no, we all survived may Yeah Yeah, it's a big thing. That's a good statement. We all made it made it through may which ended our year and now we just have some business meetings here for this month, so With that I would look to get a motion to adjourn Move my meosha Second by jackie all those in favor. Aye. Aye all those opposed all right, we'll see you next week at study session and then following week we have the final approval of the budget if that's what it means so everybody thank you for being here tonight And all your input and everything that we got through so And have a good safe night and be get home safely Thank you