001and just want to extend such a warm gratitude towards the board and our superintendent and our district for all of the amazing opportunities that are presented to our students at Longmont High School and the amazing staff that supports all of these opportunities. One of them that you're gonna hear about tonight is known as the SMART Team, and this is students modeling a research topic, and these are very smart students in front of us. They're amazingly passionate. This program is an extension of our learning, so it is 100% driven on passion, the desire to be part of a team, the desire to do incredibly deep research, and I just want to thank Ms. Chris Chow and Ms. Kelly Lubkerman and Dr. Dick Marder, who is forever a Trojan, for all of the opportunities that they do
002provide these students, but these students are incredibly committed to their education, incredibly passionate about science and research, and they are gonna present to you tonight what they have learned this year, and this is just skimming the surface on all of the amazing work that they have done this year, but we did want to share with our board, so thank you, and I'll pass it on to Kelly Lubkerman. Hi, I'm Kelly Lubkerman. I'm a chemistry teacher and MBSA coordinator at Longmont High School. I coordinate this program along with Chris Chow and Dr. Marder. Our students this year have been studying two proteins, DNA gyrase and acetylcholinesterase. Our primary mentors have been graduate students at CU Boulder in the Department of Biochemistry and Chemical Engineering. They're not here with us tonight, but they've been here with us
003a lot of the year. These students just had the opportunity in April to attend the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Conference in Chicago, where they got to present their work and also take a tour of the Northwestern School of Medicine and also present their work there, so that was really exciting for us all. I'll go ahead and have the students introduce themselves and then tell you about their proteins. So, yep, you guys can just step up to the microphone. Oh, okay, that would be great. Hi, my name is Leah Oldroyd. I am a senior at Longmont High School. I am attending St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota next year to study molecular biology. And my favorite memory of SMART Team was definitely the ASB&B Conference in Chicago. Hi, my name is Sydney Zerde
004and I am going to CSU next year to study biology in Fort Collins. And my favorite memory during SMART Team was definitely just learning all the nitty-gritty details of the proteins and learning all about this microbiology. My name is Kenzie Hughes. I am a ninth grader. My favorite memory is probably the tour of Northwestern University. Hello, I am Kuang Wing. I am a 10th grader. My favorite memory was just researching every Tuesday night with all of my peers and having that academic environment. Hello, my name is Anya Story McFadden. I'm a ninth grader at Longmont High School. Hi, I'm Anya Weider. I'm a senior at Longmont and I'm going to Colorado College next year to study organismal biology and ecology. And by far my favorite part of SMART Team is being able to nerd out
005about something very specific every night with friends. Hi, okay, not too close, sorry. Hi, I'm Lola Tronovich. I'm a senior at Longmont High School and I'm going to UW Seattle to study atmospheric science and molecular biology. My favorite part of SMART Team is just that it introduced me to proteins and it really got me to love them. Hello, I'm Luke Klein. I am a senior at Longmont High School and I will be attending the University of Colorado in Boulder next year to study physics engineering. My favorite memory from SMART Team has been able to go tour some of the facilities they had at CU as well as in Seattle and in Chicago and was able to see all of the fascinating research that is going on with the machinery and studying of biological and microbiology.
006Hi, I'm Chase Johnston and I am in 11th grade and my favorite memory has definitely been able to have multiple travel opportunities and tours of many different facilities and universities. Hi, I'm Reese Weider. I'm a 10th grader at Longmont and my favorite memory has been just meeting so many amazing mentors. Hi, I'm Noah Klein and I'm a ninth grader and my favorite memory of SMART Team probably is going on Tuesday nights and learning about something very specific and actually learning about proteins. Hi, my name is Tristan Perry. I am 10th grade and I would say that this program has done a lot to advance my understanding of how biology and the world works and I have found that very impactful in my own life and I have a lot to think from this program. Hi,
007my name is Aiden Fulberg and I'm in the 10th grade. I think my favorite memory has been making all these friends. All of them were like, this guy's pretty weird but I'm glad that they accepted me here so that was my favorite memory. As these guys get set up, I just wanna share with you one exciting part of our trip to Chicago. We had a student, Abby Ferguson, who joined us on our trip to Seattle two years ago on our SMART Team and this year when we were in Chicago, we did not know but we actually just found her and she is currently doing undergraduate research and had her own research project there so that was pretty exciting. She said that her time on the SMART Team really gave her some context and a head
008start on what that would look like and how to make a poster. So with that, we'll have our DNA GI RACE students step up and tell you a little bit about their project for the year. Hi, my name is Sydney Zerde. And my name is Leo Uldred. We are both seniors at Longmont High School and we worked on the Pro Team DNA GI RACE. So we're just gonna do a really quick overview on what DNA GI RACE is and its applications. DNA GI RACE is a type two topoisomerase which means it is a protein that unwinds DNA during DNA replication. So sometimes during DNA replication, the DNA like twists on itself and creates super coils. So topoisomerases go in there and basically unwind the DNA and allow for DNA replication to continue. So as you
009can see, we used 3D modeling to, or 3D printing to model DNA GI RACE. This is a specific subunit of the protein. So it's been really cool to study the structure and the function. Sydney's gonna tell you a little bit about the applications. This is really important because DNA GI RACE is uniquely found in tuberculosis cells. And so in creating it, there's been a rising issue in multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. And this drug presents an interesting new opportunity that if we could disable specifically this domain of this drug, it would be unable to unwind DNA and the cell would be unable to replicate, which would eventually leave it to die, which is very good because multi-drug resistant tuberculosis cannot be killed in any other way. So it presents a new opportunity for us. Our next protein
010is acetylcholinesterase. Hello, my name is Luke Klein. I'm Lola Tronovich. And again, I'm Anya Weider. So the three of us are the seniors on the acetylcholinesterase poster this year. And what's really interesting about acetylcholinesterase is it's necessary for muscle relaxation. Without it, your muscles could not relax and you'd just be tense all the time, which obviously no one likes. And what I think is super, super fascinating about this protein is it's incredibly fast, but it has this really deep gorge. I realize you can't really see it, but basically in order to break anything down, it has to travel all the way down here in this protein. And yet it's incredibly fast, which Lola will talk to you more about. So we have a tiny problem. It has to go all the way down this deep
011gorge in order to be broken down. So how is it that acetylcholinesterase can break down 10,000 molecules of acetylcholine a second? That's because the gorge actually acts like a vacuum. It sucks in the acetylcholinesterase, orients it, and then it breaks it down. Now, because of this gorge having a vacuuming action, there are chances where it can become inhibited, both organically with snake venoms, and unorganically, manmade, with nerve agents or microplastics. So you obviously don't want it to be completely inhibited because then you can't relax, but there are cases where maybe you do want it inhibited, which Luke will talk about. Now, I know it might seem a little bit counterintuitive to try and inhibit this protein as the things that also inhibit it are deadly nerve agents and snake venom, but there are some significant
012medical research into the inhibition of acetylcholinesterase, specifically in patients with Alzheimer's disease and specifically inhibiting the proteins in their brains. There has been some studies with specific drugs such as Donapizl that have been permitted to patients with Alzheimer's disease, and over a period of time of this drug that inhibits acetylcholinesterase, they have shown an increased level on their Stroop test score, pretty much meaning that their cognitive function increased and they were having some of their symptoms of Alzheimer's disease alleviated. Lastly, we would just like to say thank you so much for your support. For many years, our students have been able to have some really cool opportunities and we appreciate you all just supporting us from the top, so thank you. Well, thank you very much. I'm gonna ask a simple question because I have
013no idea how to ask a question, Denny. The board member said any questions of either group to present it here or any of the other students? I have a question as much as I have a comment. I was just recently, I think it was something I was watching maybe on social media and it was talking about the education system and how the system's designed to create just worker bees and not thinkers, and what you've done and presented today and what you all are doing shows that that statement is not true. We do have thinkers, we do have students and people who are doing things outside of just regurgitating and memorizing information, so I wanna thank you for all of the efforts and all the work that you put into this and showing the world. If
014you go out like the student that you all said you saw in Chicago, let them know where you came from and what you've been learning, so thank you so much for all of your hard work. Yeah, great presentations. So my husband and I like to joke around when we get into the weeds on a specific topic that we're nerding out, obviously, and sometimes in high school it feels like, oh, I'm a nerd, but then what you realize later in life is the nerds are the CEOs, the leaders, and that's you guys. And I just wanna congratulate you on just your hard work, your courage in going into the weeds. I don't know anything about proteins, but now I do, thanks to you, and your excitement in presenting the information is palpable, so thanks for being
015here tonight and also for nerding out. Great presentation. I have a comment and a question. One is, I love that your poster says, breaking up has never been easier. I don't know if everybody can see that, but that's brilliant, and it now makes a little bit more sense. And my question is, who chooses which proteins will be studied? And when you go to the conference, is anyone studying similar, the same proteins, or is it a wide variety? Luke, I'll let you explain, because I think the way we choose our proteins is exciting. So as a group of smart team, our mentors get to, so we have some mentors from the University of Colorado Boulder who come and help us learn and help research these specific proteins, and they choose proteins they themselves find very interesting.
016As experts on the subject, they usually choose really interesting proteins, especially ones with funny titles, as you mentioned. And so they go and they choose these proteins, and then they work with us throughout the year to create our poster we have here. And then at the conference we present, and usually there's not people with the exact same protein. There are probably are billions of different proteins out there that are maybe not being studied, but that could be studied. So there are many different proteins being studied. So at the conference we were able to more so learn about all of the other research that is going on. A lot of, there are other smart teams at the conference, but there's usually also grad students there who are actually conducting research, and their proteins and their research
017is something that we get to learn about and actually witness and see how they have been able to actually conduct scientific research on proteins in the field and contribute something to the academic field. For just a little bit more context too, two of our grad students this year, which is a first for us, are Longmont High graduates, which is also very exciting for us. Do we want to do a picture this evening with the board? Yeah, I got one thing I do want to say is, this is like every year that I've been here on the board and before when I attended board meetings, this was always like a really special night because I try to make it to the school, but some things always come up. And I just sat there and scratched my
018head saying, how do people get so smart? And we've got a lot of underclassmen back there, so we're looking forward to what you guys will be presenting as seniors and the work that you're gonna be doing and the accomplishments you're gonna make. And there's always a potential that one time, one of these is gonna be a really major breakthrough, and it's gonna save a lot of people's health or their lives, and the fact that you're able to do it in high school and then carry it on, it amazes me because you guys are outstanding. So we thank you for coming and presenting to us. And like Jackie asked, we would like to get a picture with all of you if you're welcome to come up and stand with us. Yeah, and Mr. Hurtle, I'd like
019to also recognize Anya. She was the Betcher recipient this year for the Betcher Scholar, so congratulations to you. She also, I know her from organizing the stuff at the Innovation Center that I was over there with my daughter was presenting, things about occupational therapy that really helped a lot of families to have hands-on learning experiences, and I thought that was, and the students that do that are just so dedicated to helping people because I know they live their life that it's not about them, it's about other people, and that's so critical for our next generation to get to that point. So thank you, can we get a picture now? I'd like to have a chance to get out and get the room settled down again. Okay, next on our agenda, I'm not mistaken, is our
020finance yearly recap presentation, and let me see what the sign says, who's doing that one? It's Janae? Okay, you got the floor, it's all yours. Thank you, I'm short. Hello, Dr. Capuchin, I'm a student at the University of Michigan, and I'm a student at the University of Michigan Hello, Dr. Capuchin, I know President Ragland's not here, and members of the board, thank you so much for having us tonight to highlight the wonderful things happening district-wide in art, music, and theater. Before I dive in, I want to express my sincere gratitude for your continued support of the arts in St. Brain. Because of your commitment, our students have access to incredible opportunities for creativity, expression, and excellence in art, music, and theater. And I know he's not here, but a special thank you to Dr. Haddad
021for his continued leadership and support of the arts, it means so much. In front of you, you have a little handout that highlights some of our accomplishments and celebrations from this school year across the district. To start, for the fifth year in a row, SVVSD has been honored with the Best Communities for Music Education Award from the NAMM Foundation. This recognition was given only to two Colorado school districts this year. Congratulations to all of our music programs for continuing our tradition of excellence. Moving on to Allstate, we continue to show up and show out at all our Allstate music events. These events are where every student musician in the state who's interested can audition and compete as an individual against all other student musicians. Accepted students join together to work under a nationally recognized clinician
022and not only have a life-changing experience, but they bring new leadership and musicianship skills back to their own classrooms, having a positive impact on their peers. We are so proud of these individual student musicians who represented their schools this year and the wonderful music educators who prepared them. And I know several of you were able to attend some of our Allstate performances this year, so thank you so much for coming to cheer our students on. This year, we continued many of our district-wide events that bring students together to perform, collaborate, and share their work with the community, from band night to honor events, middle school theater day to fifth grade symphony field trip, and of course, our massive district art show. We are so proud of the ways we celebrate student creativity and build connections
023from school to school. And speaking of the art show, we featured over 10,000 pieces of artwork and over 396 blue ribbons were awarded. You can view the award winners for this year by scanning the QR code on that sheet. They're up all the way until next year's art show, so people can enjoy them. The art show is a powerful testament to how vital visual art is for students as they learn to process, reflect, and express who they are. And I'd like to end by celebrating our district achievements at CMEA this year. The Colorado Music Educators Association Conference is the state's premier annual event providing professional development for teachers and featuring top student ensembles that are selected through a competitive audition process. Not only did we have several teachers selected to present, we had six ensembles
024selected to represent on the statewide stage. Auditions for CMEA are submitted the year prior, so teachers really have to be confident that they will have a high-achieving group two years in a row, regardless of student turnover. At this time, I'd like to bring up the teachers who directed their ensembles at CMEA this year. You guys can head up. I will share their name, school, and selected ensemble, and if you have words to share and they'll speak after their introduction. You can kind of like wave and be recognized. Monica Smiley, Erie High School Chamber Orchestra. Brian Crim, Skyline High School, Mariachi Alcones. Did Dana make it? Dana Clannan's not here, but she's from Altoona Middle School 8th grade band. Danielle Christman, Erie Middle School 8th grade string orchestra. Dr. Capuchin, Madam President, and members of the
025Board of Education, thank you for recognizing the achievements of our fantastic music students. The 8th grade string orchestra at EMS is a non-auditioned ensemble. Each year, every 6th grade student at Erie Middle School chooses which year-long elective they will join, band, choir, or orchestra. This year, 78% of the students at EMS participated in a year-long music ensemble. Next year, 86% of our growing school is enrolled in a year-long music ensemble. They bring with them a wonderful foundation from our exceptional elementary general music teachers, and I've had the joy of continuing the 8th grade orchestra's music education and being their teacher from the first sounds they made on their instruments to their well-earned performance at the Colorado Music Educators Association. I've been teaching for 27 years. Love these kids. Since there is no middle school all-state
026orchestra, CMEA is really the pinnacle for a middle school orchestra. I have described this experience to many in terms of qualifying for the state cross-country race and holding the title two years in a row. Both last year's orchestra and this year's group had to hold themselves to that kind of exacting level of performance and endurance. Performance groups typically perform for 25 minutes since the length of an average middle school program is half that. They really have to maintain their focus. Our 8th grade orchestra worked with guest conductors who came from the orchestra community like special trainers. Mentors of mine who have successfully performed at CMEA and know the expectations came to work with the students, and they adopted powerful sayings and knowledge from each of their guest conductors. We even premiered a piece by a
027Colorado composer, student Susan Day. Mrs. Day attended the performance and was thrilled to hear her music come alive. She later wrote the students to tell them that their interpretation was perfect. Most of my students, I'm sorry, one of my favorite parts of working with these fine people is watching the community they build as a result of being dedicated to making music together since 6th grade. Thank you to all of you, and to EMS Principal Dr. Andrea Smith, who's here, thanks, for your intentional support of music education in St. Brain. Kathy Keller, Prairie Ridge Elementary Soaring Singers. Good evening. My name is Kathy Keller, and I've been the general music teacher at Prairie Ridge for 16 years. This CMEA journey began a year ago with the recording submission of our 2023-24 Soaring Singers performance in May.
028In early June, I received the call from my friend and colleague, Casey Crop, who is the president of the CMEA, the Colorado Music Educators Association, with congratulations for acceptance to perform at our conference. I immediately called my principal, Carol, to inform her of this prestigious opportunity, and she has been instrumental in assisting me with planning and brainstorming this special day for our students. Fast forward to the day of the performance in January, and what a wonderful and eventful day. My two Prairie Ridge colleagues, Melissa Parsons and Dealexy, chaperoned the students, first to the Air Force Academy Planetarium, and then to the Broadmoor to meet me for our performance. The Soaring Singers performance was a highlight of the conference with standing room only in the ballroom. There were past and current CMEA presidents in attendance along
029with nationally recognized composers, including the composer of two of our pieces we performed. That's true. Okay, we shall. Thank you. This was truly an unforgettable experience for the students and a moment in my career that will stay with me forever, highlighted in my memories. None of this would have been possible without several key people, so thank you first and foremost to all the spectacular performers in Soaring Singers for their dedication and commitment to the ensemble, their passion for singing, their humor, and their enrichment to my day each week at rehearsals. Thank you also to the parents and families of our singers for ensuring that they were at each Tuesday morning rehearsal and at each concert and sharing their amazing children with me. To the performers who helped us in our recording submission, both current and
030previous members, we wouldn't have been there without their talents. A huge thank you to Janae Byrd and to Chase McBride for your dedication to excellence in the performing and visual arts in St. Rain Valley Schools. Because of your support and our district, because of your support, our district ensures we focus on the whole child. And a big thanks again to Janae for working with the Soaring Singers in our CMEA preparations. Much gratitude also goes to my amazing principal, Mrs. Carol Oliphant, for your encouragement and belief in me through this whole, sorry, for this whole submission process. And I also greatly appreciate our St. Rain Valley Schools administration team, including Dr. Haddad, Jackie, and Douglas, for your support to the performing arts. It is always so wonderful to see you at our various performing events. My
031thanks could not go without recognizing my amazing kids, Matthew and Emma, for loving me, laughing with me, and being my biggest cheering squad, and to my amazing husband, Travis, who's here with us tonight, for believing in me, encouraging me, laughing, listening to, and advising me through this whole CMEA process. Thank you. And Talia Bird, Erie High School, 5130. So thank you so much for being here. We're almost done, but can we take a photo of our teachers? Is that okay? I can do it from here. I just need to get my phone. We're gonna send you off with a big treat. We're gonna end our time with a performance from 5130, which is Erie's acapella jazz choir. And will you please welcome student Dean Curtis to introduce this group? Come on over. Hello, my name
032is Dean Curtis. I am a senior this year and the president of our jazz choir, 5130. We are the top auditions acapella jazz choir at Erie High School, and we appreciate you guys having us here. So today we'll be performing Sir Duke, which is a song originally performed and written by Stevie Wonder that honors a lot of the jazz greats, including Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, and Ella Fitzgerald. Phenomenal. I couldn't sit still, but I held back from singing with you, so you dragged me right in. That was really phenomenal. Thank you so much. This is one of our best meetings ever here. And all you young people just, I tell them all, you're my fountain of youth. I'm an old man, and I just get so much energy from being around young people
033like you that are just so productive and so gifted and just so much future ahead of you that it's gonna be amazing to watch you grow. So thank you so much. Anybody else have any comments? That was such a treat. Thank you for sharing that, and I love how these programs enrich learning across the district, so thanks for sharing. And I just got a free concert. That was amazing. That's amazing. You have to stand in line. No line. Yeah, thank you for your performance, and thank you teachers for, I mean, I think something that goes without being said a lot is that all of the hours that you put in outside of the school day with these students are above and beyond, and I know you love it. That is always and was very prevalent
034tonight. Also on show tonight was how important some of the life lessons you learn in the fine arts are. Mic stopped working. Did we even notice? No, because we kept performing. So it's just so important to your well-being as a student, as a person, to be involved in things bigger than yourself, and I mean, and to enjoy it like you guys do, too. So thanks for your performance, and teachers, thank you for your dedication, and Janae, thank you for everything you do for all of the music teachers in our district. Well, all the fine arts in our district. Sorry, I'm just used to my jargon. You guys care about taking a picture with us? All right, now, I want to be able to say I knew that person when, you know? That's what I, I've
035done shows with her. I could take a deep breath, huh? Okay, next up we have district magazine presentation. Dr. McThermon. Yeah, I don't know how you follow that. I don't know how. It's a bad placement. I know what you're saying. Yeah, you put us on the agenda, man. Well. Well, good evening, members of the board. Tonight, I'm excited to share with you the story and strategic impact of our Saint Renovation Magazine, an annual communication tool that has become instrumental in connecting our district with our broader community. In 2016, we identified a critical opportunity. While we were doing exceptional work within our schools, we needed a more compelling way to showcase this work to our entire community of stakeholders. So we asked ourselves, how might we share our successes, communicate our mission, and build deeper connections
036with everyone who has a stake in our district success? One answer for us came from an unexpected source or place of inspiration, and that was looking at higher education. Seeing how universities use high quality alumni magazines to maintain engagement with their supporters, we realized K-12 education could benefit from a similar approach. And this wasn't about just creating another school newsletter or traditional annual report, but about redefining a new standard for community engagement through professional storytelling and data visualization. What makes Saint Renovation Magazine unique is its reach and its purpose. This publication is delivered not just to our families and staff, but to every taxpayer household in our district. It serves as both a showcase of our achievements and a transparent report on our progress metrics. The magazine has become a powerful tool for demonstrating our
037stewardship of community resources while building pride in our district's accomplishments. It helps translate our educational mission into stories that resonate with everyone, from parents to community members who may not have children in our schools. And to my knowledge, we were the first public school districts in Colorado to undertake this style of community engagement and storytelling. This is likely in part to the talent and creative skill required to do this type of editorial writing and design work really well. Often companies or organizations outsource these publications to design agencies, which can be incredibly expensive, but we've maintained exceptional cost efficiency by producing it entirely in-house, from writing and graphic design, to the photography and interactive elements. And it is the incredible individuals on our communications team, now and over the past nine years, that have made this
038possible. And one of those individuals is with me tonight, Liz Allen is our very talented communications and design manager, who has led the editorial planning, art direction and layout design for the magazine for the past four issues. Liz is gonna share a little more about the significant planning that goes into each issue, which we publish once a school year. Thank you, Carrie. And thank you board members for the opportunity to present tonight. So with so many amazing things happening across our district every day, I mean, we just saw two really incredible programs highlighted that we could probably write at least 10 stories about. We have to think, where do we start? And we start with our strategic priorities pyramid. When we begin the editorial planning of each year's edition, we center this strategic priorities pyramid.
039We brainstorm stories as a team that align with these themes, aiming to capture a variety of stories from every corner of our district, that individually will speak to one of these priorities, whether it be our music innovation program, a feature of our elementary school teachers, or highlighting our student champions. And taken all together, we will tell a cohesive story of St. Brain. From there, once we sort of brainstorm our buckets into these categories, we prioritize really balancing our coverage. This is across feeders, school levels, and even down to individual schools. While we can't feature every school every year, I don't think we could put out like a 500 page publication. We wanna make sure that we're providing some equitable distribution across the district, so we track our school coverage over the years. One of the
040foundational principles that has guided St. Brain Innovation Magazine from its inception is our commitment to amplify the voices of those who truly bring our district to life, so our students, our teachers, our families, and our staff. When we launched the magazine, we made a deliberate decision to shift the spotlight away from central admin or school-based administrators as the spokespeople for the district. Instead, we wanted to create a platform where the authentic stories of our educational community could take center stage. As the magazine has evolved, we've continued to expand these opportunities for guest contributors. For example, last year's edition showcased this approach beautifully with a compelling piece written by Sienna Arellano, a graduating senior from Niwat High School. Her perspective provided readers with a genuine student viewpoint on her educational journey in St. Brain. In that
041same issue, Andy Freeman, a dedicated teacher from Longs Peak Middle School, shared insights from his classroom that resonated with both educators and parents alike. And this year, we've built on that foundation by featuring our 2024 Teacher of the Year, Acadia Gurney, who contributed a thoughtful guest article that captured the passion and purpose behind her teaching philosophy. We also introduced a new element with our elementary grade level spotlight series, 180 Days of Transformation, which featured the voice and perspective of elementary teachers across each grade level. These spotlights have allowed us to highlight the unique challenges and rewards of teaching at different developmental stages while giving these educators a platform to share their expertise. This year, we were also excited to have two of our communication interns, both recent alums of St. Brain, contribute stories to the
042magazine, which are now prominent pieces in their portfolios. These contributions bring authenticity and diversity of perspective that no amount of just reporting about our schools could achieve. Once we have our written content decided what stories we're gonna write and who's gonna write them, the creative planning process really focuses on how we can provide a variety of ways for all of our audiences to connect with and engage with those stories. Our goal is that no matter how you engage with this magazine, you get a piece of the overall St. Brain story from it. One of the biggest pieces of that is the visual look, the photography. This is a big entry point for a lot of people, so we want to ensure that we're planning and capturing high quality, visually interesting images that do not just
043accompany our stories, but to help tell our stories. From there, next is our video and multimedia aspects. This is really for our audience members that want to dig in deeper. They want to dive in to the content as well as our more visual audiences who might prefer a video over reading. We typically create a couple of new videos to accompany our stories within the magazine as well as leverage our relevant existing video stories from throughout the year. This year, we also introduced a link to a playlist of student-created songs, which has been a very popular way for people to enrich their experience of that music innovation story. Finally, the design of the magazine itself is very intentional. Each story is visually distinct, and each title, subtitle, and pull quote all help to tell high level
044pieces of that story. So even if you're just skimming a story, know that anyone here would do that, right? We all read everything fully. They still get an understanding of what that story is about and what St. Rain's purpose is. Each of our stories is also reviewed and edited by our entire communications team several times before and after being designed. On the communications team, we really embraced a culture of continuous improvement, challenging ourselves each year to find innovative ways to enhance the reader experience and bridge the gap between traditional print media and digital engagement. From the beginning, we recognize that a robust digital presence was essential to complement our print publication. The magazine has always had a strong online component through our website, allowing for expanded content and broader accessibility. But as Liz mentioned, two
045years ago, we took a significant step forward by strategically incorporating video content through QR codes throughout the magazine. This addition allowed us to bring stories to life in a way that print alone simply cannot, showing rather than just telling, the impacts of our programs and celebrating student achievements in dynamic visual formats. Building on that success, last year we expanded the QR code engagement opportunities while adding an interactive element to the physical magazine itself. The cover featured a specially designed paper airplane pattern that readers could cut out and build, transforming the publication from something that merely read into some, something really to read into something to actively experience. This simple yet effective innovation encouraged hands-on engagement from readers of all ages and embodied our district's belief in learning by doing. This year, we made our most
046ambitious leap yet by integrating augmented reality experiences throughout the magazine. Several feature stories and even the cover itself now come to life through AR technology when viewed through a smartphone camera. And if you haven't tried the experience yet, here is a social media video created by Colin Rickman that demos what that looked like this year. So this AR integration does far more than simply impress with technology. It creates a seamless bridge between the print and digital worlds, allowing us to tell more layered immersive stories while reinforcing our district's commitment to innovation. It perfectly embodies our ethos of technological advancement, creative problem solving, and engaging educational experiences. And each year as we look for these opportunities to evolve the publication, we're guided by a simple question. How can we better connect our community with the innovative
047spirit that defines our district? Once we have created the content for the magazine, distribution happens in three primary ways. First is the print publication itself, which is mailed to about 83,000 households in the last year, which I think really speaks as a testament to the growth that our district has experienced over the last few years. This mailing list, as Kerry mentioned earlier, includes every household within St. Vrain's footprint, as well as district staff and families who might live outside of that footprint. Magazines can also be found in our school and district buildings as a way that we can hand them out and promote our stories. Kerry also touched on our magazine. We also have an online version hosted. It's custom built each year to have each of the new stories within it. The digital format
048allows us to share out individual stories over the entire course of a year, as well as allows viewers to translate and access the content in additional ways. Finally, we promote the stories through social media, primarily on X, formally Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram as standalone posts, videos, and more. I'm going to talk a little bit about the engagement metrics. This presentation happened at a good time. We launched this year's magazine at the very end of February, start of March, and we just finished posting our first run of content on Instagram last week, so we were able to pull fresh numbers for you. When we look at impressions across our three platforms, we see just shy of 10,000 on X, a little over 7,000 on Instagram, and 43,882 on LinkedIn, and 4,882 on Instagram. And impressions is
049how many times that content is shown, how many times it shows up on people's screens. From there, the reach, which only Instagram measures, that is the number of individual accounts shown to, and that includes people who might already follow St. Vrain accounts, as well as people who don't follow us, which is exciting. From there, this year, we were also able to track some of our QR code engagement, especially with our augmented reality this year, and of the people that were taking that extra step to really engage with our content through the augmented reality opportunity, we saw that on average, they were dwelling within the experience for two minutes and 50 seconds, which does tell us that they weren't just bouncing out of that, they were staying and engaging, and getting the full breadth of that
050content, which is exciting. The impact of St. Vrain Innovation Magazine extends far beyond our district boundaries. What began as an innovative approach to community engagement has now earned significant national and state recognition, establishing our publication as a standard of excellence in educational communications. The National Schools Public Relations Association, which evaluates communications from districts across the country, has repeatedly recognized our work with the highest honors. To date, St. Vrain Innovation Magazine has received three National Excellence Awards in magazine publications, one National Excellence Award for our magazine website. Additionally, we have our National Merit Award in magazine publication, and a National Honor Roll Mention in magazine website. At the state level, the Colorado Schools Public Relations Association has given us their Golden Achievement Award for the magazine, and five Excellence Awards in special purpose publications for the
051magazine. The recognition is particularly meaningful because these awards are judged by communications professionals who understand the challenges of effectively connecting with diverse community stakeholders. But perhaps what's most gratifying is how our magazine has influenced other districts. We've become something of a model that others are now emulating. For example, Adams 12 Five Star Schools has launched their own publication called The Focus, inspired by our approach. We regularly receive inquiries from districts across the United States who have discovered our magazine through the National Schools Public Relations Association website, and are seeking guidance on developing similar publications for their communities. This ripple effect is perhaps the highest form of recognition, seeing our innovative approach to community engagement replicated and adapted by our peers across the educational landscape. And I should note that these institutional awards stand alongside numerous
052individual staff recognitions for writing and video stories featured in the magazine, further evidence of the exceptional talent driving the publication forward, and across all of our communications work over the past several years, the team has earned nearly 40 national and 50 state level communication awards. And as we reflect on the journey and impact of St. Renovation Magazine, it's important to recognize that this publication, while significant, represents just one component of our comprehensive approach to community engagement and transparent communication. The magazine serves as a cornerstone platform throughout the year, but it's complemented by an ecosystem of engagement strategies. Our middle and high school options outreach connects families with educational pathways that match their students' needs and aspirations. Our robust social media presence and video storytelling bring immediate visual updates to our community. Our district and school
053websites provide essential information and resources. Our email communications deliver timely updates directly to stakeholders. Our superintendents update offers regular insights from district leadership. And our in-person initiatives like Leadership St. Ren and various community engagement meetings create spaces for direct dialogue and relationship building. We also focus on direct mail, environmental branding in our schools, events, and many, many other initiatives. Each of these panels plays a vital role in maintaining the strong connections between our schools and the communities that we serve. Together, they ensure that every stakeholder has multiple ways to stay informed and engage with our district's mission and achievements. And none of this would be possible without the extraordinary support at every level. I want to express my sincere gratitude to the incredible members of our communication team, highlighted here, their creativity, professionalism, dedication, bring
054these communication strategies to life. I also want to recognize Dr. Haddad, Dr. Capuchin, President Raglin, and our entire Board of Education for their unwavering commitment to transparency and community engagement. Looking ahead, we're excited about several initiatives that will further enhance our communications ecosystem. Our upcoming Futures by Design website will better showcase workforce pathways and opportunities, internships and apprenticeships, and potential career trajectories. A new teacher recruitment site will help us continue to attract exceptional talent to our classrooms, and we're exploring emerging technologies and formats, including specialized AI content generation, such as Google Notebook LM podcasting, and much more, to diversify how community members access information and engage with our schools and district. These future directions all share a common purpose, leveraging the power of authentic, accessible communication to support the overall engagement and success of our
055entire educational community. Thank you so much for this opportunity to share, and with that, I'll open it up for any questions. Well, I mean, I don't think I have any questions as much as it is this amazing, and I know, Carrie, you've done amazing work over the years, and this is, I think, seeing, aside from all of the awards, and that's so awesome, seeing how we're reaching other school districts and other entities is a testament to the work that you all do. It's a small, I looked at the screen, a small but mighty team, and that says a lot about what we're doing, not only in our district, but what you're doing as a whole group there, and it's a lot of work, and we thank you so much for all of the hard work
056that you all put into this. Yeah, thank you. I just add that it's really nice to see what's happening in our schools come to life in a way that you can engage in multiple different ways. But it's just fun to see pictures of the students. I love flipping through them and seeing kids that I know or kids that have been at board meetings, and it's just really fun to see that stuff come to life, and you do a really great job of sharing those stories. So, thanks. What I love so much about St. Brain is that there are so many amazing things going on across all of our schools, and that we on the communications team have such great relationships with our principals and with our schools that we, it's a partnership in how we
057tell their stories and how we are brought into the buildings and how we know what's going on so that we're able to really help showcase the incredible work going on across the system. And it's just, it's a pretty incredible place to be when you just, you can't keep up. There's everywhere you look. Board meetings doesn't matter. There's something amazing going on. Well, just thank you so much. I know I see you everywhere, and I hear you everywhere. You're as much the key to the organization as anything I've ever seen. You know everything, somehow you, you know everything that's going on almost. I don't know how you keep up with it. I assume your staff is very involved as well because there's no way one person can be on top of everything that you guys are
058handling. So, thank everybody down the line from us. We don't get a chance to do that. So, we'll put Eunice on you to make sure you pass our congratulations down the line and the thanks for all the effort they all put in. I will, absolutely. Thank you, Jim. Sure. Screen just died again. That happened to me once before. Okay, I'm gonna move on. My screen dies. I have to look at paperwork now. So, we've moved to audience participation. Do we have any members in our audience that would like to sign up or have signed up? Do you wanna address the board? No? You're one person that they, a no-show. Okay. Then we'll move on. The next is the superintendent's report. So, our deputy superintendent, Jackie Capician, is gonna give us an update. Great, thank you.
059Dr. Haddad could not be with us this evening, so I'm just gonna share a few things that are happening right now in our school district. Last week, we celebrated our retirees. This beautiful celebration was set up by our HR team, and it's always really nice to be able to honor those who have given so much to public education. Thank you to our board of Ed, who were members who were there last Thursday evening. It was just a beautiful celebration. We'd also like to congratulate Axel Reitzig on an award that he received at the VEX Robotics Championships. He received an Inspiration All-Star Award and was entered into the STEM Hall of Fame. Many of you know that Axel has been very instrumental in building our robotics culture here in St. Brain with over 250 teams, so
060we were excited to hear that he was recognized. Also, Janay referred earlier to this, but St. Brain was named a 2025 Best Communities for Music Education for the outstanding support of music education, and this is the fifth year in a row that we've received that recognition. It's really due to the tremendous work of Chase McBride, Janay, Bird, and then all of our music educators across the district who do so much to support our students' love of music, so congratulations to that team. Graduations will take place on Thursday and Friday for our smaller programs in high schools in the district, and then on Saturday, May 24th, we have a team of about 40 people who are supporting all of the comprehensive high school graduations going on at the same time on Saturday morning. We have 35,000
061chairs being delivered, and those will all be set up later next week, and of course, we're always keeping our eye on the weather so far, so good, but we will be checking that every single day until next Saturday. And then we also have a busy summer planned with a number of summer learning programs that will start in June. Right now, we have about 2,200 students signed up for elementary project launch. We have 101 students signed up for our dyslexia base camp, which will take place at four different sites across the district. We've hired 255 elementary teachers for project launch at 14 different elementary sites across the district, so we have students who don't want to leave school this summer, and we're gonna have them back for as long as they want to be here. We
062have a middle school project launch taking place with 735 middle schoolers. We have an accelerated math program for sixth graders who are entering into sixth grade for advanced math. We also have hired 51 middle school teachers at eight different middle school sites. And then finally, we have a STEM accelerator project launch with 184 students. We have also hired about 36 staff members for that, and STEM accelerator will be at four different sites across the district. So lots of opportunity to keep learning for anyone, free of charge, lunch is provided, lots of fun things going on with students and lots of great learning this summer. So thank you to our staff. Kathy O'Donnell, Diane Lauer and her team have been very instrumental. They start back in the fall with all of the planning that has to
063happen for our summer programming. They're doing hiring all year long to make sure we have all of our staff in place, and then they're working closely with Brian's team because he has a lot of projects going on in facilities as well, so we have a lot of maneuvering to do to make all of this happen, but they've done a great job with all of that planning. So that's it for now. Thank you. Anybody comment? I just wanna say that I was stopped yesterday after URI meeting and was asked, do desire district have any summer programming? And I was delighted, so delighted, very delighted to talk about all the programs. Now these are some extra ones that I just learned about here, but the many of our project launch and a lot of our jumpstart programs
064where our students that are transitioning to the different grade levels. So I was really excited to talk about that program, probably more so than I was like, okay, we need to get into our meeting, but it's great to see all of the programs that we've had in the years past, and then some of them sound new since I think we talked about these just last year. So it's great to see that we have all of the summer programming, and a lot of parents sometimes say, can we go to an all year round school? But we do things throughout the year and in the summer to accommodate that year round, if you will, so thank you. That's exactly right, Ms. Babson. We also, this did not account for, and we'll do some reporting on that later
065in August or September, but this does not account for all of the early start programs that we begin at the end of July and early August, especially for students transitioning to middle school and transitioning to high school. So we'll update you on those programs as well. Okay, thank you. All right, no more, no reports. So we move on to consent items. Would any board member like to pull any of the consent items? Okay, then I look for a motion to approve the consent items as is in our agenda. So second. Mrs. Babs? Yes. Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mrs. Gilligan? Yes. Mrs. Horanek? Yes. Mr. LeChuga absent? Mrs. Raglin absent? Mrs. Weiss? Okay, now we have one action item, and Tony is going to do a present, give us a little update on this issue that we
066need to vote on. Go ahead, Tony. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, members of the board. This action item is a recommendation for the Board of Education to approve a one-time waiver of just a portion of board policy DB, annual budget. This would be for the fiscal year 25-26. What this does is it's efforts to soften the impacts of a fund down, excuse me, a planned spend down of our fund balance and the general fund for the upcoming budget year. The board will receive some information on the completed budget here in the next few weeks as that process wraps up. But what this does is this temporarily reduces the amount the general fund funds to the capital reserve fund on a one-time basis, and this will help bolster the programming and compensation resources in the
067general fund, again, just for one year. This board policy is actually a holdover from an old statute that occurred prior to 2012, and the board put this into place that has the district transfer amounts from the general fund to both the risk management and capital reserve funds on a formula basis. And so what this just allows us the flexibility to adjust that amount, again, on a temporary basis so that we can maintain some additional reserves in the general fund due to a tight budget season is what this is. So I wanted to provide any support or answer any questions the board might have at this time. I do, and I wanna just make sure that I'm understanding more so probably clarifying in my thoughts, the thoughts in my head. What initiated this one-time waiver, I
068suppose? Sure, so there is precedent for this happening, again, back in about 2012. So this is, we actually mostly duplicated the memo from the time. But as we develop the FY26 budget, so we've got that mostly in place. There's a few outstanding items. Compensation, as you know, is still being worked on. But as we take a look and see the impacts of the softening of future revenues from the state's budget as well as the increased expenditures that we are gonna be encountering, we wanted to make sure that we're essentially softening the spend down of our reserves in the general fund. And what this does is it reserves a certain amount that we would normally transfer to cap reserve and keeps it in the general fund just to help control the descent of our reserves. We've
069got plenty of reserves. We're not in any dire straits or concerned about, you know, unexpected deficits. All this, we've got everything on board and we're gonna be able to give the board a comprehensive overview of the proposed budget here in the next board meeting at the end of May. And we'll be able to outline a little bit more about the impacts of what this will do. What this does is it gives us the flexibility to hold a little bit of that formula allocation from the general fund to the cap reserve fund. Does that help answer your question? Sure. So we probably separate from this conversation because you mentioned that. Yeah, happy to answer that. So our general fund reserve balance, we generally want as a minimum about 25% of our annual expenditures. And so we're
070a little over $400 million I think in the general fund. That's last year's amount. And what we target, that 25%, is being about three months worth of expenditures. Seems at a minimum, we'd wanna make sure we're there. We're up in the 30% range in the mid-30s and so we're at a comfortable margin above that bare minimum amount. And so we feel comfortable, we're not in jeopardy of approaching the bare minimum. We're still fairly well funded in terms of our reserves, but the FY26 budget will include a planned spend down of that reserve. And so this again, just wants to wanna make sure that this helps arrest that curve. This would, without any board action or further future adjustments, would kick back into our normal formula allocation to the cap reserve fund to make sure that
071Brian's projects are all funded adequately. Any other questions? No, I guess we could look for a motion then to concerning a port one recommendation, exception change to board policy, DBE annual budget and adjustment of transfer from general fund to cap reserve for fiscal year 26. So moved. Mrs. Babs? Yes. Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mrs. Gilligan? Yes. Mrs. Horanek? Mr. LeChuga absent, Mrs. Raglin? Aye. Mrs. Weiss? Yes. All right, moving on. We, this meeting, have a discussion item. It's concerning the superintendent search. So I have a statement I'd like to read so that everybody on the board can hear and we'll proceed after I read this. The board posted the position of superintendent internally consistent with the superintendent search process approved at our April 16th, 2025 special meeting and the posting closed on May 1, 2025. The
072board received only one internal application applicant for the position and pursuant to board policy CBB. If three or fewer candidates with the minimum qualifications for the position apply, said candidates are considered finalists. In this case, the one applicant is the district's current deputy superintendent, Dr. Jackie Capuchin. Under board policy CBB and consistent with Colorado revised statute, section 24-6-402.3.5, the board must make public the finalist or finalist under consideration no later than 14 days prior to appointing or employing the finalist. The finalist under consideration by the board for the position of superintendent is Dr. Jackie Capuchin. Are there any questions or anybody wanna make any statements concerning that? No? Okay. So that's our discussion is complete. Our next meeting will be, is on the 28th of this month. So I look for a motion to adjourn.
073Second. All in favor? All opposed? The ayes have it. We're adjourned. Thank you all. And thanks for everybody who attended.