001Good evening and welcome to St. Brian Valley Schools Board of Education meeting. Please join us in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance Welcome to everybody who's here in attendance and Happy New Year Christy, can you please call the roll this evening? Yes, mr. Berthold present mrs. Brooks present Mr. Garcia present mrs. Horanek here. Dr. Marder Here mrs. Ragland here. Ms. Segrist here. Thank you, Christy and Meosha, welcome All right. Thank you. Yes, Christy any changes or addendums to the agenda this evening? No, there were not Great. Thank you Before we get started. I do want to introduce our special guests this evening We have Alexia and Alexia. Can you please tell me how I should pronounce your last name? Mardis M-a-r-e-s. Thank you. Welcome It's wonderful to have you here this evening and you are
002our representative from the student advisory committee and if you don't mind if you could take a short bit of time and Introduce yourself and maybe let us know what school you're from. We would love that Alright, my name is Alexia Mars. I come from New Meridian. I'm a junior and Yeah, that's pretty much it Great well, welcome, please know that we would love to hear your input on any topics this evening so don't hesitate to catch our attention or just go ahead and start speaking into the microphone if you have questions and We'll probably put you on the spot a couple times just a heads up. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you All right agenda item this three this evening We don't have any visitors and before we get to audience participation I
003do want to take a moment to just remind everybody That this district's mission statement is the board and dr. Haddad's North star We make all decisions within the context of educating each student in a safe learning environment So that they may develop to their highest potential and become contributing citizens We do not take that mission lightly our focus is on each and every student having access to the very best opportunities in an environment that is inclusive of every child a Couple housekeeping items if you guys if all of you could please silence your cell phones. That would be great and Then just a reminder that this meeting is recorded and it is broadcast and you can also access it on the district website Starting tomorrow morning. All right that brings us to agenda item four
004which is our audience Participation and before we begin I do want to just verify that there are no Audience members who want to speak on an agenda item this evening. Is that correct? All right the Board of Education values community perspectives and feedback from our parents teachers staff and community during Board of Education meetings the board will hear up to 30 minutes of public comment on non agenda items and 30 minutes of public comment on agenda specific items To allow for the greatest number of community members to participate each person will be limited to three minutes of public comment at the end of three minutes I will thank you for speaking and invite the next speaker or Move on to the agenda item the next speaker to the podium or move on to the next
005agenda item If you are speaking to a non agenda item this evening Please limit your comments to matters of public concern about the district If you have a concern about a specific individual or personnel matter, please reach out directly to a board member Or the HR department and we will assist you with next steps It has been the long-standing practice of the board to not address or respond to during the public comment section of the agenda But please know that we are listening and we do greatly appreciate and value the perspectives of our community members All right. Our first speaker this evening is Sean Patrick Ironside Is Sean here? No, Sean All right, then our Second, I can't speak this evening. Our second speaker is Rachel aren't is Rachel here this evening. Are you here
006Rachel? All right, then we will move on to Michael Belmont Third time's a charm Michael Yes, it is and if you could please state your name and address for the record that would be great and then we'll start timing After you're finished with those. Okay. Thank you Michael Belmont 841 tenacity Drive here in Longmont and Thank you much for the opportunity to visit with you this evening First my wife and I are so grateful to all of you all who generously volunteer hundreds of hours of your very valuable time for the betterment of our children Alice and I raised both of our daughters here in Longmont through the st. Rain Valley School District all the way up through high school My primary purpose here tonight is to thank you for your wisdom mentorship and Determination
007to keep our schoolchildren safe During these challenging times given the pandemic Your wisdom is evidenced by your responsible and appropriate Reliance on the medical experts to provide you in the protocols for protecting the precious lives of our children Not unlike the fact that every day we all rely on experts like structural engineers for instance that make sure the buildings in which we live work play and study are safe for our regular and constant use Your mentorship is Demonstrated by the compassion empathy and respect you have for our schoolchildren and their families in light of the many Potential exposures we all have in this pandemic to a serious and often fatal disease especially in the public gathering places such as our schools We as adults are indeed the models for our children that will determine Whether
008they will develop into compassionate empathetic and respectful adults themselves by your determination to make health and safety paramount in our schools sometimes in the face of strong resistance to such things as Asking that medical experts have clearly shown protect our children and their families You are in your way modeling these virtues to them Without widespread compassion empathy and respect I Shutter to think what our city our state Indeed our country would look like So I end my comments as I began them with a heartfelt Thank you for all that you do for our children behind the scenes and all too often Without proper recognition, so wishing you good evening Thank You Michael our next Speaker this evening and I'm going to have you pronounce your first name, please. The last name is Martinez Welcome, you
009could state your name and address. I would love to know how to pronounce your first name Very different than what I have. Okay, welcome. Thank you Can you stop one moment, please so sorry we were not prepared Yes, we will listen right now and Brian if you could start the timer over that would be great because this is um That's on me Thank you for your patience Everybody good. We're good. Thank you When I thought this at all Much of it for the opportunity of luck on the state's Elia do it. Me number is Uri Martinez So I'm a very three mean, you can see stand on the street. Oh, it's a brain Dozen Primaria, you know in preschool. I'm a member of El Paso This is the only thing that you know, it's almost
010a group of a mother's call the initiative. I'm a horrible implementation of the school Tanto para nuestros hijos como para nuestra comunidad La comida es muy importante, no solo para el crecimiento físico, sino también para el aprendizaje y la regulación del comportamiento de los niños. Y como mamá, estoy preocupada por lo que comen mis hijas en la escuela, alimentos altamente procesados y congelados que son recalentados y servidos. Los alimentos procesados pueden aumentar los problemas de aprendizaje y conductas en las escuelas. Por ejemplo, en el desayuno de los niños, comen barras y panes con altos contenidos de azúcar. Después van a clases y se presentan problemas de comportamiento, imperactividad y falta de concentración y una hora más tarde su nivel de azúcar en la sangre baja y comienzan a estar de mal humor y cansados. Alrededor
011de mediodía van a almorzar y el ciclo se repite, pero esta vez se agrega leche con chocolate, pizzas, comidas enlatadas, etc. En su mayoría se trata de alimentos con más de 20 o 30% de ingredientes artificiales altos ensales y azúcares. A partir de agosto del 2021, varios meses de que el paso a vos solicitara un cambio de alimentos procesados por alimentos frescos y elaborados desde cero, se agregó el menú del distrito, un símbolo de scratch made. Sin embargo, se trata de los mismos alimentos que se han venido ofreciendo en las escuelas por años. Hay muchas definiciones de cocinar desde cero. Para nosotras, cocinar desde cero significa que se preparan los alimentos en una cocina del distrito y que se incorporan ingredientes frescos que no se contengan conservantes aditivos o saborizantes y jarabe de maíz de
012alta fructosa. Hoy en día ya no es posible acceder a los ingredientes de los alimentos. Estos fueron removidos de la página de internet. Nos gustaría que esta información reaparezca como una garantía de transparencia, lo cual requiere que la información esté disponible, sea accesible y se difunda entre la comunidad. La comida escolar es muy importante para la alimentación de nuestros niños, por lo que se debe garantizar que sea lo más nutritiva y saludable posible. Este cambio es más necesario que nunca, ya que debemos asegurarnos de que todos los niños tengan la oportunidad de prosperar y alcanzar su verdadero potencial y garantizar que la comida escolar sea parte de este proceso. Thank you very much. All right, next on the list is Roxana Garcia. Hello, Roxana. If you could please state your name and address. Welcome. Thank
013you. I speak Spanish, okay? Okay. My name is Roxana Garcia. Vengo del paso vos. Buenas tardes. Agradezco esta oportunidad. Mi nombre es Roxana Garcia. Soy madre de tres niños, perdón, de tres niñas y un niño que asisten al distrito. En noviembre de 2021, el paso vos desarrolló una encuesta para conocer la opinión de la comunidad acerca de los alimentos que se sirven en el distrito. Queremos compartir los resultados principales con ustedes. 75 personas respondieron a una encuesta de los cuales 67% son hispanos, 25% son blancos y 8% son de otras razas. Estas personas representan a 23 escuelas del distrito. Para el 61% de estas personas, sus hijos son parte del programa de alimentos gratis o reducidos. 24% llevan comida preparada en casa. 11% compran la comida preparada en la escuela y 4% no comen nada
014en la escuela. 74% conocen lo que comen sus hijos en las escuelas llanamente. 92% consideran que la comida que se ofrece en las escuelas no es saludable y nutritiva para los alumnos. 79% califica la calidad de los alimentos ofrecidos en la escuela como baja, 17% como media y 4% como alta. 54% califica la cantidad de los alimentos ofrecidos en las escuelas como baja, 25% como media y alta y 21% como alta. 58% califica la variedad de los alimentos ofrecidos en las escuelas como baja, 23% como media y 9% como alta. Al 99% de las personas les gustaría que hubiera cambios en las comidas que se ofrecen en las escuelas del distrito. Asimismo, recopilamos 315 firmas en apoyo a los 7 puntos de nuestra petición que se presentó en la reunión del 8 de diciembre. Las
015comidas escolares pueden ayudar a los niños a desarrollar hábitos alimenticios saludables o pueden prepararlos para una vida de mala salud. Un cambio en las normas alimentarias en las escuelas puede influir positivamente en toda la comunidad. Por ello, el paso Boss Longmont reitera su petición para que el distrito genere un plan para que el 75% de los platillos principales, acompañamientos y aperitivos sean frescos y se elaboren desde cero en sus instalaciones. Este cambio es más necesario que nunca, ya que debemos asegurarnos de que todos los niños tengan la oportunidad de prosperar y alcanzar su verdadero potencial y garantizar que la comida escolar sea parte de este proceso. Gracias por su atención. Thank you very much, Roxana. Our next speaker this evening is Mark Roberts. Hi, Coach Roberts. I'm wonderful. It's nice to see you. Thank you
016for being here this evening. Name and address and then we'll start the timer. On or off? You're welcome to. Yeah, you can take it off while you're speaking. Thank you. A little scattered. Late for middle school girls basketball practice. No, take your time. We won't start the timer until you after you state your name and address. I am Mark Roberts and my address is 2807 Humboldt Circle here in Longmont, Colorado. I'm here tonight to speak from the perspective of a parent and community member and express my concerns about the impact of House Bill 21-1108, labeled the gender identity expression anti-discrimination bill that was signed into law in May of 2021 by Governor Polis. This legislation amends the current definition of sexual orientation along with adding the terms of gender identity and gender expression into 48
017areas of state law that prohibit discrimination against members of a protected class. And I want to be really clear that I understand who my audience is tonight. I'm here to speak to parents and community members. I am not here to address the board really or our administrators. I understand that you folks are obligated to follow the law and you'll do what your legal counsel counsels you to do. I'm concerned because I feel like people from I guess about 50% of our population have a very different perspective on some of these things. I believe that parents in our American heritage should have the primary voice in issues dealing with their minor children. And under these laws, that's not the case anymore. There's often a case where parents are pretty much marginalized and pushed to the side.
018And you know, there was one example I read about in Ohio, a judge removed a biological girl from her parents' custody after they declined to help her transition to male with testosterone supplements. The Cincinnati Children's Gender Clinic recommended these treatment for gender dysphoria. When her parents wanted to treat her with counseling instead, Hamilton County Job and Family Services charged them with abuse and neglect while transgender activists and pro-trans doctors compared their decision to denying treatment for asthma or even cancer patients. We have a federal law called the Equality Act which has not yet passed that would codify this for the entire nation. Right now it's happening on kind of a state by state basis and I know you know that this has been an issue with sports in particular and the spaces that are transgender
019men and transgender women, you know, especially trans men competing as women and setting all sorts of records and just the angst that's causing in so many of our communities. I am all about equality and I would love to have those conversations and have that open dialogue but I just, I'm here tonight because of how much I love the work that I do and the education that I've been able to be a part of in this community and yet I feel like as a person of faith that my voice is expected to be used only in, you know, those communities of faith that I spend time with and that that opinion is not particularly welcome or yeah, just not really welcome in that public dialogue. So I thank you for listening to me. This is something
020that I probably would back by and I apologize if this wasn't a little more well-constructed in terms of my concerns but I really want to reach out to parents and just encourage them to look for some resources. One of the resources that was most valuable to me was this book Irreversible Damage by Abigail Schreier and she talked about what's happening to our adolescent young ladies and how they are being influenced so I thank you for your time and I appreciate the work that you guys do. Thank you so much. Great. Thank you, Mark. I'm going to, one last opportunity, did Sean Ironside arrive? All right. And then Don, I'm just confirming that last person reached out and said they were ill and would not be here this evening, correct? Oh, thank you. Rachel? No Rachel?
021All right. Okay. That brings us to the conclusion of our audience participation. I just want to express my sincere gratitude. Thank you for coming this evening and for sharing your perspectives. We appreciate your input. Don, agenda item five is the superintendent's report. Would you like to have the students go first from New Meridian? That is even better idea. I am really off my game this evening. No, that's all right. I know that's your high priority for all of the board. No, I think that's wonderful. I had in my mind, I felt like I was forgetting something and that's why I thought, well, maybe it was the public speakers, but I have a feeling it was not going out of order. Thank you for reminding us of that. Dina, welcome. Oh, and I'm going to say
022for the record and for the public that we're going to skip ahead to agenda item 6.1, which is the New Meridian High School Student Advisory Council Feeder Report. And welcome. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Haddad, President Segrist and board members. We are very excited to provide an update about the accomplishments and celebrations that have occurred at New Meridian High School. I'd like to start by introducing the principal of New Meridian High School, Tony Joan Nicolai. The last couple of years, as we know, have been incredibly challenging as we have managed a pandemic. We've strived to maintain stability for our students and provide an excellent educational experience for each one of them. On top of that, the staff also experienced a transition in leadership when we hired Tony Jo from her position as assistant principal
023to the principal position. And then we hired Nate Gurini, who's here tonight as an assistant principal. And tonight, our outstanding New Meridian students will share a number of celebrations and demonstrate the school has strengthened and continued to reach new levels of excellence, even with all of those challenges and changes that have happened. That really cannot happen without dedicated teachers and staff. And this level of success is also the result of exemplary leadership from the principal. I know Tony Jo gives all of the credit for New Meridian's success to her assistant principals, her teachers, her staff, and her students. And they deserve every bit of that recognition. However, I also want to take a moment to recognize Tony Jo. She is a servant-oriented person. She's relentless in her support of students. And she communicates a vision
024that really speaks to the hearts of her staff. So I'd like to turn it over to Tony Jo. Hi, Tony Jo. Welcome. Hi. Thank you so much for having us tonight. And thank you to Dr. Haddad-Wan for letting us skip the line because we were getting a little bit nervous in the audience. So I know our students are extremely grateful for this opportunity. But I just want to say good evening. Thank you so much for having us here tonight. I am Tony Jo Nicolay, the principal of New Meridian High School. Formerly Old Columbine High School and also the Career Elevation Technology Center. So formerly the Career Development Center, for those of you who are just hearing about our rebrand. So I'm going to let our students come up and just introduce our team. And then
025we will roll into some highlights and celebrations. Hello. I'm Sydney Stathome, and I will be a senior this year at New Meridian High School. Hello. I'm Alexia Mars, and I will be a junior this year. Hello. I'm Christian Bernal, and I'm a senior. I'm Talia Mitchell, and I'm a junior. Good evening. I am Nate Greenie, and I'm the assistant principal. Can you hear us? Okay. I just want to make sure. All right. Perfect. So first of all, we are obviously so proud of our students, our staff, and our school. It is a huge point of pride in my life. And I just want to take a moment and thank Dr. Haddad for everything, all the support school, all of the opportunities you provide to our students from giving us access and opportunities to access advanced
026coursework, to the implementation of the AAA program, to the credit recovery system, the opportunities that you give our students to be successful, focus on graduation and thrive are just superb. And I want to thank you for that opportunity. And I also want to thank the Board of Education for just your commitment to students and your relentless efforts to just see us and guide us through this pandemic. Our students are thriving. And I think you'll hear that in our presentation. And I would like to give a special shout out to Karen because I've known you for five years and you've attended our graduation and you've just been a staunch supporter of our site. And I really appreciate that as well. Okay. So I'm going to let our students come up and get us started. And we're
027just going to share all of our highlights. In the area of academic achievement and growth, we are proud of the efforts made to ensure that students have access to rigorous coursework. We are in the third year of offering advanced placement psychology. This year, we have the largest number of students registered for the AP exam. In addition to AP coursework, we began a partnership with the Pathways to Teaching or P-Teach program. In this program, students are enrolled concurrently in the class, the CU Denver. For semester students engaged in an introductory class, in this semester, we are completing field experience with teachers at Indian Peaks Elementary School. We are also launching a partnership with Metro State University. We've been working on this for over half the year and Metro has agreed to support our students in taking
028a new college course, How to Change Your World, while onsite at New Meridian. We are excited to see what doors this opens for us in future courses. Thank you. In addition to rigorous coursework being offered in AP Psych in CU Denver and Metro State, we are very thankful for the support from Front Range Community College. Pictured is Dr. Palmer, Vice President of Boulder Campus with one of our New Meridian and CETC students. We are proud to provide our students with numerous opportunities to access post-secondary coursework through campus. Also, as we share a campus with Career Elevations and Technology Center, many of our students benefit from the strong career training and post-secondary education that CETC instructors provide. Our students can engage in one of seven soon to be eight robust pathways. Pictured are some of our
029current New Meridian high school students at CETC. We are extremely proud of school engagement celebrations. We continue to focus on both our daily and yearly attendance rate, credit earning and celebrate student academic achievement. During quarter one of this school year, over 70% of our students earned 1.5 credits or more. Additionally, over 35% of students achieved a 3.0 or better GPA and approximately 30% of our students had 90% or better attendance rate. We will be celebrating quarter two success in the upcoming weeks. We are in our third and final year of the Colorado Department of Education's Reengagement Grant. We have received $300,000 to support our efforts with increasing student engagement. Through this grant, we have increased our credit offerings. We are proud to say we have recovered 190 courses this past semester, increased our mental health
030supporters and also improved our family connections. This past open house, we offered a family pain every hour for over three hours. It was fun having families come to school and participate in something together. In addition to all the support of New Meridian high school offers, students are also encouraged to access extracurricular activities at their home schools. We also offer many clubs at our school and we are proud of the work happening with the sources of strength. A huge source of pride for our school is graduation. In the past four years, we have continued to improve and maintain our graduation rate. Last year's class had the largest number of on-time graduates in school history. We are thankful for the support that our teachers and staff provide us and are looking forward to keeping this momentum going.
031We are excited to become the first official graduating class from New Meridian high school. At New Meridian high school, we celebrate each other's success. It is a team effort to encourage our friends and classmates to accomplish their goals. As students graduate, we celebrate them. We also celebrate students who are applying and being accepted into college. As our school and students are becoming future-ready, many students are looking towards college. For a fourth consecutive year, a large number of our seniors have participated in our free college application day event. So far, students have been accepted to Front Range, the University of Northern Colorado, Colorado State University, and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Finally, we want to highlight our school rebrand. As you know, our school has undergone a campus-wide rebrand. We were formerly known as
032Old Columbine High School, and now we are New Meridian High School. We are excited to spend this semester re-visualizing our mission and vision, working with the design team to develop graphics that highlight what our school is all about. We are committed to advancement, rigor, opportunity, and community for all students and hope that our rebrand embodies these elements. On behalf of the students and staff at New Meridian High School, we would like to thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening. We know that our work at New Meridian is not possible without the support of Dr. Haddad and the support of our board. We would also like to acknowledge Adina Perfetti-Dinu for the support that she provides to our campus. I am so proud of the efforts that are made by our students and
033staff daily. I could not ask to work with a better team of teachers, staff members, or serve a better group of students. Every day, I am in awe of the efforts our teachers put in. Our teachers continue to engage in professional development, they look for opportunities to become better, and they are constantly asking themselves what they can do to support our students in graduation, which we know is a critical milestone to opening doors to unlimited opportunities when they leave us. Our staff is truly outstanding, and the students, whether it be tonight or every day for us, they bring a smile to our face. There is not a better feeling than sitting on that stage in May and watching our students achieve their goals of earning their diplomas. I am very thankful for the opportunity that
034was provided to me to be a part of the New Meridian High School staff in the St. Graham Valley School District. Please please feel free to come and visit us. We would love to have you come and see the great work that we are doing at our building, and again we thank you for this time this evening. Thank you. Thank you so much. Any questions for us? That was wonderful. Or our students? Yeah, sure. Come on. Karen? Thank you so much. That was a wonderful presentation, and you know, from my experience, the alternative schools are such a unique place and such a special place, it's like you kind of function as a family, and that takes a fierce leader that's genuine because alternative kids have a way of, alternative school kids have a way of
035seeing right through certain stuff, you know? So you've got to be genuine and authentic, and you are all of that, Tony Jo. It's just so great to see you just thriving there and helping everyone thrive there. And Nate, welcome, and I'll definitely be in to visit more often, especially when we can get our masks off and live normally. But you know, you also just serve as such a wonderful example for your students, Tony Jo, and it's just evident seeing the school grow and seeing your graduation rate grow is just tremendous. Just well done, and it's, I kind of hate to say this, but you're my favorite school to just watch succeed, so thank you so much. Thank you. We really appreciate that and how everyone is a champion for all students in this district, and
036I had shared out at a recent meeting that I think the biggest blessing for our school is that, you know, our feeder system is the entire school district. So this is truly, when our students succeed, it's a culmination of the success that their elementary school teachers, their preschool teachers, their elementary, middle, and former high school administrators and staff have provided. So truly when we say we celebrate all together, we do. We call home high schools. We send emails. We take pictures. We text. We FaceTime. So it's so fun to be in a district where the collegial support is, it's top tier. It's next to one. And when one makes it, the whole district celebrates with us, and we're thankful for that. That's great. Thank you so much. Yeah, I think Dick had a comment, so
037I was going to, and then absolutely. Hi, Tony Jo and students, and Nate, this was a wonderful presentation. I'd like especially to acknowledge the progress that you've made through your engagement initiative. I know that's a multiple year, been a multiple year project for you, and it's been, it was an area that was challenging both for your school and for the students, but one that you embraced, and it was exciting to hear the progress that you're making. I also wanted to acknowledge the offering of advanced placement and advanced placement class and an opportunity to start your college transcript with our relationship with CU Denver. I think it's essential for all of our schools, in particular New Meridian High, to be able to offer your students the opportunity to see what real college work looks like, and
038you will find that, and perhaps some of our students here have had that opportunity, but you will find that level of rigor that you're experiencing in AP Psychology to be a wonderful introduction to the kind of work that you can expect to do in college, and I'd be interested to know if any of you are actually taking that course. And what's your experience? What have you, how is it different from what you might have been doing before this class was available? It's really different because whenever I hear AP class I just immediately think, like, stress. But with this, because we have such a wonderful teacher teaching it, it just makes it so much fun and so engaging with our classroom. I've just found it so rewarding in so many ways, and I love to come
039home and do like a weird trick to show my mom, like, this is what I learned, like, did you know if you say this, it means this? It's always just been so much fun. I really have, it's a wonderful time. Well that's wonderful. And your experience? I think I feel mostly the same about it. It's a really fun class, and it's not at all what I expected it would be. The people are fun, the teacher is fun, the work is often, like, really interesting to me, and I like using it in everyday life, so it's fun. That's wonderful. Thank you so much, each of you, for the opportunities you're both taking advantage of and for the progress that you're making as individuals as well as as a school. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments?
040All right. Yes, Director Brooks would like to make a comment. Hi, yes. Hi, Meosha. Yes, I just want to thank you all for being here and want to say it takes a lot of courage to stand up and speak in front of people. That's usually 90% of the world's fear to speak in front of people. So thank you for that. These leadership skills will take you very far. I listened to the comments and the reports and how you report it out. I want you all to know as students within this district, that is amazing. I see that this school and many other schools are doing these great things to improve our students' leadership skills so that they can go out into the world and in their careers in the future and be successful. So thank
041you. Thanks, Meosha. Go ahead, Don. I was just going to tell you guys, I'm really, really proud of you. I've seen several of you at our meetings and have had opportunities to visit with you and just want you to know that you're all why we come to work every day. You make us very proud. And if you're willing, would you guys let us get your picture up here with us so that we can celebrate you? Tony, Joe, thank you. That was wonderful. Alexia, you go to a marvelous school with some really incredible students. And Chase, do you have students here this evening? Pardon me? You have to now? No, no. Okay, just checking. I didn't want to skip over anyone else. All right, Don. With that, then we'll jump back up to agenda item five,
042which is your superintendent's report. All right. Thank you. I want to just share with you, I have been conducting school visits with the staffs and one way I do that is to just go visit and walk around and talk to people and get just anecdotal feedback and see how things are going. Another way that I've been connecting with them is on the entire staff virtually and sharing some things with them and really the highlights are pretty incredible. I asked each school's administration to give me a list of the things that they feel most proud of and so I've created a notebook that has all of the elementary schools, middle schools and high schools and Christy will be providing that to each of the board members so that you can look through every single one of
043our schools and see these incredible things that students just as the same students we saw today are doing every day in our schools. It's such an uplifting thing when you start to see all of these things in their totality. It's pretty stunning. So we'll share that with you. Also had a couple opportunities to visit our new swimming pool for some swim meets and some of the bond projects, you know, are coming to a close. We just added another 55 spaces at Erie High School. Brian, thank you for the parking. Erie High School was one of the staffs I met with and one of the questions they had was what are we going to do about the next step because we're getting so many kids, they're over 1700 students. So we talked about the potential for
044going for a bond if the board approves that in 2024 but the bond projects are really, they're coming to a close from 2016 and they're really exciting to see them in their totality. Student growth continues to skyrocket. You know, we gave you the October count but since the October count we've had several hundred more students enroll and that's a good thing. You know how I feel about that. I want as many students as we can have in this school district and so we're excited about the growth and we're going to be doing our staffing plans here pretty soon and we've been providing some additional support for these schools that are growing but in my mind's eye the more students the more exciting it is. So that's the good news and we'll continue to keep you
045posted on that. We're also seeing a lot of new permits being authorized, housing developments and in preliminary conversations we're hearing that the assessed valuations will probably come back in oil and gas and then continue to rise in residential and commercial which bodes well as well. So good news on that front. You know academically we continue to see some really good things. The state just released the graduation requirements and the dropout rates and we are at 90.3 total and 91.6 for our eight traditional high schools which is the highest we've ever been and we've just seen this steady trajectory. Also our primary group of students other than white is Hispanic and we have seen another bump in that graduation requirement. The traditional is up to 86 plus percent and 84 for the entire system and I
046take you back several years ago when we were looking at a 55 percent graduation rate and our dropout rate is at 0.7 percent. So not even a full percent and that's come down from 0.8. So used to be 5, 6, 7 percent and now we're down really getting to that place where it's pretty exciting to think that over 99 percent of our students will complete and that's a good thing. That's a great thing. But we're also starting the process of project launch. Getting some interest in that so we're excited about running that through the month of June. That entire month of June additional support academic for our children and AAA is really being well attended and we're seeing lots and lots of students recover in classes. When I was meeting with Frederick High's staff today
047I shared with them that they had 55 students enrolled in their AAA program and over 33 of them moved their grade from an F to a C or higher in that after school program and so that will connect them back into being on time for graduation and being successful and so really grateful to our teachers. We have 150 plus robotics teams now that are competing and we just were notified that our high school team is ranked fourth in the world and so we've now bypassed winning state championships and national championships and our high school team is actually starting to compete for that number one spot and so we're very, very excited about that. We also have opened up a new 3D lab. We know about our AI lab and our cyber security program is flourishing.
048We're getting ready to take one of our existing school buses and convert it into a cyber security lab, a mobile lab similar to the one that we have with our large mobile lab but it'll be the size of a school bus and once the students design it because it's going to be a student designed project then we will staff it and wrap it and make it look beautiful and then our students can take it around the district and then the next one will be an artificial intelligence mobile lab and so we'll have a fleet of three. Thanks to the great work of Jackie Capuchin, Hillary Sontag and many others we are now at $27 million in grants that we have achieved. We've most recently earned a $1.4 million gift and we're going to continue to
049pursue those dollars. We're getting a lot of support from corporate and philanthropic groups in large part because they know that when they provide that resource that we're going to turn it into something very special. We don't squander their resources and we also have our own resources so that there's sustainability so it's not a temporary program that starts and then stops with the soft money. We have the money to keep it going and so very excited about that piece as well. We have 52 student teachers this spring which is our highest number ever and they are representative of all of the universities around Colorado and outside of Colorado too so we've got a great number coming from UNC, from CSU, from University of Colorado, Metro, you just, the turnout is significant and that coupled with the
050success of our P-Teach program we're cultivating our own and growing our own and now those numbers are beginning to get into the over 100 and climbing and so that bodes well for the future of our teaching workforce so we're very excited about that and as you know our P-Teach program is a very diversified program that's helping us to diversify our teachers and our staff and we've done a tremendous job in the administrative ranks of diversifying our team as well. So very, very proud of that. You know speaking of P-Tech, not P-Teach, but P-Tech, Heidi Ringer just shared with me that the last two classes, the last two cohorts of P-Tech had 100% graduation rate and in that first cohort that came through 66% of approximately 55 students not only on time with their high school
051diploma but also with their associate degree diploma degree and the second one was 100% graduation with their high school diploma, around 40% graduation with their AA and that's in the timeline but when you extend it so the ones who haven't yet earned their associate degree will keep doing, working on it for the next year or two and I would imagine that we'll get 100% there too but the concept of kids earning their high school diploma and their associate degree at the same time at no cost to the student and going right into jobs making 60, $70,000 a year, I mean that's amazing and a tribute to our teachers and our students and their parents and our community college, Front Range and Ames and then also our corporate partners, it's an incredible, incredible program. We're going
052to continue moving forward with our National Training Center at the Innovation Center where we will be training teachers and administrators from across the country on how to build these programs and how to incorporate and implement with fidelity and how to sustain financially and how to scale and we've got corporate support in doing this and just a lot of credibility in the work that the folks at the Innovation Center have done that have caused us to be a national model now for this type of work. Hiring, we are in the process of hiring a principal for Erie High School and then also an assistant principal for Thunder Valley because Susana is moving over to be an assistant principal at Skyline so we will fill her vacancy at Thunder Valley and then also an executive director at
053the Innovation Center. Patty Quinones is going to be retiring but she is still going to work with us in a role and we just finalized that role so we're very excited that Patty is willing to stay and work with us and continue to contribute in a big way. Lots of kids earned all state choir, orchestra and band. We actually had one student who was all state in all three if you can imagine. That's a pretty incredible feat but we had a lot of students and I'm looking forward to going downtown here in the near future to watch all of our students compete in the all state choirs, competitions and things along those lines and you know boys and girls basketball is up and running, wrestling, boys and girls and girls swimming and it's very exciting
054to see the competition that's out there. The last thing I'll share is and I think I already did but just I always want to do a plug for this magazine. This is getting a lot of reads and I would encourage everybody who hasn't read it. It's incredible work that Carrie and her team put together and we are going to be presenting at the national at a national superintendents summit here in Chicago and presenters will be Jackie Capuchin and Carrie McDermott and they will be sharing the work that they do from an academic perspective and then also from a communications perspective with superintendents from all around the country and it's a testament to those two. They're both outstanding leaders and the work they're doing is getting attention from a lot of people. So I could go
055on and on because when I start talking about St. Brain and our students it's hard to stop me but you know I love what they're doing and I love the work our teachers and staff and everybody's doing so thank you. Thank you Don and there certainly is no shortage of items to talk about. Super excited about the P-TECH data that you shared. Thank you. Alright Chase agenda item 6.2 is the fall athletic and fine arts reports. Welcome. Welcome Madam President, Dr. Dad thank you for having us tonight. For starters I want to thank Brian and your team for all the work you've done for us this year. I know we certainly ask a lot of you but Dr. Dad you mentioned the pool and if you haven't had a chance to go over there and
056see it yet it's really amazing. I mean there's it's a packed house when we have our duels and more than anything it gives our kids an opportunity to have a place to practice. So we use it from we use it in the morning starting at 5 and we have kids in there until about 8.30 every night so we're wearing it out as quickly as we can. You know I want to start before I bring Janay up to talk about some of our accomplishments in our performing arts. You know last year our office spent the previous 18 months trying to figure out how to make sure we have opportunities for kids to compete, to sing, to perform, to play their instruments and we did everything we could from the very beginning when we could put five
057kids in the middle of a football field socially distanced and that's how they had to condition together. All the way to where we are now and you know as Dr. Dad talked about this one thing we kind of one thing that I certainly lost perspective of until this year started was the whole experience for the community and for our kids and for the kids that aren't participating but are there to cheer and if you've been to any of our games this year we have had attendance that we've never had before and we you know we weren't able to provide them that last year and you know we gave them dances this year albeit outside and maybe that's a new tradition we gave them opportunities to experience high school that they weren't able to experience last
058year so that's part of what we're most proud of from our department this year but I'll wrap up with sports after Janay gives her piece on our performing arts. Thanks Chase. Hi Janay welcome. Hello President Segrist, Dr. Haddad and the board. I'm really excited to be here tonight to highlight some of our fine arts accomplishments and I'm going to start with theater. In addition to bringing back our fall plays and musicals our theater programs had two significant events last semester. The first was a first ever collaboration between our high school theater programs called All Together Now and it was a musical theater showcase where 100% of the proceeds went back to benefit those programs so they worked together for the first time and that was pretty exciting for them and the show was great too
059and then they attended the 58th annual thespian conference which is a conference for all Colorado middle school and high school theater programs so we were excited that St. Vrain was representing there. We had several students compete in the performance portion where they're judged by college professors or theater professionals and I'd like to congratulate the following schools who had the highest rating of superior on their performances. Erie had six students receive a superior, Frederick had one and Meade had two. For music as Chase mentioned we've been over the moon bringing back our district events and just all of the opportunities for our kids. First was the elementary choral festival this fall. We had 11 elementary schools bring students to work with our guest clinician Emily Crile from the Colorado Children's Chorale and they just had a
060blast. They were singing and dancing and it was just a wonderful event that we had for the first time this fall and then our district honor events are back at the middle school and the high school level. Again we bring in guest clinicians to work with our kids in-house so they don't have to go anywhere to have this excellent experience and all of our schools have the opportunity to participate. Just to share some numbers with you for a middle school honor band 96 students were accepted. For middle school honor orchestra there were 83. For middle school honor choir 145 and then at the high school level for honor band there was 78. For honor orchestra 46 and for honor choir there was 218. At the state level everything's back too. Last year they did auditions
061but it was just written on paper they didn't get to have any sort of experience so we're really thankful that they get to participate and just get that experience back of the performance piece and unlike sports where a 3A team competes against a 3A team for music it's every high school in Colorado against every high school in Colorado so it's very competitive. We have students in every all-state group and I'm going to start with high school all-state choir because that is the only all-state music event that all of our high schools had someone accepted to. Erie high school had 13 students, Frederick had five, Longmont and Lyons had one, Mead had four, Niwot had four, Silver Creek had six and Skyline had three. For all-state band Erie had two students, Frederick had one, Lyons had
062three, Niwot had one and Silver Creek had one and for high school all-state orchestra Frederick had one, Longmont had one, Lyons had two, Niwot had two, Silver Creek had four and Skyline had one and then there are two jazz all-state jazz ensembles driven smaller than regular all-state so it's even more competitive to make it. Erie had one student, Mead had one student and Silver Creek had three and for all-state jazz choir Erie had one, Silver Creek had one and Skyline had one. For those two there might be only two students to four students in the entire state to be selected so that's a pretty big deal. And middle school level the only all-state event is choir. Altoona had four students selected, Coleridge had three, Erie had 14, Lyons had 10, Mead had four, Soaring Heights
063had six and Sunset had three. I have a few more celebrations that we're really proud of. The Colorado Music Educators Association conference is coming up and if you're following us on social media you've kind of seen our highlights here and there. We're really proud to have several educators that are presenting at the conference and therefore impacting music education around the entire state of Colorado so that's pretty incredible. And then there are two standout things happening at the conference. The best of the best ensembles are selected to perform so not individual students from programs but as an entire group and CR5 which is the mixed choir at Erie High School under the direction of Talia Bird was accepted to perform so they'll be performing on Thursday. And then Carrie Proctor at Westview is given was given
064the outstanding Young Music Educators Award for the entire state of Colorado so St. Frane has that award under our belt for her which is amazing. And last but not least Dr. Head had mentioned but Bethany Parker from Frederick High School was selected for all-state band orchestra and choir. I don't even know if that's ever happened before I don't know how I would check but that's a pretty incredible feat and so congratulations to our student Bethany. And that's all that I have so I'll bring up Chase to talk about the athletics. Thank you so we're you know typically this is one of my favorite nights of the year that we've talked about this many times to bring our our kids in here to celebrate with us so we are hopefully going to add to our crowd
065and bring these kids along with hopefully a few from the winter later in this semester when hopefully things are a bit calmer for us. You know just just to highlight from from a team's perspective from where we are as as a as a district in every single sport we had at least one school in each classification for boys and girls finished in the top four in the state tournament. So from certainly challenge that with anybody else's achievements. We had a player of the year in volleyball at Mead. We had individual state champions from Niwot Tennis, Niwot Boys and Girls Cross Country, Niwot Gymnastics who she attends Silver Creek High School. She's been a multi-time state champion. Lions Cross Country. For team events we have some unique teams this year that definitely of us but the
066Niwot Girls Cross Country team they actually won the national championship along with the state championship so they are they're the number one cross country team in the entire country and then the Erie Cheer team they head to nationals at the beginning of February but they won their fourth state title so everybody all the seniors on their team have no idea what it's like to get second if you will. So that's where we'll stop there. I you know I would I don't I want to value your time but you know we'll certainly take lots of it come April when we bring everybody so just thanks for having us and thanks for all your support and thanks for giving us the opportunity to be here and host our events. Thank you Chase and Chase and Janae thank
067you for all the opportunities that you create for students and as you highlighted Chase not just the students but for our community as well. So important thank you and we'll look forward to a nice a nice long lengthy agenda item when possible. You know the thing you guys when we've talked about this a lot is the the kinds of things that our students are learning around leadership and teamwork and resilience and setting goals and overcoming obstacles and empathy and and just all of those things that will carry them through life really it's pretty amazing you know I I follow people on the results and then have an opportunity to attend some of the events and it's it's off the charts what our students are doing and our coaches and and they're doing it in the
068classroom and then on the athletic fields and in the auditoriums and everywhere else and so I appreciate both of you and your leadership I know you spend 24-7 on this stuff it's not a it's not a part-time job so thank you for everything. Agenda item 6.3 this evening is board of education recognition. All right well I'm going to read something to you and want you to know that it's heartfelt and it's sincere and I am very grateful to you as I know a lot of others that are here tonight are and as well as people who aren't but whereas these are challenging times for public education and for the work of local school board members and whereas school boards are responsible for putting into place a system for students to learn and achieve at the
069highest level possible and whereas excellence in the classroom begins with excellence in the boardroom and whereas the key work of school boards includes taking action to create a vision for what students should know and be able to do to establish clear standards for student performance to ensure that student assessments are tied to established standards to be accountable to the community for operating schools that support student achievement to align school district resources to ensure that students meet standards to create a climate assuring safe and orderly classrooms to build collaborative relationships to solve common problems and to ensure continuous improvement and whereas we are proud of the work school boards do and the role school board members play in creating a quality public education system that is fundamental to a strong democratic society now therefore we the
070Saint Rain Valley School District do hereby declare our appreciation to the members of the Saint Rain Valley School District Board of Education and proclaim the month of January 22nd to be school board recognition month we urge all citizens to join us in recognizing the dedication and hard work of our board of education members in empowering students to learn challenging students to achieve and inspiring students to excel and one of the things that I would share with you just as a personal observation that your level of commitment is definitely unparalleled you all do this out of the goodness of your heart and the belief that our students represent the future and they do and what you are doing for them and for this community and for our teachers is really hard to put into words because
071it's a lot of time and it's a lot of energy and you do it for all the right reasons and you create stability for this team you create stability for our teachers you create stability for our staff and our students you put personal agendas aside and you have come together as a team a team to support our children and to support our teachers and our staff and our community and you're selfless in your work and you've never made it about yourself you've never made it about anything but the students and the teachers and the staff and the community I have so much respect for you I appreciate you I really enjoy coming to work in large part because of your leadership and want you to know that we appreciate you greatly and we have you
072know it's a small token of appreciation that we'd like to present you with these things and then there may be some members of our team that would like to say a few words so why don't we do this why don't we if anybody would like to share anything please feel free to do so and then we will present you we have a plaque and we also have a yeti cup that has our our logo and some of them say st brainstorm and you know taking public education by st brainstorm and some of them say that the mark twain quote that we oftentimes use out of the public school grows the greatness of a nation and they're small tokens of appreciation but they come from a big place in our heart and want you to know
073that every time you look at these it's our way of saying thank you thanks for everything you guys don i too would like to thank our board of education I would like to thank you for your ongoing support of our superintendent and our team your care and concern for the well-being of our staff and students is authentic noticed and deeply appreciated we also greatly appreciate the many volunteer hours that you give to the children in this community and to public education which we all know is so important for this society so thank you no i didn't necessarily have anything real prepared but truthfully what don said is true and that is you provide really a tremendous stability for for all of us and i recognize it throughout operations we're stable and and i attribute that
074really to to you guys so thank you i would just add that as we're out in schools and talking with staff and students and teachers principals really at all levels within our organization people are grateful to you i don't know that you hear from everyone necessarily but we hear from people as we're out and about in schools and interacting and i just think that that really speaks to you being unified and selfless and really standing behind our mission as a whole group so thank you for all that you do yeah i think the stability is important but consistency as well as we're developing programs or we're figuring out what we're going to do next and those kinds of things we know that if we're developing it with our mission and in mind and with our
075strategic priorities in mind that that you're going to ask pertinent questions and but you're going to know that we're and support us and know that that we're going to do at the job the way that we need to do and i really appreciate that thank you very much meosha we will hold on to these and give them to you at our next meeting thank you thanks a lot you guys thank you don and thank you everyone for your kind words and your support and don i think the reality is you all make our job incredibly simple so thank you very much for that and we all are up here because we care about the children and the people in saint brain and i was thinking as the students from new meridian were up there and
076they were talking and doing their presentation and also when nate said you know the best day ever is when you get to watch the kids walk across the stage on graduation and hit the nail on the head it's absolutely the best day ever and while this is a volunteer position graduation day is truly and interacting with the students is all the pay and recognition that that we would ever ask for or need so thank you all right greg your favorite topic money which is a good thing right good thing absolutely yes agenda item 6.4 which is the fiscal year 22 can you believe that uh second quarter public gifts to schools report yes thank you good evening this uh the purpose of this report is to provide the board of education with a list of
077public gifts given to the school district and during the course of the year the district receives many cash and gift donations for its programs we accept these at the appropriate level by the principal the superintendent or the board of education according to board policy kcd in the second quarter of this year we received gifts and uh totaling about 160 000 i'd like to point out three of them staff toyota who always supports us donated over seventy five thousand dollars for various programs we had seven thousand five hundred dollars donated to support our p-tech program from the stanley lidtel charitable gift fund and then we also had the longmont community foundation twelve hundred dollars for student support if we take a look at where we are compared to last year um we're we're about ten thousand
078dollars lower than we were we had a better second quarter and i think that was due to timing of a of the large gift the large support from staff from the previous year and so we're really close to where we were um second end of the second quarter last year i'm happy to answer any questions no questions all right thanks greg appreciate it okay agenda item seven is our consent items do board members wish to pull any of those consent items this evening if not then i'll entertain a motion for approval please of agenda item 7.1 staff termination sleeves 7.2 staff appointments 7.3 approval of minutes for the december 1 2021 special meeting december 8 2021 study session and december 8 2021 regular meeting 7.4 approval of annual official posting location notice 7.5 approval of
079change order to construction manager general contractor contract for the esc fire alarm replacement project 7.6 approval of change order to construction manager general contractor i should say gm cmgc these are always a mouthful contract for the lsc fire alarm replacement project 7.7 approval change order one to the contract for district-wide aes radio communication and repair project 7.8 approval of change order six to lines middle senior high school auditorium addition and renovation project 7.9 approval of amendment gmp to construction manager general contractor franson pitman contract for the columbine elementary school fire alarm upgrade project 7.10 approval of change order to highlands elementary school project and 7.11 approval of change order to construction manager general contractor contract for the additional parking project at erie high school so moved second thank you mr berthold yes mrs brooks mr
080garcia yes mrs harannick yes dr martyre yes mrs ragland yes ms segrest aye thank you action item eight we have one action item this evening and that is 8.1 and it's a recommendation for adoption of the resolution concerning representation on the erie urban renewal authority board and greg i think you're here most board i think almost all of the board members serve on one ura committee or another except oh so never mind there's only a few of us who do i was wrong i think there's two maybe three that don't serve i know okay that uh chico serves for firestone frederick and decono we're going to have to take another resolution similar to this at the january 26 meeting for sarah to serve on the the town of mead i know you serve on lions
081and miyoshi will serve on the town of erie that's perfect it's a great way to connect with the communities but also to be involved in that important important work for a variety of reasons so absolutely there are there are uras and long and um downtown development authorities within the city of long mont but they don't have to um appoint a school board member unless they make major um renovations or recommendations and changes to the to those um documents and they have not since that legislation went in place and i believe at the end of 2015 beginning of 2016 great thank you um so this is really um john erin's was our representative for the town of erie and we have tried to have it um our boards board members on it on a uh urban
082renewal authority based off of the location of the districts that they um are located in and so this makes obvious sense that we would we would ask um miyoshi to be part of the town of erie urban renewal authority do you want me to cover what an urban renewal authority is or do you think we need to take that time or i don't think we do no all right so um this resolution just would nominate her um to be appointed by the town of erie urban renewal authority i believe that meeting is scheduled for january 25th great thank you miyoshi thank you for taking this on i greatly appreciate it and obviously if miyoshi has any questions from a district perspective she can can reach out to you absolutely great super any comments or questions
083before we vote on this miyoshi no comments or questions thank you very much um the only thing i want to say is thank you all for allowing me to represent the board for the town of erie and i look forward to working alongside with them as well as uh coming back to the district with anything that they have thank you great thank you all right with that then i would entertain a motion please for approval of action item 8.1 all right karen and chico you can take your pick on the order got it mr berthold yes mrs brooks me mr garcia yes mrs harannick yes dr martyr yes mrs ragland aye ms segrest aye christy thank you uh christy and diane thanks for everything with the agenda and the meeting this evening uh and also
084for everyone who's set up uh from miyoshi to attend virtually as well we don't have any discussion items this evening so that does bring us to adjournment the board will be convening again next wednesday which is already january 19th hard to believe at 6 p.m that'll be a study session at altona middle school and then we'll be back here in the boardroom on january 26 at 6 p.m for another regular meeting uh wish everyone a happy and safe uh new year and with that i would entertain a motion for adjournment please so moved second and a second by karen all in favor