001[Music] dance. Hey Hey, [Music] hey, hey. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Hey, [Music] [Music] hey, hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Hey. [Music] Hey. Hey. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey, [Music] hey, hey. [Music] Hey, We'll call this regular meeting for Wednesday, October 1st, 2025 to order at 4:30 p.m. Miss Olson. Roll call, please. Here. Here. Here. Director here, director Jorgensson present. Here all seven board members are present in person today for the board meeting and uh we have several students in the audience who are going to entertain um uh while we are in executive session. Uh so welcome to all the students who are in the audience. Um please join me as we observe a moment of silence. Thank you. Director Kerry, can you please
002make the motion to adopt the agenda? Yes. I move that the board of education adopts the agenda as presented. Second. Moved and seconded. Roll call, please. Director Mang here. I Oh, I sorry. Director Kerry I director I I the eyes have it the agenda has been adopted as presented. We do have executive session uh for roughly 60 minutes this evening. Director Huber, can you please make the motion to move into executive session? I move that the board of education convenes into executive session to discuss legal advice per CRS 24-6-424B particular matter Colorado Springs Education Association strike related issues second moved and seconded roll call please I director I I I the eyes have it. We will enter into executive session and reconvene to a regularly scheduled board meeting at approximately 5:30 p.m. Thank you. [Music]
003Come on. [Music] [Music] Hey. [Music] Good evening. Let's get started with our regular meeting. Uh we are reconvening in public session and there is no need to modify the agenda after executive session. Thank you for joining us this evening, the first Wednesday of October. Time is flying by. Um as always, it's great to see all our students and some of our staff and community members in the audience as well. I'm going to start by thanking the Coronado Jazz Band um uh and Mr. Avery Payne under the direction of Avery Payne. They did an awesome job out there. Our executive session ended a little bit early and I was able to catch the ending of uh your performance. You guys brought the house down. Um so thank you so much. Uh Mr. Payne, could you could
004you please share a couple of things to the community about your jazz band? Um we can Yes, I'm incred incredibly proud of um this group. Um I just got here a few weeks ago, six weeks ago and with six weeks they put together a really challenging program and they performed it at a really high level. So I'm very excited to see what the rest of the year is going to look like for them and I'm very proud of their progress so far. Thank you for having us. Yeah, thank you. Several of the parents were in the audience as well. I got to engage with a few of you. All of you must be really proud of your kids. So, um, and if there are going to be student performances at Coronado, please send an invite
005to the board. Uh, uh, if time allows, we can stop by and enjoy our per enjoy your performance. Thank you guys. [Applause] I'm just going to give a minute as they exit the room. Thank you. And here we are. Um before we start this evening's proceedings, I do have a message. Um I do have a message that reflects the sentiments and the will of the board. Um, as the community is aware, the Colorado Springs Education Association has announced their intent to conduct a one-day strike on October 8th. They have encouraged their union membership to not show up for work that day, thereby disrupting a learning day for our students. The board has collectively discussed this matter at several executive sessions along with the superintendent and the legal and our legal council as well. Over the
006past several weeks, we have taken into consideration our overarching priority, the operational pressure points, um the collective resources available to the district, the safety consideration of our students and staff and other legal aspects as well. Uh ultimately it boils down to our primary primary obligation and responsibility as elected stewards and that is to ensure students maximize their learning every single day in safe ling learning environments. In addition to their educational needs, so many of our students and families depend on our schools for physical, nutritional, and social emotional supports as well. Several of our parents count on our schools to be open so they can go to work and earn a livelihood. We also have state mandates, state mandates that we as a school districts are required to abide by as far as the number of
007instructional days and the special education supports that we are required to pro provide for our students on learning plans. After taking all of these things into consideration, our intent is clear. keep our schools open, prioritizing safe and rigorous learning environments. Our stated goal is to deliver highquality instruction in every single classroom, increase student proficiency levels, and provide excellent support for our teachers. And that will happen every single day, including on October 8th. A clear majority of our teachers and staff have expressed their intent to show up to work that day, support our students, and provide an excellent day of learning for our students. Several of my board colleagues are going to volunteer their time to serve in our schools that day as well. So I want to take this opportunity to thank all our staff
008including central administration, principal, support staff and especially teachers who are prior prioritizing our student needs and making sure our students are safe and supported. The board priority as captured in that banner across from me is always to put students first and improve student educational outcomes. The pro the board has stated that we are pro- students and we are pro- staff and our actions have consistently aligned over the years with supporting our students and staff. This one-day strike initiated by the union is not about compensation. It's not about benefits. It's not about the teacher working conditions. Over the past four years, we have increased compensation to among the highest in the region, improved staff benefits, and supported our teachers with excellent professional development and classroom resources. We will continue to do so in the coming years,
009only strengthening and improving teacher compensation, benefits, and working conditions. I know several in our community have lingering questions uh whether that is coming from our parents, staff or community members and there is a lot of misinformation circulating on social media as well. Collectively as a board we will be out and about in our schools visible participating in PTA and other school community meetings. Please engage with any one of us with your questions and or concerns so we can present present you with the facts. I personally visited a few PTA events over the past couple of weeks. Thank you to the people who have engaged with me. All of those conversations have been product really productive and respectful as well. Really appreciate your feedback and input. Building principles will also be sharing specifics pertaining to their
010specific schools. So stay tuned for those communications from your respective goal respective schools. Our goal is to have a safe, rich and rigorous day of learning for our students. As we proceed through this evening's meeting, you will hear from Superintendent Gaul and other board members as well on this topic. So thank you. With that, we'll move to the next item on the agenda and that is going to be the pledge of allegiance. May I please have Anthony from Swigert Middle School and Sky from Russell Middle School. They are going to be leading us in the pledge of allegiance. Come up guys. Right up to the front. You can face the flag. Okay. Okay. Yeah. There you go. And whenever you're ready. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for
011it stands one nation indivisible with all. Thank you. You can be seated. Thank you. Okay. Today's spotlight is about an upcoming event. Uh it's um Chtober. I'm going to turn it over to Superintendent Gaul and his team to share some additional details with the community and the board. Yeah. Thanks to everyone. They might need that. Thank you. If you want to hand it Oh, there's another one up there. Thank you, Melissa. Uh I'm going to ask uh Crystal Rasmusen to come forward and introduce the team and I'll just do a little bit of an intro. Uh we talked about this last year and the year before in our retreat, these idea of peak experiences. How do we bring learning in the classroom outside into our community? Uh last year we started as a district-wide peak
012experience with a fifth grader rocket day at Memorial Park. It took us the course of an entire week to get through that. We appreciate all the partners that brought that learning to life. And so this year we wanted to start the year off and uh go to a middle school event. And we thought how much fun it would be for us to combine with many of you know that our downtown has what they call first Friday. And in First Friday you go downtown, you enjoy what it means to be downtown and normally it has something to do with an art walk. So we're going to bring our art to life on the sidewalks of downtown. So Crystal, good evening board. It is a pleasure to tell you about Chtober. Chris Rasmmanson, chief of curriculum. Um,
013this has really been a group effort all the way from all of our facilitators, our principles, our students, all different levels. It's eighth grade students, but we have elementary and high school supporting. Um, lots of business partnerships. It really has been all hands- on deck wrapping around our students to provide them a really strong quality experience. Um, starts tomorrow. So excited to see what students produce and then it will culminate that Friday um with that first art walk. Um so hopefully parents can come out and see what their students did um in their small groups. So when Superintendent G first mentioned this, I thought, well, that's a cool idea. Super unique, right? Had no idea that we would be buying chalk from everywhere, running around with pec cards all the way up to Denver. Um
014we have purchased basically any and everything that we could find. So hopefully it's enough. Um the 1300 eighth graders, they're going to come downtown and on Thursday and Friday they're going to be drawing um representing their understanding of liberty and what it means to them. And so again, some of that back work, tons of lessons connected to ELA, math, social studies, science, art. There's just so much heart that was given to this. Um it's been really really neat to see across the board. Uh 200 district staff members will be out tomorrow all the way from um counselors to teachers to administrators um just everybody is going to be there. Uh we even have parents coming 20 of them are we're expecting um 10 campuses, five partnerships. We actually have more than that, but those are
015the ones that have really given us the space to draw um and have provided different things like covering the meters, giving spaces for our buses to park, bathrooms, right? Water, all the things you don't think about when you're going to have 1300 eighth graders um out into the community. So, it's been a really great experience. Um you can see even on the left that was just taken from one of the science lessons. Um they had to do different techniques, what type of chalk is the best. Um, and so they had a lab that they got to draw and sketch and try to answer that question. So, uh, it's been a really fun experience for all. And at this time, I would like to invite David, who is a Cordon Coronado High School student who has
016helped support our middle school students up. This is David Zab. Hi there, board. This is my first time being a part of this, so I might be a bit confused. uh now and then uh what I wanted to say about Chotober was it was a wonderful experience for me and the my fellow Cornado High students. We had a great time at West Middle School. We had a fantastic time helping out the students and everything. We were really able to connect with most of them showing them techniques to make their ch their art way better. Um what else? You can move forward. Oh. Uh, we also learned a bit of things. They showed us too. They showed us how to use. They showed us the equipment they were using. The brushes, the texture gloves, the spray
017bottles, sponges, brushes they use to help blend their art together to make a much more smoother transition. When it comes to shading, the texture gloves also did a wonderful job with that. the t the microfiber towel to help clean up the grid after they finish their wonderful art. Sponges help damage the thing to make it a lot more smoother. Same with the spray bottle as well. And the pencil pastels to help write out their outline for the project. But in front of you, we're going to just like our students that we divide into two groups of four. Two groups of four. And um and we're judging the final products. I didn't want to say that. We're judging it. Um but part of our projects are fully um integrated lessons that started in math on how
018to grid, right? Starting with a small scope, moving to our big plan here that will then move down to the sidewalks starting tomorrow. So, you guys are going to have to work together. In your box, you have all the supplies that David just described to you, right? If each of you grabs at least one piece of chalk, what I'm going to ask you to do in the picture that we're not going to share with the audience because we don't want to spoil the surprise, right? If each of you could take four of those squares in each corner and execute in the center square of our grid and then while we finish the presentation, then we'll come back and see your work. How about that? Okay. Since you have the picture in front of you that
019you're not going to share, right? There are 16 squares. If say Mr. G would take the upper right hand corner, um Dr. Malam take the bottom corner. Then you'll take this corner will take this corner. Right. If you take this corner, right, and then I'll have you take the upper right corner. Which ones to share? Take the um lower left and the upper left. Grab a piece of chalk from your box and start working. And then this is Alyssa. Good evening board members and curriculum instruction facilitator. While you are working on your chalk art, I have the pleasure of introducing Russell Middle School's principal, Miss Amade, eighth grade student Skylar Sees, and art teacher, Mr. Ben Warl. Make it up as you go, Amma. You're just fine. Thank you. Okay, you go ahead. Um, hi
020guys. My name is just just Sky. Um, and I wanted to talk to y'all about um, Chotober and everything and my personal experience with art just in general. Um, I am 13. I go to Russell Middle School and I'm in Mr. World's first period comic book class. And um art has been such a big part of my life and has been for many, many years. And I'm really really glad that I was able to make it into Mr. Royal's first period class. And he really helps me with art. Just like really whatever my project is, he really helps like bring out my full potential in art. And I hope that one day I make it into an art college cuz I just really love art. And um so Chalktober has been a really great thing
021throughout all my core classes and we have learned about um like yes all the different type of techniques the textures we have used chalk and in my second period which is my advanced social studies we have been learning how to um blend the chalk in a specific way to make it really pop of that full color and I am just really excited for tomorrow's field trip as I am also a part of yearbook taking pictures for my school to um really just bring out my school in general. I really love using chalk. I have siblings at home who love chalk too. And um Chalktober is a really amazing thing as I have experienced so far and with all of the people in my class have been really grouping together, really talking. It really just brings
022people together. and also with art because art has been a language of people for the longest time. And um I really am happy about this chotober bringing out uh both liberty and just freedom. My dad was in the Marines and freedom is a really big part in my family. And um I'm just really glad that this is a part of um Russell and other schools, middle schools and everything. And on top of that with all of the teachers helping and supporting the kids and just making it a really big project and really putting all the kids and uh giving them a challenge to do within everything we have learned so far. And all of like the teamwork is just really awesome. And a lot of people love just being around people, you know, and that's
023what I really enjoy about talktober chotober. Um, and everybody being together, everybody talking to each other. And there's really no right or wrong to do this. And everybody has something different. And that's what the world's about, being different. And a really big part of our society is where everybody can be different and just be themselves. And I really love that everybody has a different style of art, specific type of way they want to draw or sketch. Some people enjoy painting. Some people enjoy clay. Me personally, I really enjoy sketching because really that just like I can have a time to erase and on with everything that I've been doing and me being a part of comic book art that is something that I use often sketching and chalktober is just a really good thing and
024I'm really glad that we're doing it this year and with our eighth graders now moving on to high school next year just something fun to do for our eighth grade year. That's that's all I have. Yeah, I'm I'm going to put you on the spot. I don't know if you have a slide or not, but talk a little bit about what this creates for you as a firstear principal and zeroyear planning of a visual and performing arts middle school and to hear a student talk about this cross-curricular nature of all these different learning modalities that come through this one experience. So, I will say I'm extremely lucky because the Russell staff took this headon. Um I am a first year principal and of course that always comes with excitement and apprehension as well. Um it
025has just been really cool going around and watching our students um work on this. I went through a science class. I went outside today and watched it work in social studies class. Teachers had to work together. Ben had to come out of his art class to go to social studies classes. science had to completely switch what they were doing in terms of teaching the kids about chalk and how that works. So, just as a visual and performing arts school, it's really, really cool to see different subject matters tie together and blend into the arts. Um, I had a teacher today say to me, I was apprehensive, but man, am I excited. Like, we're going to do so well, nothing's going to go wrong. I was like, "You never say that in a school, but he
026did." Um, but it's it's just been an amazing experience. And kids that we didn't even think would enjoy it have all been participating. I mean, they love it. And it's amazing all the different things we've seen, all the different themes we've seen come out because everyone's interpretation of that is wonderful. So, there's everything from McDonald's logos to beautiful trees that represent liberty. I mean, it's incredible. So, it's been really, really fun and we're actually looking forward to having it be a continued experience like through every year because people are like, "Man, now that I know what I'm doing, it's going to be even better." So, it's really exciting. Thank you. Right. Well, Sky did such an amazing job of saying pretty much everything I was going to say, so I will just do the middle
027part. So, I this afternoon I had the opportunity to witness close to 200 eighth graders working independently, sharing responsibility, and experiencing art making that is grounded in personal expression. Um, I will say the hype level for tomorrow's event is at a fever pitch, and I believe it's going to be a great success. worthy of the massive degree of time and planning that went into it. And so on that note, I just wanted to express my gratitude to Kim and her team. Uh they've worked so diligently to create lessons that made it unbelievably easy to engage our staff and students with lessons that are accessible, engaging, and allowed teachers the most minimal amount of stress possible. Um on paper, this event was a daunting task, but Kim and her team made it easy. And I'm really
028grateful for the work they put in. So, we hope to see everybody out there Thursday or Friday. You should come take a look at our art. It's going to be awesome. All right. To keep the celebrations going, we also have Jack Swagert Middle School. Here we have Principal Dr. Ray Cochroll, eighth grade student Anthony Molina, and Mr. Michael Van Wagner, the art teacher. Hi board, my name is Anthony, a student at J Swagger and I'm my eighth grade. Thank you guys for letting me talk about Chtober. Um, my favorite teacher is Miss Newsome and if Mr. Van Wagner was my actual teacher besides adviser, he would be my favorite teacher and she's my favorite teacher because she teaches on how to go the right path instead of the wrong. And liberty is important because you
029can do what you want, but there will always be a consequence after that. There can be a positive or negative consequence. So it matters how you use it. My chtober will include a broken chain because in slavery they weren't free and some people aren't free in this day and the other the demand and under the demands of someone else. I also will include a Mexican flag, but I don't have a joint with that. um because I have a freedom of my language and uh my culture and I'm proud to be a Mexican American and knowing two languages is a big power. Um and thank you guys for letting me talk about October. Awesome. So I would just share gratitude. I would echo um the gratitude that was shared by Mr. Warl. It's been phenomenal to
030get to hear my students reflect on what Liberty means to them and I think um that's a gift to us all um to them to have that conversation and to our learning as a community. What I think has also been really powerful is redefining for me at least this concept of a peak experience as something that is not separate from but is rooted within the curriculum and um across all content areas. So the learning that's taking place has been standards aligned, rigorous, really vibrant and that's what's leading into uh this work together. So just want to express gratitude uh for the learning opportunity um as a whole institution not only for our students but also for our faculty and our community. Well, most everything has been said about this uh event that could have be
031said, but I do want to say that I'm very proud of how the students are doing both in exploring in an art form that a lot of them haven't touched until this month. And I'm really excited that they're going to get a chance, many of them for the very first time, to have their voices heard. Well, not their voices, but their visions seen by the entire city and make a positive mark. All right. The last couple days we've been ga uh we've been receiving a lot of wonderful photos of our students practicing their chalk art. And I'm going to invite Sky and Anthony back up to kind of walk you through uh each school that is shared pictures. Slide six is picture of man middle school student quote from homes. Chtober is the representation of
032community through multiple creative artworks all around the central idea of liberty and enterprise. We are a piece of a much larger puzzle. Uh slide six is a picture of SA middle school students quotes from homes. We like being a part of the something new and different. It is fun. Slide eight is picture of West Middle School student quote from homes. October is a good idea so other people can see our work and what we think liberty means. Middle schoolers have something to say too. Slide nine. Pictures of North Middle School student quotes from home say, "I love being outside and getting to spend time at our school day downtown. Making art is fun and sharing it with our community is fun, too." Slide 10 is picture of Jenkins Middle School with no quote. Okay. Slide
03311. Pictures of homes middle school teacher quote from Miss Gilbert from At Homes. Uh crosscurricular projects are an important way to give our students authentic learning experience. Anytime we can bring down the classroom walls and allow our scholars to make meaningful connections and they are learning at a deeper level and accessing the standards from different entry points. I had an I had the opportunity to teach my eighth graders the social studies uh social study lessons and participate in the art swap with our amazing art teacher. The lessons were wellcraftrafted and allowed the students to use multiple primary and secondary sources. We especially enjoyed the William Ramsay ledger and interactive artifact from the Smithson. My students were surprised to read how well how real the colon interperials invested in their communities and supported the war effort
034during the American Revolution. students discuss that the debate these questions and conclude the primary lessons with the business situations and uh I work to make learning come to life using simulations as much as possible to offer students the opportunity to think critically problem solve collaborate and communicate their learning in different for formats these social study lessons provide the foundation for lessons they were learning in EL LA math art and thank you for giving our students the opportunity and to participate and take ownership at the peak experience the students across the district to provide meaningful showcase at the students work of our community. Slide 12 is picture of Russell Middle School with no quote so much. Our next slide is we just wanted to say another big thank you to our business partnerships, the downtown Colorado
035Springs and the First Friday downtown. Uh our partnership with the Pioneers Museum, Josh and John's and Epherra dinners. Uh all three of those business all four of those businesses actually participated in our social studies classes by filming videos of themselves explaining uh their mission, vision, and values for their company and how that relates to Liberty. So are we ready to get our our judgy faces on? First off, despite some very quick and maybe not as detailed directions as we'd hoped, right? I think it's pretty amazing. This is what we were starting with. We talked about crosscurricular lessons and uh some of the pictures that you saw that it's all smeared and you're thinking that's not the artwork we want. That's actually a science experiment where students were discussing the solubility of a standard piece of
036chalk, a pastel chalk of oil chalk and which one might last longer. So this is what we were talking about. It started in our math classes learning how to do proportion. And this is our board members on this side. Not too bad. Yeah, I love that a little bit of time to talk about the negative space, which will be something on our sidewalks. So, let's come over here and look at this one. All right, let's see. I think they did great. And I I think what this illustrates is right away we had board members going, I'm not a good artist. I don't feel comfortable. Right? And this is where our students were. And look what they accomplished in very little time. Please come see us tomorrow at the Pioneer Museum and on Friday at Acacia
037Park. The pictures that I'm getting of our students practice is amazing and um I know you will enjoy it as well. Uh as I open it up for questions from the board, uh just two points. We did a Fouian deal with the weathermen. It's supposed to be nice tomorrow and it's supposed to be nice on Friday. So, we're super thankful for that. October can be a tough time uh to do this. I am so appreciative of how quick the team is able to do this. I think you heard underneath how many details have to go into bringing 1300 kids off campus and bring them downtown safely safely effectively without disrupting all of their instruction and really this crosscurricular nature of how they've done this. Uh what Dr. Dr. Cochroll didn't mention and I was hoping
038she would bring it up. The term peak experience is actually coined from my interview with her a year and a half ago on her way into Swagert Middle School. Um it was actually out of context, but you use this idea of peak experience and you know we have beautiful Pikes Peak right outside the window. And so this idea of competency based learning, this crosscurricular nature of how our children take advantage of remember we're the only downtown school district in the entire county. celebrating that and making that a differencemaker makes everything that we do a peak experience. So, thank you Rey for giving us that uh terminology and thank you for you and Amma and all of the middle schools that are supporting this. Um I open this up to board members for questions or comments.
039Thank you. I don't have any questions. I'll uh look for the board um if they've got any questions or comments. I do have a couple comments though. I look forward to uh being there one of the days at least. Uh I'm looking at the temperatures that you talked about. Superintendent call Friday says near record temperatures at 85 degrees. So stay hydrated out there. So as you go about uh and that's moving a lot of students uh 1,800 or whatever the number that was shared out there uh and then uh the school buses and the staff that are u helping out with this and the parents too that are going to be out there. So thank you. uh it's a collective operation moving all those students in a safe manner from their respective schools to downtown
040and then moving them back there again. So uh we look forward to participating as well board any comments or questions. Anybody want to share about their uh sketching uh expertise? Uh looks like director bankers. Oh I want to thank you and I was one of the ones that says I don't know how to do this. Um, this is such a wonderful opportunity for children to be able to express themselves in ways that they maybe have not had an opportunity or be guided into and turn out a product that they can show off not only to parents because we all have those drawers where you put all that artwork in and um paperwork but for the whole city. So, thank you for exposing our children to a broader audience and giving our town a glimpse of
041art. Thank you. Yeah, thank you Director Bankers and uh yeah, all the partners that were mentioned out there as well. Maybe Josh and John are going to provide ice cream for I did pick up 2,000 bottles of water. Well, so there is no more chalk and no more waters in the front range. I guess like you wiped them out. Thank you. Moving on to the next item on the agenda. It's superintendent report. Uh back to you, Superintendent Goth. Uh thank you. Uh according to our new agreements, I have 25 minutes. So I'm going to talk quickly because I believe I have about 24 minutes worth of information to share with you all. Again, I just can't be uh any more excited about what you just heard about the peak experiences. And just to give the
042full context, our goal is to have significant district-wide events probably about every other grade. and they will go across different disciplines, math, science, ELA, humanities, world languages, and then allow each one of our schools to differentiate and fill in the spaces in between such that individual schools can have individual peak experiences that give kids that chance to really bring the learning to life. Okay, superintendent report. If I could get both uh Anthony and Sky, are you still here or did they walk out on me already? Come on up. You're going to thank a teacher and you get to sit in my chair here. So Sky, you're first. You are not going to leave without thanking the teacher. So So you're soup for about a minute and a half. Go for it. Also, I thank my
043teacher. Okay. So I wanted to thank Mr. world for being um one of literally the best art teachers I have ever had. Cuz at my last school, I didn't have that many opportunities to like do all these amazing art experiences and being able to use like iPads and having you being able to like just explain things so incredibly well. And I have a good time like just listening to you explain things and then me being able to like actually grasp what you have to say. And my artwork is so amazing because of you and you helping me with everything that I have to work on basically. And it's really amazing that you are a teacher at Russell and that I came last year and is just learning so so much in just a little short
044amount of time of my life. Thank you so much. [Applause] I want to thank Miss Nuome cuz she has showed me how to build stuff and she's always helped me with non related class stuff like with other classes and she's also taught me how to go with the right path and what not to do wrong. She's also told me like motivational stuff and how to keep going. If I was if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't know how to build anything that much. And yeah, she's a good teacher. She's really respectful. She listens to anything you got to say. And yeah. Awesome. All right, let's hear from Mrs. [Applause] So Anony's not just an artist, he's a robotics engineer as well. So the multidisiplinary opportunities in all our schools are phenomenal. Uh I'm going to
045take a little bit of time to focus on some sports. It is the season. Whether you're a Thursday night football or Saturday college or a Sunday uh baseball playoffs things, we have some incredible things happening in our schools that are worth our attention. I want to shout out our DHY High School girls flag football team. Uh, Coach Pearson, they've only lost three games in the two years that this team has been in existence. They're ranked 13th in the state in their 5A league. And remember, this is just the second year that girls flag football has been in existence. You can see for any of you statisticians, outscoring their opponents 239 to 123. Sounds like a lot of Spartan thumping going on out there. So, uh, we appreciate that this is a new opportunity for our
046young athletes and I really appreciate, uh, our coaches, Coach Pearson, and anybody else that's, uh, been involved in our girls flag football program, not just at DHY, but at our other schools. Uh, I I would just be remiss to not start screaming from the top of Pikes Peak on the incredible uh, cross country teams that we have uh, across the district, but specifically what's happening in Coronado right now. Uh, Coach Rasenberg has brought both a boys and a girls team that are um, not only high very high ranked within the state, they are traveling uh, interstate and winning tournaments. You can see here Mr. uh, young Oliver Horton winning the Desert Twilight Championship in the greater Phoenix area just last weekend. Uh, I think it says here that he not only set um a track
047record, he had a PR and I think it was the second fastest time for that distance in the country this year. Um, and so please pay attention to what's happening in Coronado for cross country, both boys and girls. I believe states are next weekend. Is that right, Monty? November 1st. November 1st. That feels like next weekend in my world. Um, but we could not be more excited for what's happening there. And then I want to give uh just a moment here and I can see our young quarterback is here. Mr. Thomas Buck Miller as a quarterback for our Coronado Cougars. Thomas, why don't you stand up and throw a pass to the audience? Right. Uh everything you ever thought in a quarterback with the with the head of hair to go for it. And I
048appreciate Coach Labou. Is that how I say your name? Labuff. Labou. Thank you so much. Uh top in the nation for yards, touchdowns, and passer rating. Uh, and if some of you remember, we also produced a uh, highly drafted baseball player out of Coronado just two years ago. Um, please pay attention to what's happening for our sports. I'm not sure we've done enough to sing the praises of what happens for our athletes. I have tasked my administration to tackle our uh, coaching stipens and to make us tops in El Paso County to make sure that these incredible coaches and all our coaches are now getting the most amount of money for the work that they do for these young student athletes. remember sports uh what you saw with peak experience what you see normally when
049we start our day with uh celebrating many of our CTE experiences these are all just the reasons why children come to school it's all just a big scam that we can make sure that we get teaching and learning inside the kids so we love every one of these opportunities and any adult who is investing their time should be compensated and rewarded at the place where we are the leaders in the county to make sure that our coach coaching staff gets continued opportunities to have highquality athletes and high quality programs. Uh you u uh Thomas, you want to come forward and tell me what's your favorite stat and why? What are you most proud of on that sheet? Do I? Yeah, there you go. Um well, it's not on the sheet, but I would probably say
050our three and two record. I think it's a big improvement and a big jump from last year. and coach coach Biff has really preached and harped on us about the mental side of the game and just being all about approach and process because we can't control our results so why worry about them but I think just our approach this season has been a lot better and the wisdom he's shared with us and our team has really reflected my stats because without him I wouldn't have these stats I wouldn't have the approach that I have had and I think um although my stats are awesome it's it really reflects my favorite stat is our winning record currently I love that great answer thanks Thanks so much. Y How do you keep doing what you're doing up
051there? Okay. Uh this is kind of a boring slide, but there's some exciting news behind it. Uh everyone knows the uh president of Pikes Peak State College, Dr. Lance Bolton. He ran up to me at the state of the city last weekend where our mayor gave an update at the Broadmore on all things in our city. And he said, "I've been looking through the thousands of people are here. I've been looking for you, superintendent call." And I said, "Lance, you know, what do you need?" and he goes, "I just learned that D11 students who take fundamentals of music theory class will automatically be awarded Pikes Peak State College MUS 1000 class credits for it." And he said, "Because your music department in each one of your high schools is doing such phenomenal work at the
052high school level that Pikes Peak State College is going to automatically grant college credit for kids that take that class. Now, for those of you who don't understand the dual enrollment and concurrent enrollment, that's a very complicated process. But for the higher education institution to come down and tell the high school that we're already meeting and exceeding what their expectations are for that class is a testament to where did Miss Concincaid go? There you are. Um, and then all of the principles who lead those programs. We scream about how important the arts are and you saw that demonstrated today just in sampling by our prelude which we do every week and then with chalktober. This is the district that is leading in our city in using music again as the scam to make sure kids
053want to come to school. Anything that I can get to make your child want to come to school works for me. You come to us with the idea, we'll find a way to get the funding for it. I appreciate our partnership with Pikes Peak State College and I'm very thankful every educator and every parent who makes that extra time for their kids to be invested in music. As a father of a music educator and a violinist, I know how exhausting uh those experiences can be. Okay, I am doing good on my I'm doing well on my schedule and I'm super excited for us to give an update on uh some of the dyslexia supports that you know these are all stories and and the story that I have and eventually we're going to get up
054here. Uh, Amanda, can you please uh stand up so everybody can can see who you are? Um, you know, when you're the superintendent, a lot of times when you meet uh parents, the first time you meet them is what I call a good solid two-finger point where they're letting you know what you're not getting done. And Amanda came to advocate not just for her own children, but for the lack of continuity and consistency in what we were providing for dyslexia supports across our portfolio of schools. And so from me to you, thank you for holding us to account. And I'm super excited for Marcy to talk a little bit more in depth about the program. Marcy, over to you. Hold the microphone down a little bit. Because Ruby's a little smaller, that's all. Oh, thanks.
055Good evening, board. Uh, my name is Marcy Ikeman and I am currently serving as your district embedded coach for individualized ed for the Southeast Area Schools. I'm also a certified academic language therapist, a CALT, and I am proud to be part of the team that is helping to advance dyslexia education across our district. Um, behind us, we also have some of our regional CALS, including Katherine Stler, Nicole Sajowski, and Renee Smiley. Um, tonight I would like to provide just a brief overview of the current district services for dyslexia. and our approach is grounded in structured literacy and delivered through a tier system of support for our students to meet their diverse needs. Um the map that you see reflects our current service um area and currently we have eight schools that have a dedicated count
056on staff. Um, our professionals that are in these roles have complete have completed 200 hours of specialized training, a rigorous um, supervised 700hour clinical practicum and passed a national certification exam. At these intensive support sites, students receive tier three dyslexia specific intervention through programming um, such as take flight, jet, build, and turbo. In addition, across the district, we have 21 additionally trained, fully trained CLS that serve in uh traditional roles such as teaching and intervention. And these are our strong tier one and tier 2 sites. Um and because we have these embedded staff members at these schools, they can provide their deep expertise in classrooms, coaching, intervention, and leadership teams. Their knowledge allows them to support not just our students but also their colleagues in implementing evidence-based practices. These sites are committed to strong tier
057one intervention sorry instruction as well as tier 2 and tier three supports and um the use of evidence-based interventions. Additionally, uh folks like me offer before and after school programming at um different locations and we serve students up to 12th grade. Um for the 2024 25 school year we serve 385 students and this year we are currently serving 114 at the intensive level and that number is continuing to grow as additional groups are added and we are on track to meet or exceed the number of students that we served last year. Finally, we do have um in additional to our portfolio schools, we have one charter school that is dedicated to serving our students with dyslexia profiles or formal or formal diagnosis and that's Orton Academy. And they do provide a very specialized learning environment
058tailored to meet the needs of those particular learners. So this layered model um reflects our district's commitment in ensuring that every single student, especially those with dyslexia, receives a high quality of Miss Spain's instruction and support. And with that, I am honored to introduce the cute family. Um my friend Ruby came up to stand with me because I was very nervous. And we also have Savannah and Dne and mom Amanda and dad Shawn. and they are going to speak to you about how our dyslexia programming has impacted their lives and made a meaningful difference. Do you want them to talk before the video or Let's show the video. Let's show the video. That's what I thought. Hi, I'm Dane and I'm in fifth grade. I have dyslexia, which means reading has always been really hard
059for me. For a long time, I didn't like school because it was so hard. But things have changed. Now I get special help from a program called Take Flight and from my special education teacher, Miss Martinez. She shows me um strategies to make reading and writing easier. And little by little, it's working. Reading still isn't easy, but it's getting better all the time. In fact, I'm now tackling grade level books and feeling proud of myself when I get through that. Something that really surprises me is that literacy has become one of my favorite subjects this year. My literacy teacher is really funny, and I've always loved stories and learning. That makes learning to read feel a lot more fun. I'd want to thank you, the board, for making sure that kids like me have access
060to programs like Take Flight and teachers like Miss Martinez. Without that, I'd probably still be dreading school instead of enjoying it. I hope you keep offering the this support for other kids, too, because there are a lot of us who need it. [Applause] Hi, I'm Savannah and I'm in fourth grade. I have dyslexia and I also get anxious sometimes about school. Take Flight has helped me get closer to grade level reading. Now I'm really enjoying reading stories and sometimes I even sneak a flashlight under my covers so I can keep reading at night. But maybe don't tell my mom and dad. Thank you for supporting kids like me. Having programs like Take Flight makes school a lot more fun and helps us believe we can do it. [Applause] Hi, my name is Ruby and I'm
061in third grade. I have dyslexia, too. And this is and this is my second year doing Take Flight with Miss Stolard. I love working with her because she really understands how I learn best and helps me feel confident when reading. Did you know um that about one in five kids have dyslexia just like me? That means a lot of kids need teachers and program programs that give them the support they need to succeed. Thank you so much for helping kids like me learn um to learn um to learn to read. You are making a big difference and I really appreciate it. Um, we have um gifts for all of you guys. [Applause] Amanda, you want to bring us home at the microphone? They said everything. Oh, they said everything. We just appreciate everything. We hope
062the program will keep growing. Um, there's obviously a huge need for it and it's been so impactful for that one in five that has this superpower. So, thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Uh hidden on a slide. I'm afraid if I go back it'll start the whole video again. Is October is dyslexia awareness month. Uh that video is not made uh for district 11. That is running nationally. Marcy actually saw it at a training outside of district 11. And so we appreciate not just um uh obviously your commitment to the cute family for your children all at Howard still or is Dne now all at Howard? Yeah. Great. So thank you to the Howard staff uh and all our other schools that are displayed there. Um but that uh that they are advocating not just for
063their own children and their own children's uh benefit but really for all children and you I think it was Ruby who shared with us one in five. One in five that's 20%. That means that we have to continue to make these investments and we will continue to grow our CAL staff and any staff member who wants that training, please approach us. We'll find a way to we can make sure that we incentivize you to get that training so we can continue to grow that staffing opportunity that we don't kind of force feed families into just a specific school or two. I do remember in honor of Director Nelson, who's not here, who once said, "Why can't all our ELA teachers have cal training? That'd be a great place for us to be able to get
064to. So, thank you all. Uh, rounding ourselves out. I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna make it right at my hour. I will We will be up on Friday at Chapa celebrating with Josh and John's. Boy, this feels like a Josh and John's advertisement uh board meeting. They got shout out earlier. They're former D11 teachers, so anybody who wants to go open up an ice cream shop is a big fan of mine. But we promise the students there will be there on Friday to celebrate their uh highest ELA and math scores in the city. So, we do appreciate the staff, the family, and particularly the students at Japa because they're the ones who actually took the test. So, uh, apologies to families that some kids will have chalk on Friday and other kids will have ice
065cream all over their face. So, what a great thing to be able to separate. And please, thank you, uh, again to all our families that were at school on time. Today was count day. Uh, we heard it alluded to earlier. The way we get funded by is the number of students that we have in the system. There is no other magic money. If there are not children in the system, there is not the same amount of money. There are concerns about employability. I hear all these people, will I have a job? If we have students, we will have jobs. We have to remember that count day and attendance are critical components to the funding formula. So, thank you all for those of that were able to make that commitment to district 11 on count day.
066And if you like district 11 and show up after October 1st, we'll still love to have you. And uh we welcome all families to our schools. 4 seconds, 3 seconds, 2 seconds. Questions to the board for the superintendent's report. Thank you, Superintendent G. Uh any questions or comments from the board at this time? Thank you. Um I appreciate the cute kids being here and sharing uh their dyslexia report. Um as they were talking, I was recollecting the conversation I had with you. I think almost a couple of years back and I went and looked back at the email thread uh where you and I first engaged and you talked about uh Dne at the time being at Auton Academy and not having enough dyslexia supports in district 11 and here you are two years uh
067since and we at district 11 have the necessary dyslexia supports for our kids. So you don't have to go outside looking for those opportunities. Parents have a choice to send their kids to the school that best fits their needs. I'm glad that District 11 is stepping into that arena and providing the supports that your kids need. So, we've come a long way. We love District 11. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. And uh Thomas uh Buck Miller out there, thank you uh for what you are doing. I'm a big sports fan and um uh in this day and age when everybody is looking at themselves and say me first uh you talked about team coming first and the team record matters to you the most important stat of all and that will carry you a
068long way. So good luck in uh what you are going to be doing in the future. I see two proud grandparents out there in the back uh uh who are recording every minute of your conversation and your things. So, we look forward to being at some of your high school football games and cheering you along. Yes. Press your button. Okay. Director Hley, thank you, Thomas Buck Miller. Um, I have the distinct pleasure of announcing all the football games for the district. So, um, that's me up there saying that your pass was good for another Colorado ribbon chop house. Earth down. And I being being a former teacher at Coronado, it's so nice to see the football team doing really well. So, I just wanted to say thank you for making my time up in the
069press box. Um, pretty great. I mean, it's pretty great to see kids playing ball anyway, but football under the lights and knowing that it's the Cougars, booyah, man, it was good. So, thank you. Any other comments or um feedback from the board? Um to either the presenters or to superintendent Gaul? I don't see any. Thank you so much. We uh look forward to the celebration at Chibita as well on Friday where kids are going to be um enjoying ice cream. So thank you. Moving on to the next item on the agenda. It's public comments. We do have Okay, we do have a couple of public public comments. Uh going over the board protocol for public comments. Um the board welcomes and is very interested in listening to community feedback as it helps us better do
070our job. Uh please approach the podium when your name is called. You have three minutes to deliver your remarks. Please monitor the clock that is on display and complete your comments in the allotted time. Board meetings are primarily business meetings uh for the orderly and efficient contact of the business of the district. Keeping that in mind, the clear expectation is that your feedback is presented in a civil, professional and courteous manner without resorting to disparaging or defamatory remarks. Students are often in attendance uh or watching our broadcast. Speakers remarks therefore should be suitable for an audience that include minor students including no use of profanities or obscinities. to adhere to the board policy and accomplish the work already on the agenda. The board will not respond to comments during this time, but I can assure
071you that your comments will be taken into consideration as we discuss pertinent agenda items. To maintain the flow of the meeting and not have prolonged interruptions, please refrain from clapping. If you want to show support to a speaker, please stand as the speaker is talking or use a silent applause. Lastly, the statements made by the public do not reflect the views of the board or the district. With that, the first comment is from Miss Janine Russell and this is regarding the National School Lunch Week. Welcome, Miss Russell. Again, my name is Janine Russell. I'm the director of District 11 Food and Nutrition Services Department. Um, this week is a celebration of the national school lunch program. However, I would like to inform the board, parents, superintendent Gaul that food and nutrition services likes to treat
072our students special all year long. Last year, we had the wonderful opportunity to receive a lot of grant money, which allowed us to form partnerships with local farmers to obtain a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables that normally we could not afford to provide our students. Um, this year we didn't have access to that money. However, because of those relationships that we formed with several of the farmers, we were still able to provide some unique um fresh fruits and vegetables that normally again we can't afford. Um I'm not too sure how many of you know what a second is in terms of fresh fruits and vegetables. Because of those partnerships I talked about, um, we were able to purchase seconds of like peaches and apples and things. These are fruit that still taste wonderful, but
073they might be in odd shape. They might be little. They might be humongous. So, they're not the wonderful fruits and vegetables that you're going to see in King Supers, Safeway, etc. But still at that our students have been able to join enjoy a variety of um peaches, watermelon, cantaloupe, and again a variety of apples such as the Honey Crisp that you had this evening. We've had Fuji's gala and some other things. So again, we're doing our part to help the academic world by nutritionally fueling minds meal at a time. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Lindsay Callahan, if you can pull the microphone up. Yep. Thank you. Good evening, board members, parents, and community. My name is Lindseay Callahan, and I'm a D11 parent with three kids. My husband and I recently won full custody of
074his children whom I love dearly. My 13-year-old stepson was dragged through three states and five schools last year alone, including one in D11, in an attempt to hide him from us and the courts. Now back in Colorado and attending Russell Middle School, he's working hard to adjust to our home, our rules, and our academic expectations. He dreams of becoming a doctor, a rare ambition for a 13-year-old. I've fought for his safety legally, and now I fight for his academic excellence and success by demanding excellence from our teachers and schools. My husband and I are busy parents and business owners. Today, we juggled work, picking up my kids from three different schools, built a fort with my daughter, helped my 13-year-old prepare for choto, which he is very excited about. Made transportation plans for my older
075son, and then prepared myself to be here. This is my third evening missing dinner with my kids. But I'm here because the CSEA's so-called strike for students threatens our children's education. Not just because of teachers missing time from the classroom, but because of the distraction that adult matters affecting our kids is causing. My stepson's teachers are working tirelessly to catch him up, help him meet athletic and and academic goals, and ensure he thrives. Our kids, our future deserves classrooms that are wellprepared, staffed, and focused, not disrupted by adult agendas. The CSEA strike is no strike. It is a political stunt. Their political sk their public schedule reveals the truth. From 7:30 to 10:30, they're picketing, chanting for the kids. Then they swap signs for campaign flyers, door knockocking for two hours to push partisan candidates.
076After lunch break, they end with a campaign rally, leaving our schools and teachers to clean up the mess. This isn't about students. It's electioneering. While they play politics, our classrooms suffer. My son suffers and dedicated staff scramble. The CSEA's misinformation, like their Facebook post calling our board extremists for keeping inappropriate books out of schools, school libraries show why their master agreement was not renewed. Ensuring age appropriate materials is extreme. It's common sense. Our kids deserve teachers who prioritize them, not ones using them as props for votes. As a busy parent, I'm asking on behalf of others. Let's keep our focus on students. Let parents be parents, teachers be teachers, and schools be a place of excellence, a place where kids are safe not to worry about adult matters, but to focus on their own progress.
077Our children's future depends on it, and families deserve to have dinner without fighting misguided agendas about what teaching means. Thank you. Thank you. That uh completes our public comments. people who have signed up. Uh, thank you for being here this evening and sharing your thoughts. The board appreciates your feedback. So, thank you again. Moving on to the next item on the agenda, which is special reports, board member reports. Uh, are there any reports from board members? Who wants to go first? director. Thank you. Um I just want to recognize um director of food and nutrition services again Janine Russell. Thank you for the examples of fresh fruit that we've received. Um thanks to you and your department um and for and speaking of the department to all of you for supporting our kids each and
078every day. And I wanted to mention voting is coming up. Ballots will be in the mail on the ballot coming uh October 10th, I believe, is when they'll be mailed. There is a question about taxpayer dollars and those being used to feed kids. So, take a look at that. Um, there does seem to be a theme this evening about partnerships and opportunities and I re want to recognize that many of our students visited the water festival for fourth graders. It was held at UCCCs. I know I saw you director Jorgensson and director Malpekum. Dress Makam. Uh that was a lot of fun going around and seeing what the kids were learning. Everything from legal negotiations for how you divide your water to water quality and what lives in water. There was there were many, many
079opportunities. A reminder to fellow board members and candidates who might be running for school board that Colorado Association of School Boards Conference is December 11th through 13 and it offers professional development and networking. And I'm sure Melissa has a handle on all of that about deadlines and things like that. The other thing I speaking of voting earlier, I wanted to um note was I was recently asked why I voted no on last week's vote regarding the communications contract with the we us and I thought I'd offer an explanation. The board of education approved the contract in the amount of $500,000 to we ask them for comprehensive marketing services phase one ending March 25th, 2026. That's six months. Each of us are expected to exercise fiduciary responsibility. I believe a half a million dollars is too
080much for six months of communications work. And I voted accordingly. My integrity required it and I stand behind that vote and all of my votes for anyone wondering without apology. As folks might assume with a 61 vote coming from my fellow um directors that you know we we share this vote. I'm outvoted. That's fine. I'm not standing in anyone's way. Once the votes are taken, I'm ready to move on. get on with expecting the best from and for our district. Many great things are happening here and I think we've got to move on. We got a lot to do and not dwell on the past. So I am not saying that my fellow board directors do not exercise fiduciary responsibility. Each of us I believe is making the decision based on our own values and
081what we believe is best for the district and I just wanted to speak to that tonight. Thank you. Thank you Director Rock. uh and uh what I would recommend the board doing is when you are voting on that item itself, you have an opportunity to share why you are voting yes or no and that's an opportunity for you to share the um as opposed to bringing it up several uh a week or two later on in the discussion about it. um uh and each board member takes that fidiciary responsibility seriously and I appreciate uh director that you are looking into that and taking that fidiciary responsibility um seriously as well. So um any other board member comments at this time? Director Jurgensson, I'll come to you. U Miss Russell, I had the honey crisp apple
082was one of the sweetest apples I've had I think all season. So thank you so much. I took a few more for taking home. So, um, today I'm going to do a little version of Mythbusters to cut through some of the noise surrounding the CSEA and their planned strike next week. Myth one, CSEA is striking for safer schools. The fact is that D11 has already invested 12 million into security vestibule entrances across our campuses, prioritizing our highest risk schools first, and an additional safety measure improvements are already on the table. The idea that safety is being ignored is simply false. In fact, security will be enhanced and and improve and at every campus next week so that we make sure kids can get their learning done. Myth number two, the board is prioritizing privatization and
083politics over real solutions. The fact is that there's no private schools in our portfolio. Uh what do we what we do have though is a thoughtful deliberate expansion of charter schools to provide real choice for diverse families. This board has consistently worked to depoliticize classrooms, simplify learning, and reinforce respect for parents and guardians. Myth number three, teachers are striking on October 8th, and families should keep kids home. Again, fact, roughly one-third of staff have chosen to strike. So, when you see a bunch of people out there, it's not all D11 teachers. That means that the majority of teachers will be in their classroom doing what they do best, teaching. Schools will remain safe, orderly, and open for learning. Parents who truly want to stand with teachers should stand with the twothirds who are keeping their
084commitment to students. Myth number four, over 400 teachers left the district this last year because their contract was taken. The fact is this is also pure fiction. HR data I asked to make sure it was accurate does show that normal turnover rates were a little bit increased last year with the uptick of retirements and resignations. At the start of the school year though, we had just five unfilled teaching positions. I've been here six years and we've had 30 to 70 to almost 100 vacancies. We had five vacancies this fall. Not long-term subs, not other people that are coming in to help cover and and make it work. Five vacant positions. That's an unprecedented low compared to what the vacancies I already mentioned in past years. Moreover, 70% of the new hires that we brought into
085D11 this year have come with prior experience, meaning we're not hiring a bunch of first year, newbie, or alternative licensed teachers. We're having teachers that want to come work in D11 and be with us. CSEA's numbers don't add up. Even if you try and add in the internal transfers from campus to campus, it still doesn't equal 400. So, I'd love to know where they got that number from. Myth number five, the board is letting Jenkins fall off the hillside. Have you driven past Jenkins? We're building a brand new school. It's not vacant. It's not dilapitated. It's not falling into a hillside. We've addressed the issues that previous boards refused to correct and put 25 million into a new media center and a brand new wing for learning. All you got to do is drive by.
086Check it out. It's beautiful. And lastly, my myth number six. Union teachers will be striking all day. Union picketing as a fact is that only scheduled from 7:30 to 10:30, after which they'll spend the day canvasing neighborhoods just two days before ballots drop. One of their own teachers even mentioned that's not a coincidence. This isn't about safer schools. It's about politics. So, they blame this board for being political, but yet they're taking their strike day to go be political. It just drips with irony. And to cap it off, they'll end the day with a picnic in Acacia Park. So, picture this. There students in Palmer, second story window, looks down on Aacia Park. They're working with a sub that day because their teacher chose to strike. And they look out the window and they see
087their own teachers having a picnic in Acacia Park. That is not solidarity with students. That's abandonment. I'll say all this to encourage each of you to not take every social media post at face value. Just because someone hits post doesn't mean they're telling you the truth. D11 is here to first and foremost educate students. By law, as you heard earlier tonight, our taxpayers expect that our teachers will be in their classrooms and teach our students to help them receive a proper education. Lastly, to every teacher dedicated to our mission who will be showing up for kids that day and helping students learn, I thank you. Thank you. Director Huber, you are next. Hi. This month, I have attended many meetings to include the special education advisory committee. It was led by Diana Dehan and Miss
088Marshmallow, who's the intern director of individualized education. There were lots of parents from across the district there and it was really nice to see how they've collaborated to assist their students and they've worked together to resolve problems. We still have a long ways to go in that. But it was wonderful to hear how the district and these people have come together to work on those things and we've been making a lot of progress there. Um, I also attended the Wings of Change event with uh there was Amaya Wybrrent there who was from a super talented family here in D11. Her father Sean Wybrandt is a Palmer teacher who also had a butterfly at the event. um she is a a D11 graduate uh attends UCCCS and she brought her other friend who uses the D11
089promise to attend a different college and it was really nice to see the community coming together um for that effort. Um I also attended the DAC forum and I wanted to thank Marian and the team and Nicole Utmer and whoever else worked on that to make sure that that was fair uh very professionally conducted. I think that went very well. uh also attended pedals of appreciation for two schools. Loved meeting the staff there. And then there was the cool science festival at UCCCs which was very fun with Palmer Coronado Trailblazer. There may have been other schools there. Um and that is what I've been up to. So thank you. You've been busy director Huber and you talked about the forum yesterday. Uh that was really well put together and well attended as well. There was
090a lot of people out there uh listening to what the candidates had to uh present and uh hopefully they're doing their research before they get to pick the right choice. Director Hayley, um I just wanted to give a big thank you to the principles and staff at the following schools. Um Fremont, Jackson, Martinez, Rudy, Holmes, West Middle School, and Palmer. I want to thank you all for welcome me welcoming me into your schools and also into your classrooms. I wasn't in every classroom but I was in a lot of them and what I saw was nothing short of total awesomeness. The kids at each of these schools were on task. They were involved and the teachers were on and they were there for their students and I think each one of them deserves a big
091add a girl and add a boy. So, thank you for welcoming me into your schools. I was going to have a I I did have something prepared to talk about this upcoming um I'll call it a spectacle on October 8th, but Director Jorgensson stole my thunder. Um and that's okay. I'm just going to add to it a little bit. Um, I I'm I'm not typically um somebody who shies away from saying what I what I believe and and um what I mean when when asked. People want to ask me what I think about something, they better be prepared because they're going to get an answer. Um that doesn't mean I need to be a jerk about it. That being said, I am going to be relatively firm here with what I have to say. I
092will always support anyone's right to exercise their Free Amendment freedoms, even when I disagree with their message. What I will not support, however, are the deliberate lies being pushed across the district by CSEA and its representatives. And I'll call them lies. I'm not going to call it misinformation. I'm tired of that jargon. Let's just call blue blue blue. Okay. Completely unacceptable. The membership that is buying that you guys are being played. This is nothing more than political theater, an agenda-driven display, a campaign tactic, a contrived demonstration, a self-serving spectacle. Not one person I've spoken with can give me a straight answer as to what its actual purpose is. What is clear is that it's being used as a campaign rally for the union slate of candidates. Calling it anything else is flatout dishonest. What proves
093that point is their own schedule that's been posted online and on their website. A couple hours picketing in the morning, then canvasing for candidates. followed by a long 90minute lunch and ending with a party in Acacia Park. Again, right across from the staple school of this district, one that is undergoing a massive renovation for the kids. This strike is not standing up for kids, it's abandoning them. If students truly mattered here, this event would have been scheduled on the professional development day just two days later. when classes wouldn't be disrupted, but I expect that they want the classes to be disrupted, which isn't isn't good for kids. Director Jorgensson said that even some of their own members have admitted online that October 8th was chosen to coincide with the release of ballots. Political So, this
094so-called strike isn't about advocacy for for kids. It's about manipulation, plain and simple. At the end of the day, our students deserve honesty, not theatrics. They deserve educators who put their learning first, not political games dressed up as advocacy. If this movement were tr movement were truly about kids, it would look very different. What's happening here is not about education. It's about power. And I, for one, refuse to pretend otherwise. And that's it. I'm done. Thank you. Any other board member reports at this time? I don't see any. So, thank you for the board members for their reports. Um um we look forward to engaging with you as and when we visit visit your schools, please engage with us as well. Um moving on to the next item on the agenda, which is the adoption
095of consent items. Director Art, can you please make the motion to adopt the consent items? Yes. I move that the board of education adopts all consent items as designated in the agenda. The consent items are personnel recommendations October 1, 2025. Approval of August 20th, 2025 special meeting minutes. Approval of September 3rd, 2025 regular board meeting minutes. Approval of September 10th, 2025 special meeting minutes. Approval of September 17, 2025 special meeting minutes. Approval of September 24, 2025 special meeting minutes and resolution 202610, National School Lunch Week, October 13 through 17, 2025. Second. Moved and seconded. Roll call, please. Director Bis I, Director Kerry, I. Director, I. Director Huber, I. Jurgensson. I the I the consent items have been adopted. Moving on to the action item. The first one is recognizing our principles. This is National Principal
096Appreciation Month. Director Hayley, can you please read the resolution for National Principal Appreciations Month and then make the motion for action item I1? Yes. Resolution 2026-11, National Principles Appreciation Month, October 1st through the 31st, 2025. Whereas, it is the primary responsibility of the Colorado Springs School District 11 Board of Education and the Superintendent to preserve and improve resources for schools so that all students have access to quality education and foundation for a successful future. And whereas school principles play an integral role as instructional leaders in the education and growth of students in elementary, middle, and secondary schools in Colorado Springs School District 11. And whereas school principles are responsible for promoting education and building relationships to ensure that each student receives services that meet their needs to excel in the classroom and life. And whereas
097school principles face many challenges in supporting and educating our young people and it is through their perseverance and passion that the Colorado Springs School District 11 continues to produce well-educated career ready students. And whereas we will continue to encourage, support, and recognize our school principles who continually ensure a positive impact on students and educational process. Therefore, the Colorado Springs School District 11 Board of Education does hereby proclaim the month of October 2025 as Principal's Appreciation Month. Signed this day, this first day of October 2025. You got to make the motion. Oh, thank you. I move that the board of education approves resolution 2026 I1 or is that 11 11-1 doc on it endorsing October 2025 as national principles appreciation month second moved and seconded um superintendent call I'm going to turn it over to you
098yeah as I give it to area superintendent Joiner to say some kind words I just think uh particularly at this time with some of the impassion comments from our board members uh if you don't understand the challenges of what it means to be a school leader um just think about what's happening right now on the backs of school leaders is our responsibility to make sure that we educate students safely and effectively and they are working tirelessly to that demand. So I am proud to introduce a former excellent principal and an outstanding principal supervisor and area superintendent Mr. Darren Joiner and I I got to interrupt you with such a big like, you know, welcome. Uh 7:00 is time for public hearing on our YouP schools. So do we have any public comments? Darren Joiner, come
099back to the microphone. There are no public comments. The public hearing was set at 7:00 for uh ex and I have to recognize the time appropriately at that time and there are no pe nobody signed up for public comments at this time. So back to you Mr. Thank you. Appreciate that. In honor of National Principal Month, we celebrate the remarkable leadership our principles bring to their schools each and every day. A principal is more than an administrator. They are visionaries who set the tone for learning, champions who advocate for every child, and role models who inspire both students and staff. A principal is also a person just like everyone else. I remember when I was a principal and I'd be out in public at a grocery store, at a movie theater, at any event, and
100it was always funny when your students see you out in public with your family and then they realize, "Oh, they're just like us." Yes, they're just like you. People often forget though that principles do have their own family responsibilities outside of work and hobbies. They balance this uh outside or work life with the experience that they provide for all of your kids each and every day. They are icons for this. Their steady guidance ensures that teachers feel supported, families feel welcomed, and students are given every opportunity to thrive. The work of a principal is not just about today. It is about building a legacy of excellence, empowerment of students and staff and care that will shape lives and communities for years to come. So tonight, we proudly recognize and thank our principles for the lasting
101impact of their leadership. Thank you. Thank you. Well said. Uh and so many of our principles work tirelessly and they wear multiple hats. Uh it's not just uh that they are building leaders. I've seen them directing traffic in front of the schools. Sometimes being at the crossing guard um uh helping a child out when they are having a difficult time at schools and also the bridge between our schools and the community as well. They are front-facing. So dynamic principles do an amazing job in each one of our schools. So thank you to all the principles who do an amazing job day in and day out in keeping our students safe and ensuring that highquality education is delivered in every single classroom board. Any comments before I do a roll call on this? Director Bankers, I
102would also like to add my thanks and my appreciation for the many hours of dedicated service that our principles provide. Um, the many hats that they wear and the support that the district has been able to give and I appreciate the board and our superintendent in making sure that our principles are well supported. It's a tough job. You have to make time for I'll just give you an example. Dead donut day or dead cat day. That was it. Uh principal had gone to school and there was an animal right where the kids were going to come into school that was no longer living. It was up to her to deal with that. and she did and then went out and bought donuts so that um they could get on with their day in a better
103frame of mind. You just never know what's going to come up. And oh, by the way, as you've heard many times tonight, the purpose of school is to train our children and we want them to feel welcome. We want them to feel safe and we do what we want to do in order to make that happen. We principles are responsible for guiding the whole building to bringing parents into a community that is sharing cooperative and in partnership. Their job is really a heavy load and it's for those folks who really are committed to developing academically, socially, emotionally children who are going to grow up to be independent, who can grow up to be confident and resilient. And I want to again thank our principles for doing just that each and every day whether it's a
104school day or not a school day. Thank you. Thank you. And uh a reminder to our community and parents as well. Um thank a principal this month. Um um it could be just a small token of appreciation from you, a thank you card uh or an apple uh whatever uh is possible. Thank a principal. They do an amazing job. Roll call, please. Dr. I. Dr. Kerry, I. Dr. I. I. I. I. I. So that's uh seven I's. Uh and um uh the National Principal Appreciation Month resolution has been approved by the board. Moving to the next item on the agenda. This is um resolution 202605. The next two items are similar um subject material. Um and this is regarding the urban renewal authority tiff tax increment financing. Uh the first is the Marino and Cascade
105School District um property tax increment revenue agreement and the next one is the Odyssey at Northweber school district uh property tax agreement. We'll go one by one. Uh, Director Jurgensson, can you please make the motion for action item I2? Yes. I move that the board of education approves resolution 2026-05, Moreno and Cascade Urban Renewal Authority Tax Increment Financing Agreement. Second. Moved and seconded. Now, this item was discussed at the board meeting in September, if I recall, uh, early September. uh and at that point in time the board uh listened to the presentations and uh if additional questions were uh needed uh they were asked to direct it to superintendent Gaul and also reach out to the urban renewal authority director who I see in the audience Jariah Walker. Um superintendent Gaul uh any additional information
106to add at this time? Yeah, if Mr. Walker and Dr. Comfort Uh why don't you uh lead off Jeriah? Sure. Absolutely. Thank you. Uh Jeriah, for the record, Jeriah Walker, executive director of the Car Springs Urban Renewal Authority. Uh and like director Park, uh Mapakam had introduced, we have two items in front of you today. Uh, one thing that we did want to highlight that sometimes and and uh, I know Brandon's going to bring in some more context behind this, but is the school fees that are collected on any development project. Uh, on these particular projects, we have one, the Blue Truck uh, project over on North Nevada uh, brings in a little over $44,000 in school development fees. those fees are collected whether it's a URA or not on any residential development project within
107the district 11 boundaries and sometimes that gets lost kind of in the context of increment thinking that that money is still not retained by the school district. So, um, we've got a breakdown of what that looks like, and I know Brandon's got more of a context of how many URAs have given that amount of money to the school district as a result from these projects going forward. Uh, so I won't I won't go into too much of those details, but I just wanted to make sure the board was aware of that. Uh, I also have in my packet here, uh, if any board members just curious about how those are calculated, I have how the city does that in this packet as well. Um if anybody's curious about it, happy to bring that up if
108anyone wants it. And Dr. Comfort, you want to give a little more detail over time? Yeah, good evening board. Um as Mr. Walker was stating, the the district does still collect fees. Um and the primary fee that we collect is this in lie of land um uh funding. Uh so the the board kind of understands the the nature of it or the amount of it. Uh last fiscal year we collected over $500,000 um for the URAs that exist in the district. That all goes into our fund 43 which is our capital improvement budget. So it goes back to funding um capital projects within the district. Uh that number continues to grow as you can imagine. Uh the previous year it was just over 400,000. Um so uh there is a financial benefit to the district
109in the near term. Um obviously with the understanding that we also get backfilled from the state for any tax impact. Yep. And uh just to summarize for the board, I uh had a meeting with Mr. Walker and I appreciate Dr. Comfort pulling the numbers. I know there's been a general question of how is it that a school district as a taxing authority is related to this process of urban renewal. And so I wanted to highlight for both the board and for the community that even though there might be a project that feels distal from any of the things that we do, we're not often hearing about, oh, we're developing land and there's an elementary school in the middle of that, particularly because we are the downtown district. A lot of these things can feel disconnected
110from the work that we do. but that as thei the city continues to reinvest in itself in using urban renewal as an accelerant to that there is a very distinct benefit uh for us to be able to then program those dollars hyper specifically on our capital needs but I think we've all seen what incredible projects that we can do under some of those capital dollars. So that's all the new information that I have for the board this evening. Thank you. Appreciate you providing that feedback about your meeting with uh Mr. Walker as well. Thank you. Um so just going back uh to um this discussion that we've had several times as far as the uh financial impact for the district because of the backfill from the state we are held harmless. Would that be an
111appropriate statement? That is correct. Uh if the board remembers it's probably my most famous uh slide that I've ever demonstrated the mustard yellow graph. Um but uh that we this is a long-term benefit for the district. We are held harmless for tax um impacts during the duration of the tiff and then obviously we benefit from the increased taxable value taxable value of the property uh post tiff. Okay. Thank you. And as a public disclosure I serve on the UR board as well as a representative of all the school districts in the region advocating for the interest of the school districts on the URA board as a commissioner. Um, with that I'm going to uh I see director. Your button is already to director. Yes. Under the background information we were given. It does speak to
112the uh financial impact under the guidelines of the Colorado School Finance Act and that the property taxes would be backfilled, but it also says the district's bond and milly override funds do not receive a state benefit backfill. So I read that as there is some impact to us. Maybe not hugely significant but can you clarify that for us please? Yeah. Uh that that is correct recctor. So uh there there are some of those elements. Um obviously because we are debtree in terms of bonds uh we wouldn't um be receiving anything for that anyway. Uh but there is an MLO impact of that of we don't get that specific back though. Would it impact a future bond question? No. And that's what I was coming to and Jariah answered that there will be no future impact
113for future bonds what you're talking about or future MLOS's as well. Okay. Would that be correct? Yeah. Any future bonds that are passed those do not get captured by the increment going to the project. So it would be just you would get those just like you would on anything else. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions or comments from the board at this time? And I also see Jeffen uh in the audience from uh the uh Morino and Cascade School District uh project and also Blue Truck uh the representative from Blue Truck at the back of the audience. So, thank you for both being here. The motion that is on the floor right now is about the Marino and Cascade Urban Renewal Authority Tax Increment Financing Agreement. That motion was uh um seconded. Um and
114uh since I see no further questions, I'm going to ask Miss Olsson for roll call, please. I the eyes have it. The board has unanimously approved the Morino and Cascade urban renewal tax increment financing agreement. Um we will have probably limited discussion on the next item as we've discussed most of it in this uh first item. Uh and that is the urban renewal again authority tax increment for the Odyssey at Northweber school district um project. Um, and director Bankers, can you please make the motion for action item I3? I move that the board of education approves resolution 2026-04, Odyssey at Northweber Irvin Renewal Authority Tax Increment Financing Agreement. Second. Moved and seconded. Uh, Superintendent Gall, I assume that the Nothing new. Thank you. Nothing new. Okay. Um, and uh, nothing new on this board. Uh,
115any specific questions on this project? Seeing none, roll call, please. I The eyes have it. Uh, so this agreement has been approved unanimously by the board as well. So I thank you for all that uh came in front of the board and presented the projects and uh uh provided some clarity as well as we went along with this discussion. and thank you for your engagement and best wishes as you proceed with this project. Keep us informed. Uh I'm hoping that we can also have some uh student engagement opportunities through these various projects and for that you would have to go through superintendent call and administrative team. Thank you sir. The next action item agenda is going to be a contract award charter school contract with He East Hills Academy uh for a 5-year term. Um
116Director Kerry, can you please make the motion for action item I4? Yes. I move that the board of education approves resolution 2026-08, thus approving contract C 2027-1 to approve the East Hills Academy as a district authorized charter school. The contract performance will start July 1st, 2026 and has a 5-year term ending June 30th, 2031, subject to any earned contract extensions through the annual performance report process in accordance with policy LBD. I need a second. Second. Second. Okay. Moved and seconded. Um uh I think this this was an item that we discussed several months back about both these charter schools that are uh coming up today in the agenda item and this is the contract that is uh uh being finalized. Superintendent G. I have Dr. Comfort available but I don't believe we have anything new
117to offer. Yeah, just a quick reminder to the board. The board did approve the charter application uh towards the end of last year. The contract has gone through our standard um charter contract process through our procurement office as well as our director of uh enrollment choice, Mr. Chris Kilroy. He's been working with leadership of in this uh um regard East Hills Academy. I believe Dan's in the audience. Um so we're here for any questions, but this is just the standard uh contract process. Any questions from the board on this subject matter um as pertaining to the contract that has been attached on um the diligent community website that's the new boards director. Thank you. I was curious once we approve the contract I noticed in the the wording and of course the contract that it
118doesn't the contract begins next July. So, I'm wondering when can the community expect the finances and board agendas and meeting minutes to be online for that? I'm I'm happy to follow up with uh with both of the well, East Hills, I apologize, East Hills in this regard to see when they're planning on um starting to do that. Uh we obviously will still have after the contract is approved, if the contract is approved, we still have our own process that will put some checkpoints in place with um where they are with location, where they are with enrollment, uh a standard part of that is when you start to hold meetings and and engage the public. Um so we still have that checklist that happens between now and then, but I'm happy to follow up and um
119figure out a date and share that with the board. All right. Yes, I was curious about that. And also um their bylaws in the contract. There were still draft bylaws for the other school. I noticed they were very busy last month of a lot of little side business. Um but this one visiting their website it's not apparent who their board is, who where the bylaws are, if they've been approved, meetings, finances. So I would just encourage that transparency for the new school. Understood. director and I would um just remind the board that the the timeline of the process is different now and so they still have quite a window of time between now and when they open um that that we will absolutely ensure all of those things happen. Yes, they have quite a bit
120of time. Um but a timeline for us would be nice. The other question and this goes for both schools. They have a legacy institute audit. It's stated in the contract that it happens, but it does not say if the district will get a copy, and I'm curious if the district will get a copy of that audit. Yeah, we will uh ensure that any audit that occurs um as we do now with our existing charter schools, the district would receive um a copy of that as part of our review process. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions from the board? first on East Hills Academy and I thank Dana Jamie and he's in the audience as well. Thank you sir. I hope everything is progressing well and you are progressing on the timeline. Great.
121Good enough. Um seeing no further questions. Um roll call please. Hi, hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. The I7th the contract um uh for for a 5-year term with uh East Hills Academy has been approved by the board and best wishes as you proceed. First, the next one is a similar contract with um Spruce Community School uh and again for a 5-year term. Director Huber, can you please make the motion for action item I5? I move that the board of education approves resolution 2026-09 thus proving contract C2027-00002 to approve the Spruce Community School as a district authorized charter school. Contract performance will start July 1st, 2026 and as a five-year term ending June 30th, 2031 subject to any earned contact contract extensions through the annual performance report process in accordance with policy LBED. Second moved
122and seconded. Uh superintendent, Dr. Comfort. Yeah, no new information. Just want to acknowledge the the principal of Spruce Hills um is in a training tonight preparing to open a new school, but we do have Yep. Um uh oh yeah, Natasha is here. I I'm sorry. I thought that for a second you were the principal there and then I was going to have to apologize for apologizing. Uh we do have leadership from uh Spruce Community School here as well. Okay. Thank you for being here. Um board, any questions? You do. Um, Director Huber, I was on the district charter review and I just want to thank you both for those very thorough applications that came through. Um, they were a level above what we've sometimes seen in the past. So, I don't know if that's a
123fair statement or not, but I'm going to say it anyways. Thank you. Director Huber in a different capacity got to review uh both your charter schools um uh in depth. Um so uh appreciate her feedback and her role uh serving on that charter review committee. Dr. Art, thank you. Uh same question about the Legacy Institute audit and if we can get a copy for that and I'm guessing the answer is yes. Um I was curious, they have enrollment priorities and I was just curious if you know or maybe they want to speak to it how they define educationally disadvantaged student. that is uh a student they would give priority enrollment to. I will invite them up to answer that question. Speak. I think that is um as far as microphone. Sorry, that would be the
124SCES um is what we're looking at to pull in to make our school more diverse. You want to explain SCES just Oh, yes. who don't educ? So you're assuming the socioeconomics are determining the education level of the child. We're saying that we want to ensure that we have a diversity as far as ethnicity and um kind of background and where they're coming from that we can support if they are from a family that maybe doesn't have the same level of education uh in their home environment. Okay. I I think that's a big assumption. um you might want to define it better for just your policy internally and so it's very clear to families. Perfect. Thank you. Just a observation. Thank you. Appreciate your coming up to speak to it. Thank you. That's all my questions.
125Seeing no further questions, um roll call, please. Director. Hi. Hi. Hi. Dr. Huber. Hi. Jurgensson. Hi. Hi. Hi. The eyes have it. And uh again, congratulations to Spruce as well. I know that both of you guys are doing uh yman's work out there and uh putting in the um all the necessary um leg work that is necessary at this point in time to get the school started on time. Uh I'm aware of a couple of grants that you received as well. So all of it is looking at this time positive. I wish you the best. keep us updated on your progress over the coming months and uh work with the concerned district authorities as well. Thank you. The next action agenda item uh is the unified school improvement plans and this is for Adams Elementary
126School, Wilson Elementary School, Carver Elementary uh school, Man Middle School, Galileo Middle Schools, Wen Middle School and Mitchell High School. Director Art, can you please make the motion for action item I6? I move that the board of education approves the unified school improvement plan, USIPS, for submission to the Colorado Department of Education for the following schools: Adams Elementary School, Wilson Elementary School, Carver Elementary School, Man Middle School, Galileo Middle School, Swagert Middle School, and Mitchell High School. Second. Moved and seconded. Uh these school usips uh were u discussed at length at the boardwork sessions over the last two or three weeks. Um uh we heard from uh uh the DAC as well. Uh DAC accreditation committee the chair Courtney Hner is here joining us as well. Um thank you for your detailed feedback that you
127gave on each one of those schools. It was a spirited discussion and principles participated. I see the car principal at the back of the room. If I'm missing any other principles, I don't see any other, but thank you for being present out here as well. Um, uh, Superintendent Gaul, any additional information at this time? We do not. We appreciate I see Courtney's here from the deck and the strong work of our, uh, Ed in Insights team for the, uh, I think the strongest us that the district has produced, at least in the time that I've been here. Okay. And, uh, I did engage with Courtney. Courtney had a couple of comments that she wanted to make about the process. Courtney, please welcome. Yeah. And y hello. Yep. I'm ready when you are. Can I click
128it from here? Sweet. Hi board superintendent G. I'm Courtney Hurtner and I am the um accreditation chair for the um district accountability committee. Um our committee is made up of community members, parents, teachers, and school administrators with the support of Dr. Calake. Our team is charged with reviewing the district improvement plan as well as school improvement plans for schools identified by the state as being on turnaround or priority improvement status. My goal tonight is to make the public aware of the process for these reviews and to talk about themes that were seen in the plans. So in the district plan, the UDIP or the unified district improvement plan, um this year we took a slightly different approach to this review. We formed a task force of accreditation and DAC membership and we actually met in
129July to review the document that was ready at that time. Um it was in really great shape. Its format and development process produced a clear strong document. Um we gave some feedback and I very much appreciate the fact that our feedback was incorporated into the final plan and Dr. Kelli put together a three-page document letting us know where exactly that feedback was put into the plan. And I think it's really important to the community at large to know that our work is valued and taken seriously. Um our school improvement plans, we had several new members to our team um on DAC accreditation this year bec um new meeting structure that we're doing. Um, and so now we have several new members, which is really exciting. But some of those people had never reviewed a USIP
130before. And so I made a video um that walked through a USIP and what we're looking for. And that video will be available to all new members moving forward. Um, and so I'm pretty proud of that. Um, we also had to change our process a bit because of the timing of the release of the school performance frameworks. Um, we had some teams of teams of two or three of our um, accreditation folks who independently reviewed the school improvement plans and then sent their feedback to me. Um, and then I reviewed and deleted redundancies and then sent that off to the principal so that the principal strictly got written feedback and could come back to me for any clarity that they needed. Um the goal of our feedback is always to help the schools to communicate
131with the community and families in a clear way what their goals are for this year and how they are trying to improve things in their um in their school. And we always know that when we give feedback, it is up to the professional judgment of that principal whether what feedback they incorporate into their plans. Um takeaways from all of the plans. All of our schools are committed to improvement and want the best for students at their schools. Um common themes this year included improving systems for database decisionmaking and systems for multi multi-tered systems of support and safety engagement and attendance were a clear focus for all of our buildings. That's all I got. Questions, comments, thoughts? Thank you guys for the opportunity. Thank you. Um and I will turn it over to the board um
132for questions or comments. Uh we appreciate the work that you do collectively. Uh it's a lot of time and energy for each of you to look through that and there are several committee members that are involved in this. So take our grat pass along our gratitude to each one of your committee members as well. I will. Thanks Director Huber. Just wanted to say thank you again. You have to have one of the most difficult volunteer roles in the entire district. Um I did want to ask you one question. If you can give an example of a time where one of the principles did take some of the feedback that you were asking for and and I all we heard those nights was those principles saying how much they appreciated getting that feedback and how valuable
133that was going to be towards making the changes they need to see in their communities. Yeah. I got a couple of emails back from people who were like, "Thank you so very much for all of this. I'm sitting down this weekend and I am going through the plan and I'm going to incorporate some of your feedback into the plan." And now, so we we definitely got some responses back about people who were grateful and changed some things. And I had one principal send me um their plan after they had reviewed it so that I could see where the feedback had been incorporated which I thought was great and I really really appreciated it. Thank you. Are you done director Huber? Great. Director Hrey, um I I will echo both uh President Malacham and Director Huber
134in thanks for doing all this. This is not an easy job and um it's nice to have a second set and a third set and a fourth set etc of eyes on these plans. So very appreciative of what you and your team does and also want to thank you for giving the the change in committee date and time and all that an opportunity to thrive. So appreciate that flexibility. Thank you. Thank you. And what's admirable is that uh you start some of this work in July when the board is on break for the summer and you guys are working. So um director thank you over the last almost eight years that I've been here the improvement plans have increased yearbyear and that's a credit to our staff obviously but also um volunteers looking these over
135and I appreciated your last comment on most of those which is you know proofread and check do grammar check before it goes to the board. These were the the most readable um improvement plans and some of that's probably the CDE formatting too that used to be worse so much worse. Um but the attention to detail it it makes them much easier. So thank you to all of you. Thanks. Thank you Director Art. you having served on the board for the longest amount of time uh you've got the experience and coming from you that the improvement plans have improved uh and they are much better right now and more robust u that um certainly carries its weight. Thank you. I appreciate uh what you guys did uh the collective work and also to the principles uh
136to be receptive to the feedback that they received from you and to incorporate that in their individual improvement plans. Thank you. Um, anything else from the district side at this time, superintendent? No, sir. Okay. Um, both uh you've had an opportunity to digest all this information over the last several weeks and uh uh you've also had an opportunity to engage with the school staff, the principles, and uh the district leadership as well. Any final thoughts or uh questions at this point in time before roll call? Director Bankers, I want to give a shout out to um Carver's principal, Mrs. Bizzle, who responded with um a very detailed plan for training for ESP at her school that I had asked her about when it came before the board. So, I definitely appreciate um her speedy response,
137but most of all, I appreciate the comprehensive plan to make sure that our educational support persons in our classrooms working with kids get the training that they need and that it's in line with what the teacher training is as well. So, thank you. Thank you. And Miss Bizzel is in the audience right at the back. Thank you. Appreciate it. Miss Huber, you have a comment. Director Huber, we missed the whole row over there of people who have these feedback loops going with these uh teams that are within the schools. And I think that if these plans are implemented to fidelity that there's no way that these schools are going to be where they're at this year, next year. And my comments uh my final thoughts and comments are going to pretty much reflect that uh
138over the past couple of weeks when I got to engage with each one of you and got an opportunity to visit some of your schools. I can see your plans in action. The plans are rigorous. The plans are thorough. You are doing the rigor walks. Uh I appreciate the cander too when you came in front of the board and uh accepted some of the um um there were opportunities to course correct maybe sooner in the past but um uh due to timing uh other you know school related personnel issues. uh um but having the candidate to come and accept that uh there were some mistakes made along the way and you are aware of what those mistakes are and now you are going to make sure that the same mistakes are not going to be
139repeated again. Uh um it's some of the most difficult challenging conversations to have in front of the board uh to talk about uh why um the the school performed in a certain way. But you've got a plan in mind. you're going to do more uh um regular formative assessments and follow through on it. Um um thank you. Thank you for coming in front of the board. I wish you the best as you um go further for the schools that that are on the first year on the state watch list. It's even more a priority that you course correct at this point in time because it's easier getting off the state watch list on that first year as opposed to going through multiple years of it. and I uh look forward to Galileo Mitchell and Adams
140as well progressing and getting off the state watch list. Dr. Kaki, thanks for all your work as well in this and all the people that are across out there. Thank you. Um roll call, please. Hi, I the eyes have it. The school improvement plans for all the schools uh that are on the state watch list and need to be submitted to CDE have been approved by the board. Now we are going to look at the next agenda item which is the district improvement plan. Director Hafley, can you please make the motion for action item I7? Yes. I move that the board of education approves the unified district Improvement Plan or UDIP for submission to the Colorado Department of Education. Second. Moved and seconded. Um, uh, Superintendent Call or I see Chief Art coming up as
141well. I do have an update from Chief Art. Okay, Nicole. Good evening, board. A couple quick updates on the UDIP. Um, number one, I just want to thank Court and her team. As she mentioned, they looked at the UDIP far earlier than we normally get to them this year, coming back in July to work on that on a special task force. So, we really appreciate that. They were on the ground level, able to look at it with us to say, how do school plans align with the district improvement plan? They offered suggested feedback that we took on things like clarifying language in the strategies to make sure they were more readable and free of some of the education ease. There's still a lot in there, but we cleaned up a bit of that. They encouraged
142us to tighten some of the timelines and also identified owners and specific action items. So, it was really helpful to clean those pieces up. When we presented the UDIP in the work session last week, director had some specific questions. So, you do see a version two uploaded tonight. I'm going to ask Melissa, I hope that has page numbers on it for you because I have a couple page numbers written down that I want to try to jump to as I explain these things. But overarching, I just want to say the new platform that CDE has for our district improvement plan and our school improvement plans has two separate buttons on the website. One for the district plan, one for the school plans. Director and I went through those because there are a little bit of
143different features depending on which plan you're in. One of the things that she discussed last week in one of her questions was understanding the difference between root cause and major improvement strategies. So Melissa, if you'll go to page five right now, the thing that Salesforce does, which is the platform that we're entering these plans into, is it gives us this visual, this graphic, if you'll scroll up just a tiny bit, it starts to show us, oh yeah, that way up, down, you know, um, it starts to show us the continuous improvement cycle almost in a linear progression, which is great that we have a graphic, but it's it's visually not exactly how change works. We know that these are actually cyclical actions that we're taking when you see the action steps. So if you look
144at that purple box on the far right and the blue box in the middle, rather than seeing this as a linear relationship between the major improvement strategies and the root causes, it's very cyclical when we think about it. If we want access to highquality tier one instruction, here are the actions we can take aligned to those root causes. Part of what director and a and I had a conversation about is this system in Salesforce is character limited. And so when you see a root cause, sometimes you're going to want something like instead of it saying the root cause is data driven instruction, the root c that's the strategy we're going to employ for the fact that data not might not be driving instruction as much as possible. So, if you want more of that clarification,
145Melissa, if you'll jump down to page 13 with that specific example, when you get to page 13, it uses the same. You might have to scroll down a little bit more. Keep going. There's going to be a little graphic at the top. There we go. Root cause analysis. You'll notice they're using pack pictures or those graphics um in order to show you you're connected to a root cause, which is that little yellow symbol at the top. As soon as you get down here where you have less character limit, you can see that we start to go in an inconsistent systemwide approach to data driven instruction is the root cause we identified to employ the strategy we're using. So if you want more depth on the root causes, just don't jump down there and you'll be
146able to see that. The other clarification that we talked through is on page 42 and that was the funding sources for major improvement strategies one, two, and three. Part of what the state's done by moving to a platform like this is tightened the guard rails on districts. So when you select something on one menu, it prepopulates what you can select on the following menus. So Dr. Kicki and I went back in after director. It's very at the very bottom of this page. Melissa, um the funding sources we went back into right there. You'll notice that last week it only said title one. David and I went back into the drop- down menus and were able to find additional options. And so we did update those per major improvement strategy. So when you go to major
147improvement strategy three which is connected to page three of the high school um SPF things like other was selected because we do get philanthropic dollars for the promise program that help support initiatives there. So those are customized now per MIS. Um, other changes that were made are are simply grammar and punctuation updates, which we will continue to read for before we submit the final document. There's always a way to sharpen that and make it even better. So, those are the updates. I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you for the feedback and thank you, Director, for working with uh Chief Art as well on this. Um, any questions or comments from the board? Director, thank you. I appreciate the attentions and and the conversation and I will just note that my earlier words about the
148school improvement plans and how CDE has improved. I didn't say they were perfect yet obviously and so hopefully feedback from districts this year and and schools too will help them along and whether they need more characters or just clarification somehow so there isn't that confusion of root cause versus strategy. It's always it's always a work in progress it seems. but they're better but not perfect but we'll settle for now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments or questions from the board at this time on the UDIP? Thank you. Thank you for all the work that you guys did. I do want to give a shout out to Mr. Reed too who's in the back of the room. I think you were part of the accreditation committee if I recall right and uh you
149went through some of these plans. So, since you are in person, I do want to give a thank you to you. Um, with that roll call, please. I I I The board has approved the unified district improvement plan for submission to CDE. Moving on to the non-action items. And uh looks like we only have one non- action item on the agenda today. This is accreditation of schools with school performance framework rating of 74 or above. Um so annually the board awards the accreditated accreditation accredited with the distinction title to the district's highest performing schools as recommended by the administration and the district accountability accreditation subcommittee. Superintendent call I turn it over to you for additional information. Chief Hotmer and Miss Courtourtney, I'm going to turn it over to Courtney. But again, this is a place
150where our DAC accreditation committee really stepped in using that monthly meeting to have discussions about our schools that they're going to propose to you tonight. Melissa, could you pull the agenda item up on the screen so we can look at the school list? So the accreditation subcommittee is tasked with um nominating schools for accreditation with distinction. Um and we use the school performance framework to as a guide for that and we use SPFs of 74 or higher. And so the schools that we'd like to nominate for accreditation with distinction just went away. Scott Steel Taylor Academy for Advanced and Creative Learning, Thomas McLaren, Chapida Freedom and Odyssey Early College and Career Options. Thank you. And we have saved the principles for the action item at the next meeting. Yeah. And we will celebrate uh each
151one of those schools uh as we normally do with the banner and staff from that uh school present. Um um we take a lot of time discussing about the schools that are on the state watch list, but there are several schools that are uh doing phenomenal work out there and are um uh as we discussed uh at several board meetings, Japa is one of the strongest performing or the uh highest uh achieving school in El Paso County. Uh and all these schools uh do this. Some of these names are very familiar and they come repeatedly year after year to repeat it and to show the growth and the achievement year after year. Um uh it is uh certainly um uh a challenging task and these schools step up the staff and the um uh administration
152at those schools do a phenomenal job. We look forward to celebrating these schools as action when they come as an action agenda item. Uh any comments from the board on this one? Seeing none, um, and as you visit these schools, continue to thank the staff uh to the board as well as you visit the school, continue to thank the staff and the uh students out there and the parents as well uh because this is a collective team effort. Thank you for presenting for bringing this to the uh board um on this on this item. Okay. Director, thank you. Just wanted to note um in in our note, if you're abbreviating Academy for Advanced and Creative Learning, it's going to need another A or they call it Academy ACL sometimes. So, I mean, that was how
153it started, but anyway, just to get that right for next time. Thank you. AACL, double ACL, that's all. Yes, there is an ACL in Colorado. What can we say? Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. and director art would know as she served on the board at the academy for advanced and creative learning. Um the next item on the agenda, future agenda item tasks from the board. Back to last year when we had discussed the calendar um we talked about wanting to have a little bit earlier start on reviewing that and the days and u other factors instead of just waiting until it's too far or too late in the school year to to talk about changes to it. So, um, I wanted to bring that to the awareness that we maybe dive into that with
154some ideas and creativity to support teachers and students and, um, look at some some new thinking. So, you're talking about the school calendar. Superintendent call. Uh, we start the first meeting in October. Um, so I think we could bring an update uh either to uh superintendent's report might be the most appropriate following that first meeting in October as an update to the board and see if there's um input or direction from the board based upon that first meeting. I don't think it'd be quite mature enough yet for a work session conversation um because I we have to give the committee a chance to also take the inputs from the members of the committee under some of the challenges that we're trying to overcome as a district still. Yes. Uh as they have a meeting, Chief
155Utmer will update the board through superintendent call. Um, and if there is anything that we particularly discussed the last time the calendar was in front of the school board as far as items to consider, I'm just trying to recall if anything came up. If so, send an email reminding the uh board and uh, superintendent G about that subject matter as well. So, that's taken into consideration as they look into the committee u meetings. Director, thank you. Um, I recently emailed the board. Well, actually, President Makam did on my behalf because I forgot to copy the board. Um, regarding missing content from the district health curriculum's supplemental textbook pages were purposefully removed from a textbook that presumably we had authorized and this is a violation of policy. So I'm just um I would like to have
156a conversation about how we can prevent such actions in the future. I'm curious if similar actions are taking place without our knowledge and those are questions I think that we as a body who is not informed who are not informed should discuss. So I just want to provide some context to the community as well uh as to what director is mentioning. It was a supplementary curriculum material and um um as this supplementary curriculum material was being reviewed during the summertime when the board was in recess uh uh the um uh feedback at the time from the administration was that some of these content was uh um not appropriate and aligned with um the standards. Um so um but um Superintendent G replied back to you which was sent to the entire board at this point
157in time. You want a further update on that on some of the questions that was asked? Yes, I'd like I did mention in my reply to him that I had further questions. What previous board action is in alignment with removing pages from a textbook? Uh, have district staff censored other textbooks or materials and are district staff taking other actions in the district using the same justifications? I think that cutting pages out of our textbooks, we there was there's no requirement to do so. The board did not suggest that happen and the board was not informed as compared to other recent um changes in curriculum. The board was not informed about the action. So there is apparently a failure in communication and I think if we aren't sticking to policy then who knows what else we
158aren't doing. It's a it's a matter of trust and further the issue of removal instead of just choosing to ignore it. We might not have to teach it but it doesn't mean we need to go around cutting sections out of textbooks. There are all kinds of examples of things that we don't teach in textbooks, but we're not cutting things out of them. So, it's troubling. Yes. Okay. Um, board members, is this a topic? Superintendent Gall, is there anything you want to add? I have nothing further to add in the email provided. Okay, great. Um, this can be a future agenda item update um if the board chooses to uh go in that direction. uh board. Um is this a uh you heard director art uh and uh the uh question she had. Um is this
159a item that you would like to director Jurgensson on this subject matter? Yeah. Yes. I'll just add that I I mean I believe the will of the board was there for director Mel Palam to act and then I think the Trump's title n updates are probably what also guided that too. So, um, I don't have a necessary need to investigate this any further. So, I'm asking the board, the rest of the board at this point in time, um, as far as a future update on the subject matter at um, a future point in time. Is this something what director Art requested? Is that the will of the board at this time? My thumbs up. Oh, okay. Director Bankers. Director Bankers. Um I'm undecided on this primarily because um I did get the response from the
160question was asked. I had not heard about it before. Question was asked. I did get the response that was sent out to all the board members and it still wasn't clear to me. Um, I think that there are questions uh out in public because as um Director Jorgensson said, there's a lot of miscommunication going on out there. And I'm thinking that the last thing I want to see have happen is that the public looks at uh something that doesn't seem above board. uh in my conversation and asking for more information uh what I have come to understand it is no longer the um the protocol that publishing companies restrict their textbooks to what's being asked of them from California, Texas and New York. We have a they have developed to a point a marketing point
161where they are now marketing their product to conform to standards by state which is a colossal thing for and quite uh expensive for publishing companies to do. But if they're going to continue to sell their product then they need to conform to what states are asking. And my understanding is that the pages that were uh removed from the supplemental text did not align with the board decisions that we have made and the priorities that we have set and that the pages in question were um vocabularies. Um I'm comfortable with the explanation that I've I've gotten. My un indision is that I don't know how much of this discussion we should have so that for those people those few people or many people who have a concern about uh the district taking on the responsibility of
162aligning our textbooks and our curriculum with our board priorities um in a streamline or efficient manner should be um something that we should discuss. to make it clear that um this board and perhaps that practice was a matter of keeping in line with the priorities that we have set. So I am undecided whether we should continue talking about this or not. Okay. If the board is interested, the board can get an update as part of the monthly report that we get from the superintendent. uh and uh any other unanswered questions can be directly asked to uh superintendent Gaul or his administrative team and he would be um able to provide the requisite answer. Um I see director Huber and Director Art. Do you want to talk about the same subject matter or is it something
163else? Director Huber, same subject matter. Okay, Director Huber first. So what I'm hearing from you Parth would be the director um would be that if we had further questions about if other materials had been uh affected that we could go to you and the superintendent. Is that yes uh as far as I know I've not been informed uh and neither is the board of any other material that has been impacted. This was a supplemental educational curriculum material where some of the definitions were uh removed. Um um uh and that's about what I know about the situation. Thank you for the clarification. Okay. Thank you, Director. Thank you. Um to Director Bankus' point, it isn't transparent. We normally approve our curriculum with a process and here things were removed again without our knowledge uh without public
164from the public input. I think it is bad precedent for us to give up our responsibilities for curriculum and we're turning to curriculum by assumption not direction from the board and that is part of the issue I have here. Okay. So I'll come back to the board by a show of thumbs. Is this uh information if you need additional information there are two ways to go about it. The superintendent can provide any additional information through the monthly report that the board receives or to the individual board directors can approach the superintendent with questions as well. Okay. And um yeah uh okay. Is the board interested in getting a collective report from the superintendent on this topic as a monthly report by a show of thumbs in the Mars report. Yeah. Okay. Great. Okay. So we'll
165get a collective report uh in the Mars report. Um uh and then if individual board members have additional follow-up questions, please reach out to superintendent call. Superintendent Call. Okay. Understood. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Looking over the calendar, looking over the calendar review, um uh Wednesday, October 8th, we will not have a board meeting that day. Uh we discussed the situation on October 8th. Um uh already earlier this evening. Uh uh board members are going to be several of the board members have volunteered to step into schools and provide additional support and administration is also being tasked with um uh supporting uh individual schools. So as a result we will not have a board meeting on Wednesday, October 8th. Um uh Wednesday, October uh 15th will be a work session with a potential special meeting
166when and then um I'm not sure about the rest of the schedule for uh when for October if we need additional meeting the rest of October. I will let the board know if that is necessary. Uh on uh Wednesday, November 5th will be our regular uh board meeting for the month of November. Um, seeing no further business, if there are no objections, this meeting will adjourn at exactly 8:00 p.m. Thank you. [Music] Next serve coming. Line drive deep into the back court. Yolith hits it once. Nyla hits it into the net. Bumping into Marisol in the process, but she's okay. Gets up. Five-point lead for Kya. 1813. Coach checking with Marisol to make sure she's okay after the collision. exchange thumbs up and next serve for Kya.