001e e e okay all right I'll just back it if it doesn't everybody have all right is it time [Music] okay am I on is everybody on you don't have a light tonight it doesn't work for all right it is Monday September 9th 2024 and I call this business session of the Elizabeth School District Board of Education to order can I get a roll call please 6 p.m. 6 p.m. thank you um director Booth is absent director Callahan here director Olson here director Powell here and director Waller present all right let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay before we get started I would
002like to thank everybody for coming this evening and also to ask you to please not note that this is a formal meeting and we request no speaking out to the board during the meeting um we have 30 minutes scheduled for public comments and um that will happen um after our communication section okay I move that the agenda for this September 9th 2024 business session be um approved as presented second any discussion no can I get a roll call director Callahan hi director Olsson hi director pal I and director Waller I motion approved I move that we approve the minutes from the Board of Education meeting on August 26 2024 as presented second any discussion can I get a roll call please director Callahan hi director Olson hi director pal hi and director Waller hi all
003right motion approved next up we have our Communications section and we have running creek here to present an elementary showcase thank you is that different HD is it said as an extended display by any chance Michael yep yep it is it set as an extended display your mouse just moved over to the other side there you go yeah thank you as techology um turn on your mic you have to hold it perfect there you go thank you all right as I said as we work through technology exactly am I coming through there okay um excite I I really appreciate the opportunity to be the first every year last year and this year I get to go first so I'm excited about that um thought I'd start out I always start out with a picture of
004me and my wife uh the reason being I'm excited to say we've moved to Elizabeth and uh my wife and I went through selling our home up north and moving down here and we've been loving living here in Elizabeth and getting to know the community um several restaurants I really love being at here in town and uh looking forward to to learning some more and visiting some other places but really enjoying our time being part of the Elizabeth Community now so I would love to talk some more about that if you want to talk to me about that but tonight I want to talk about running creek and running creek and the staff there and this is a photo of us uh at the beginning of the year of August there are 342 students right
005now in the running creek building with 61 staff members of those 342 there's 53 preschoolers and so we're doing good there we have quite a few students and the 61 staff members includes all the teachers and parents and custodians it's a a great team to work with and that is them I chose this picture because the other picture I have with the staff uh they're being really silly in and I love that picture but I thought now i' better be serious tonight and show the serious picture so that's them they're a great team to work with really getting to know them well it's a great staff this year I'm excited to where we're going but one of our new staff members this year is our new Dina students uh Jessica Henley came on board with
006us this year and she has 10 years of teaching experience at the elementary level also has an interventionist and a Behavioral deescalation Management she's been working in so she's done really well and I'm excited to have her we are excited to have her at running creek elementary and she's very passionate that comes across every day and everything she's doing and she really loves children and loves working with them so we're excited to have Jessica join our team this year I just want to share that because she's a a major um person in the building really impacts who we are what we do and I really enjoy working with her and the staff has really embraced her uh in building uh begin of the year um so last two years we've been doing job bears and
007I can say running creek has been at the job bears in the last two job fairs we have hired somebody and I really enjoy going to the job fairs meeting people I have a great team if you look at that picture right there Circle no got this picture here is from the job fair and that team has helped to be at the last two job fairs and done a great job finding people that would fit in with running creek and we enjoy doing the job here so we appreciate that as a team uh we have some new staff members as you can see they came on in July and August and Late July early August they went through some training we have a whole week with new staff um happening just them that is huge
008uh it really helps them uh learn about the district learn about the buildings learn about things went on before the rest of the staff uh comes on board the following week uh they get time in their classroom to prepare uh one of the things we did and I'll talk about here in a few minutes is our social committee hosted the new teachers that first Tuesday that they were here and think about it you're a new person coming into a building example would be where's the staff bathroom right they don't know and the social committee thought all about those things like where's the copying machine where's the paper um our social team put all that together gave them a tour of the building answered their questions made them feel comfortable and so I applaud our social
009committee taking on that role and and doing that with the new staff and this is also some pictures right here of some of the new staff uh that one down there in the bottom even has Dan in it we were all together and over at the High school have to spend some time with the team uh and talk with them and just get to know them personally um they're really cool people we have 10 new certified staff classroom teachers or interventionists and we have five new classified lunch pars or special pars uh joining our team this year but they all know where the teacher Lounge is the bathroom the Cofe Machin especially by now oh yes and so it's been great uh also at the beginning of the year we started out with the whole
010staff over at the complication um we really had a great time there with the staff and yes that is a person dressed up as a jaguar and doing their best imp impression of a Jaguar with a mask we just had fun it's all about school spirit and being the Jaguars and so you got a team there even putting on some masks enjoying their time there and showing their school pride and some posters and some shirts and wearing their running creek uh material um making signs and it was a lot of fun the convocation um also the beginning year we did uh professional development I'll talk a little bit more about that then we had our assessment orientation days down on the bottom right corner that's a first grade teacher meeting with some students going through
011what school will look like and doing some assessments within that day uh but there's a lot of excitement uh on those days and anticipation we got here okay RC teams um these pictures you might have seen uh if you follow us on Facebook you'll see what we did posted pictures of every grade level team and so up there at the top in the middle is our second grade team over here is kindergarten down here's first grade fourth grade fifth grade third grade and then our office staff our amazing office staff Carla and Paul um they're just amazing people to work with a lot of collaboration going on when they got together that's the first thing that even before we started in August these people were already talking these teachers about what are we going to
012be doing what are we working on and planning and preparing lot of lot of teamwork going on one of the things we did before during our planning or our professional development this over here and I was going to bring these guys along tonight but I I left them in the room because they like to go running about the building uh but these These are little animals over here in this picture where it says missing and they like to go play in the building and so during some breaks teachers will find them uh for us in the building and it's just a fun activity to do and explore the building and um it's really fun so we did that we do that during our breaks just some things to do for teamwork build that collaborative piece
013one of the things that we do at the end of every staff meeting is we talk about claim it name it explain it and so what we do them myself or or Jessica or someone else will share a picture something in their building from a classroom or something and we'll post this slide up and the teacher will say Ah that's mine so they claim it then they tell us what they're doing in that picture or what it is then they explain it this is happening during a staff meeting or professional development and what it do what it does is share ideas within the staff and they really enjoy sharing some things are happening in their classroom it's pretty cool to be able to say this is my wild board right and that's one one of
014the fourth grade teachers and he explained what it is Mr thieves and other teachers said that's not a bad idea maybe I will try that in my classroom so we do this at every staff meeting and they really enjoy doing that claiming naming and explaining uh during our collaborative collaborative time we developed a staff contract that is how are we going to conduct ourselves during our staff meetings our professional developments so these are guidelines that we all agree to and as I said Jessica is also an artist and so she took the paw print and made that a PA with our our agreements that we all agree to in our staff meetings it's pretty cool and then we all sign off on that saying yeah we agree with it then at each of our staff
015meetings we have one person who's a Raider they'll tell us how we did with our staff contract during the staff meeting and gives us feedback and then we hope that this uh applies into the classroom so every teacher has a contract in their classroom and we're helping them build those and also have uh Raiders in their classroom how they do on their staff uh the other pictures are from our professional developments as you can see we're engaged there doing our contract uh also enjoying some donuts uh or Bagels in the morning and just uh building a time of collaborative there and staff meetings are are where we also do the name it claim it but we also start out with a good things um when we do our professional development you the good things would
016be uh share some good things are happening like I have a teacher um this this Friday he's getting married and so he's out tomorrow or Thursday and Friday and very exciting time for him but that was his great thing he wanted to share about I'm getting married and so they sure good things are going on in their lives and uh so we do that also um but that's what we're doing for collaborative time we also have events and activities happen in in the building uh we do like School assemblies once a month they focus on The Graduate profile we'll talk talk more about that here in a second we also at our assemblies do the teacher of the month and that is sponsored through Farmers Insurance and we appreciate their support and helping us have
017a teacher of the month and nominating them and you can see down here at the bottom the last one one of them was Michelle Jones our fifth grade teacher who is teacher of the month uh but up here in this picture is our last assembly which we just did last Wednesday is where we introduced uh our graduate profile for the month of September and uh hand lot of fun teaching uh how we will conduct ourselves in assemblies and also at the end we did a thing uh where we did a minute to win it I'll show you some more pictures of that where we engage the staff and the students uh we also have activities in our B uh in our building and one of them was Paul bunan was in our building the other
018day um read the students and that he's down in the bottom right corner there looks kind of familiar Paul bunny in there but uh thank you uh superintendent snowberger for doing that also the community is engaged in our school uh up there in the top right corner is the Boy Scouts and the Cub Scouts I use them as example they came over and uh cleaned up and picked up a litter around the building and outside and we appreciate them very much and we appreciate any community members that want to engage at our school our school when I share with parents is we're a community school we want the community engaged we want parents engaged ining a building so we we enjoy having them in our school as I mentioned our assemblies we do our graduate
019profile it's a monthly Focus this month of September we're doing academically prepared we focus on one a month and during that time uh in the morning teachers spend talking about what does it mean to be academically prepared what does it look like and then they watch for that throughout the month and give out paw tickets uh to the students and that they can earn when they demonstrate academically prepar and what we're doing with the PA tickets is we're making positive calls home to parents when they get a PA ticket and so it's pretty cool uh kids are excited now we're using Paul this year instead of we we had J tickets last year now we have Paul and so we're doing that this year um but also at our monthly assemblies we honor those students
020who have been chosen by their teacher uh who have demonstrated that academically prepared for example this month of September and if you haven't been to one I would encourage you to join I'd love to have you there it is so fun to see all the parents there and grandparents and friends and family it is packed in the gym and the bleachers are full and the kids are excited and honored to get that award and so it's a really good time to celebrate the students and then also celebrate the teachers and choosing of those kids uh what we did end we're going to add to this year and we did at our last one was the student stat staff Student Activity we did a minute to win it so we had teachers come up with a
021student and they competed against one of their students and this one was a ring toss and our coach uh Madison wages put it together for us and so you had a teacher competing against the student it was just so fun to cheer it on and everybody wanted the students were the teacher and it was just a lot of enthusiasm there and so you can see that one is in the picture there with the running creek right here that one is four grade and they're going to compete in the second throwing the Rings over the cones and so we kind of just build some excitement and fun in there and competition with kids and uh we have those uh planned throughout the year at our assemblies so it's a lot of fun um opportunities to be
022involved in our building uh this year I believe our last ptco meeting had one of the biggest crowds ever and it is exciting to see it grow and engage engage in our building um we have several teachers are there but we have a lot of parents engaged in our ptco um Katie Messer is one of the parents and she just does an amazing job helping we organizing things and this Wednesday September 11th we have our back to school barbecue and I I hope many if you can make it that would be awesome to have you there from 5:30 to 7 uh it is a picnic out front and the ptco provides the food and and activities for for the children and uh it's just a fun time just to sit outside and joy hopefully it'll
023be a beautiful night and then we'll uh open the building and do our back to school where they come in and visit rooms and classrooms and meet with teachers but that's done through the ptco and it's a really fun event uh they have monthly meetings on a Thursday typically right after school at 3:30 uh they also host our hat and popcorn Day first time I ever heard that I'm trying to figure out what does a hat and popcorn do together uh but I figured it out now uh you can wear a hat and you can buy some popcorn and they're both a dollar each and that's a fundraiser for our btco and they're so much fun and that's a picture of them in the top right the parents uh who came in and helped prepare
024it and pass the popcorn out to the the classroom they deliver it to the classrooms uh it's a lot of fun and it makes the building smell so good smells like popcorn uh right below that picture is a small snapshot of somewhere a PTO uh ptco members uh at one of our meetings uh then we have uh volunteers uh we love having people in our building engaging working in classrooms and helping and in other areas too they don't have to be in the classroom they come in help in the cafeteria help in the office a lot of opportunities in the building to engage and help us in the building and um if you want to help in the building just let us know reach out and so we we Embrace volunteers we also have the
025Watch Dogs program that's dads of great students uh that's room through our counselor and um it's okay if you're not a dad we'll take you anyways uh and we do we have several who are not dads but come in and help us out and then the last one I have on here is the school accountability committee uh that's part of our ptco too we we hold that meeting right before our ptco meetings on Thursdays and uh share our information from our or or with our community from the school accountability but those are some opportunities to be involved at school uh my dad was a pastor so I like to talk a lot so I'm sorry if I'm going too long and uh communication so I love communication I I try to communicate as much as
026possible uh one of the things we do in our building is called the Jag tracks is down there on the bottom right and I think I have one oh my mous all the way over here I was gonna pull one up I let me see if it'll do it I'm going to move it over there just so you can see what one looks like so this is our newsletter it goes out every Friday uh I put a principal message in it uh talk about what's coming up at school I also share some things of what like this Wednesday is also Patriot Day wear your red white blue so this one just went out this weekend uh talk about things we need to talk about parking at school you know we partner with the church next
027door and we need to make sure we're following what they expect us to do um talk about back the programs we have at school piter day is Wednesday also it's a busy day Wednesday um homecomings coming up in October so we're going to look for that for homecoming parade school fees attendance snack donations pictures of what's going on in the building during that week I usually share with people and talk about safety drills upcoming events and then the menu for that week put that in there and then also it's not about it uh they can follow us on fa Facebook if they would like to see what it's like let me just jump over that real quick it'll show this is our Facebook page um got 290 followers it's growing and we get a lot
028of hits but this is us here and I put things on here typically try every day to put out information who we are what we're doing uh like it' be for picture days or it could be putting stuff on their newsletter back to the school there's a picture of all the staff in their District shirts celebrate what they're doing in the building talking about it um there's quite a bit of information probably if you were to go to our Facebook page you would have more of Who We Are and what we do in the building you know I really put up and there's a lot of people that follow us or who are watching our way the Facebook page so I appreciate everybody want they do there see if I won't shut everything down uh
029I put out emails uh through our phone system which pushes out also the the newsletter and like there'll be one tomorrow night REM mying parents of photo day coming on Wednesday I do phone calls I like to record phone calls in my own voice once in a while put them out in my own voice I think it's important to hear who I am in my voice so I like doing that uh might take me a few times to record it but I get it done for those who uh I try my best to be outside every morning when they're being dropped off kids getting off the bus or parents are bringing them and a lot of our staff are out there together and then we're out in outside after school during pickup time and so
030that's an opportunity to meet and engage your parents uh at school and then the last thing at the moment I here I have on here is Class Dojo uh teachers use Class Dojo it's a secure platform and you can communicate with parents and share information through Class Dojo so we have different things we're using for communication within the building get my mouse over here sorry that's my contact information and if you want to reach out to me that is my cell phone number on the there the mobile number I share that with parents uh I get texts from parents I talk with parents it's the best way to reach uh me uh because you know text that you get pretty quick with your phone and I can reply real quick uh so I encourage parents
031to reach out through text if they can uh but I do have email there and the office room number and then that phone number is for Jessica our students sure and her office number what I'm excited about this year and where we're going what we're doing and we got a great staff uh at running creek but thank you for your time allow me share this with you tonight appreciate it thank appreciate it appreciate it Michael thank you all right next up we have our transportation groups going to tell us how wonderful those new buses [Laughter] are so I have a little slideshow of what's been going on this summer we've been really busy this summer like you said we got 10 new buses we also got two uh new small Vehicles which we're we're in
032desperate need of um one of those cars goes to the Colorado de BL School must switched um so right here we're starting off with our 10 new buses um you can see we got a it's called a minur bus so it holds uh 12 students um wheelchair accessible it is I'll tell you what if that's a bus to be on that's the bus to be on it has AC for the students for that one and the one next to it is also our sped bus um they have AC for those students that have a hard time controlling their body temperature it is um a feature we need to have for those students to be able to make sure that they're getting to school safely and then you can see our other gened buses um we
033got a couple of these that are I think you could see this one right here actually another District backed out on it and it has like chrome wheels it has uh AC for the driver so there was kind of a fight there but kind of rock paper scissors on who got it um but it also has which is a lot of safety features so it has um crash detection on it so it actually tells you how far you are in front of you um there's a little little box that lights up so it's green when you're good yellow when you should start thinking about backing off and red that you're too close and it also has cameras that are 360 around it so it has a backup Cam and it has so when you turn
034your turn signal on uh little video shows in your student mirror of the cars on the side of you so it helps you make sure that it Lane is clear for you um we got two of those buses and I will say it also has a fog horn um or an air horn sorry we have a debate about that at my work um but it's really nice so one thing that we are doing is at the schools we're giving the kids a two-minute warning that you know okay you got to start thinking about it's time to get on the bus so we do a countdown and then everybody honks their horn at one time the fog Dorn the fog horn does get honked I'll tell you um but that way it allows those students to
035know and allows teachers to know that if there's any other kids that are bringing into the building it's time for them to get outside so um and and then we are now transporting Legacy so we have three buses that are at Legacy this is kind of shows you where we're parking um we started off with I think nine kids and last week we had 30 kids riding so it's really good and we're getting many calls every day about more and more kids taking interest interest in it um like I said I think it's been a great program Legacy has been amazing with working with us and when you know they're kind of new at this so getting the information we need and stuff they've been on top of it so what the students do is
036they go from Legacy they get off at the middle school and then they get on to their bus that takes them home one thing we did this year is we gave everybody an ID tag um that has a picture of their bus and then they look for the character that takes them home while on the other side it has a character of their shuttle bus so they know that their bus is the Bluebird bus or the um butterfly or kangaroo lizard lizard that's a great idea um so that way they know that no matter what they get on the lizard bus and then they get on the Lion bus that will take them home and then some of those split homes they have extra characters so they know which house they need to go to
037that was one of the biggest things that we found was that these students have a hard time remembering even though we park in the same spot every day the bus number changes and so those kids get scared to get on the bus so what we did was we got these PL Packers that have a animal and a route number so we no longer go what the bus number is each bus will always be Route 40 no matter what bus driver is driving whatever it is and it has the character to take up home and I will say that the high schoolers won't admit it but they really like it too because they too think they know it all but they forget what bus takes them home I think that was a great idea you know
038it's it's been amazing and the amount of calls that we get from the schools because kids don't know what bus they ride but they do remember those animal animals and so at the middle school we gave all the parents we told the kids they don't have to be you know it's not cool to have it on your backpack but parents can also hold on to it so the parents you know get calls from their students they can tell them what bus they ride with our elementary kids though we do ask that parents have them on their backpacks that way if they're a little shy and don't want to tell the driver their name it's also written on their ID tag so we can make sure we have the right kids on the right bus so
039it's been a huge addition to what we've been doing this year um team spirit so I got to say um we won the most staff that came to participate at the football game we had 75% of our staff show up which was pretty awesome um that's our our group right there they I told them to go ahead and bring their kids down for the cuteness factor to kind of help raise that a little bit um they did not count for the staff though but um but no it was great to see them they all stayed they cheered on the football team and um yeah we it's amazing to see how many people we have involved with everything um and it's SK around on me so we started off with our sixth and nth grade orientation
040with our new buses we are starting this year on the right foot um it was great to see everybody there you know everybody yeah that's me out there cheering on and I was out there for the start of every every building so to make sure that those students know where to go I was there at running creek and Colleen who is our um coordinator she was at Singing Hills so we were able to make sure to help those kids get on the right bus and then Colleen Katie and myself we were all there at Legacy to make sure to help get those kids on the bus and help show them where their buses were so we also particip ated in um bus rodeo what is bus rodeo it is you can see a couple of
041the obstacles here it's a way for our drivers to sharpen their skills and be competitive so they have to take a written test it's 50 questions and it's included first aid CPR knowledge CDL FMCSA and um regular driver driver laws so um they have to take that there's the obstacle core so um this picture here it's kind of hard to see but there's a pole here and there's another pole here and there's one here it's called offset backing well it's not really backing your driving through what they don't what you can barely see there is there's a pole sticking off of that fence and there's a tennis ball and you have to drive through stop turn through another gate and then stop and turn back and every time you hit one of those balls you
042get deducted points um you can kind of see right here this is diminishing clearing where it stop starts off 5T away from the bus and by the time you get to the very last one it is less than a foot away from the bus and once again every time you hit that pole those balls move and um you get deducted points and it was really great because we had five people four or five people that finished in the top 15 in the state and from our school district there was over 50 people that competed so it is pretty awesome we have some great drivers out there you also do scenarios um where they told told us this year that right here's a track and there's a train and you're broken down evacuate what do you
043do they had people that were actors and we had to get them off the bus and get them in the right place um we also did defective Vehicles they have 10 defective items on the bus and you have five minutes to find 10 so it was pretty awesome to see our group go out there and participate we have in the past won the state Trophy and so we're going for Cherry Creek again because we took it from them once um but we are nipping on their heels um so this is kind of what we've been up to um we had did Elizabeth Stampede over the summer which was so much fun our drivers had a blast and the community loved it we had buses non-stop running all day Saturday um we what we would do
044is they would park over by the Dairy Queen and then we'd pull in drop them off and then we just kind of keep kept cycling and at first the first night not so many people used it but then they were like oh this saves me a little bit of a walk so um they were awesome Stampede was amazing they treated us so well and so we're looking at partnering up with them again next year because as we know our community only grows and more and more people come and this is a great service for us to do um one thing I did not add on here is we are getting new fuel pumps so um our fuel pumps I want to say are from 1960s they're the old ones that you flip up and not
045the dials turn umow and we can't really get parts for for them anymore so they are old they're breaking down so we've partnered with the town the fire the county and um sheriff's department now on all using our um fuel pumps which is awesome way for all of us to be able to work together and use taxpayer money wisely um so what it is is we're getting new machines that have like a key fog that you put in you punch in your employee ID and how many miles and so we are able to track that for our cd40 we'll be able to get better and more accurate numbers for that so um and then each department will have their own key color key fob so that way we know how much fire is using how
046much police is using since we do not have a a bced around our property this actually brings like with fire or with the sheriff's department and police department it brings awareness there so so people will see that you know the police are there and less likely to make misro um and so yeah so we're we're working really close with that um don't know why am I um yeah so I mean we've been super super busy I know our fuel pumps should be coming in um they said or October 5th so you'll see a lot of construction going on around there um and then we have um a new radio system that we actually got a grant from our Safety and Security team they wrote a grant we received it our radios once again are outdated
047and um we pay a lot of money for our radio signal that goes to Squad pass so what we're doing now is we're going on to the State wide wide band which means that our radios can be heard anywhere in the state and so for our route our routes out here that go past Foxwood and go into the black hole because they came can't hear you know you can't hear them down there we'll be able to actually have service down there and um be able to hear and we have trips that go all the way to Grand Junction and we're getting ready to go to Pagosa Springs with the football players and those drivers will be able to have communication with us so it's a huge safety and I mean if our drivers break down
048or whatever we're able to get to them so um during the summer we had our state our yearly conference that we have to to go to for training and stuff and they had all the directors get together from the state and there was only four districts in the state of Colorado that are fully staffed and we're one of them so that was really awesome they asked us how do we do it we said we have ice cream so so it's something that we like to give our drivers every Wednesday we have ice cream when we do popcorn Fridays we kind of stole it from running creek um but it is nice the drivers look forward to Friday getting out of their car in the afternoon and smelling that popcorn and and um it's really great
049you know it's fun we're getting ready to start um a bowling team for transportation we're not very good but you were going to go have fun um just a way to do some team building and keep the morale going and get to know each other outside of driving buses cool so yeah that's what's we've been up to so we've been busy I think it's an example of how leadership makes a huge difference we really appreciate to your thank you so yeah so I brought with me tonight I brought Julia Miller she is our special needs um director coordinator director I my she also does account of payables which she is phenomenal at it is amazing to see how she has taken that role on and owned it and then we have Katie Arnold and she
050is our new um transportation trainer uh she was with us for a while she left and I talked her to come back in and so she has stepped up she's doing a fantastic job and um we have Colleen donah she's not here tonight but she is our coordinator and uh does our payroll and just has done Leaps and Bounds with it she's done fantastic you know there's a little bit of a learning C this is uh her first official start of the school of school year so she got to see all the craziness um we had about a week to get almost 2 200 kids assigned to a bus um once we get them enrolled in school then we have to get them all ID tags best routes and get the information out to parents
051so it's been it's been a fun start of the year and we look forward to the rest of the year well thank you all everything that you're doing it's it's wonderful it's wonderful and I'm sure our parents feel especially come on you know putting their kids on that bus so you're going to see more Legacy kids too yeah you know it's been it's been great to see these kids that have never the bus before and they get so their faces light up when they see the bus and like we could get on that and then um in October we have a national bus safety week coming on so we'll going be going around to each one of the schools and teaching students how to cross the front of the bus safely how to sit properly
052on the bus and make sure that the students are safe that's good who came up with the animal idea it was I saw that yeah so what I did was we um made running creek is Zoo animals and then we did singing heels as farm animals and then our high school middle school are reptiles um that on purpose um but no we did that so that way we know that they're separate so we know if a dog bus calling in we know that that's a Singing Hills bus and then with our route numbers we changed them so um all Singing Hills numbers are are 200 our 20 Series so 20 on up running or our high school middle school is 30 and and then our k312 is 40 and our speds are 100 so that
053way if we're on the radio we hear a two we automatically know it's a Singing Hills or if we hear it's 100 we know it's a sped route that needs Assistance or needs something so it's easy it's fast and um yeah drivers love it and the kids love it so good maky well when we were at the convocation your transportation group was kind of sitting with with the board people and and I it was just such a fun conversation with with some of y'all and honestly you all care about the kids so much and all the drivers care about the kids so much it was really amazing and very very um very heartwarming to to talk to all of you and so we appreciate it thank you thank you so much you know um sorry
054I just got to say hats off to you I see some of my neighbor kids now riding a bus that never would be ride the bus our ridership has so I give you a lot of credit thank you our ridership has definitely grown um and it's great to see because that's what we're here for is to get those kids to from school safely that's our our job and we you know are the first face as kids see in the morning and we try to start their day off with a smile and a good morning and then we're the last kid they see until parents get home or Guardians get home so um we become friends counselors cheerleaders um you name it we're there for those kids and you know we do take ownership over those
055kids those are our kids my when I drove a route um those were my kids and to this day they're still my kids you know um they still see me and uh they see Miss T you know they come running up and they're growing adults and they're like how are you we were at a summer training and we went into Jimmy John's for lunch and um we're just standing there talking and all of a sudden out of nowhere you hear a Miss T and we're looking around the kid behind the counter was a kindergartner that drove my bus oh wow and he had the biggest smile on his face and could not stop staring like oh my gosh that's Miss tea and so of course I did what everyone else would do had to take
056a selfie with him and I sent it to his sister going look who I got to see and she's like yeah he wouldn't stop telling us so it's great to see the relationships and stuff that we we build and you know the guidance and stuff that's good so right well thank you Che very much chrome wheels CH wheel thank you so much awesome thank you okay so next up we have board reports um I'll kick it off so last week we had the automotive building the fundraiser the barbecue and it was a lot of fun to see the building I mean it's it's it's getting there finally after seeing stacks of material forever so um I'm just curious so how did the the fundraising go well we we have a 100,000 in pledges and I
057actually got an email today from someone who's interested in raising increasing their pledge so it's actually kind of fun so we're going to be meeting I just sent out an email to our fundraising team to see about our next steps so we're uh onethird of the way there so we're not there yet we still have a $200,000 to go and I'm again still looking to continue that effort so um anyone out there who's interested in contributing we're not there yet so please reach out all right thank you for giving us an update on that anybody else have anything you want to talk about I don't have anything today I don't have anything okay just I stole it you stole away the auto my big thing all right Dan you are up all right well I
058do want everyone to know that we have received two Charter applications they are for the same location so we have two different uh groups that are um have submitted a charter application for the independent site um just to give folks a timeline um the district is currently reviewing those Charter applications uh we hope to complete the district review so the district reviews those Charters um and we provide uh feedback to the groups who have submitted Charters we plan to do so by September 20th our district accountability uh and advisory Council will uh have a chance to also review those Charters and provide feedback to the board um the uh District accountability committee will receive those Charters this coming week you'll see that the board uh will confirm membership of the DAC this evening so that's
059why they haven't received it yet um there are some new members of the Dak that will be confirmed this evening um and the Dak will uh provide feedback on at their first meeting on September 26th um and then the board the board of those Charter uh will actually receive that feedback the week of the 23rd they will be able to respond because sometimes there may be some things that they'll get feedback on that maybe may have questions or or areas of their Charter that may um they may want to provide some additional information so they'll have uh about a week a week and a half to provide any additional information if they choose to do so um the board will then provide them an opportunity to do a public presentation so both of those groups
060will have a chance to do a Public Presentation probably during the week of October 21st remember we have fall break uh in uh in October so probably during the week of October 21st we don't have a date yet um but as soon as we have the date we'll make a public announcement uh of that uh that same evening we anticipate we will have a public hearing meaning the public will after hearing from those two Charter groups have a chance to uh give the board feedback on those two applications and then at this point in time the board will make a decision uh on those two applications at their October 28th board meetings so just to uh give uh the public uh some idea on that timeline um both of the charter applicants have been provided
061with that timeline as well I do have a forum next Wednesday here in this room so do want to invite parents who are interested um forums are really an opportunity for dialogue so I don't have a presentation I don't have topics that I'm bringing to the table anyone who has uh topics that they'd like to talk about ideas thoughts concerns um uh are invited to come it's from 6:00 to 7:30 here in this room uh so that Forum will be here next again next Wednesday from 6:00 to 7:30 uh invite you to join me here and then um we did start something new last week um Jeff Mah our new public information officer um he comes with a a TV background and so we are doing a little more video this year you may have
062noticed that um and so in addition to our written uh superintendent updates um we are doing also a video update and so last week we reduced we produced our first video update and so we did kind of a review of August and a look ahead in September and so that is available on the um District website and certainly appreciate any feedback whether that's helpful or not um during covid we found in my last District that sometimes people like video they can click on it and listen and listen while they're driving they can listen while they're fixing dinner and so we'd love to hear if that's helpful or not uh to folks so please do give us some feedback um Mr sea freed also mentioned running Creeks open houses this Wednesday September 11th at 5:30 at
063Renning Creek so for our Renning Creek parents who um uh want to make sure you know that that's open house this Wednesday and then last week uh everyone knows we had one of those Dreadful events that everyone doesn't like talking about we had another school shooting here in our country um you know that that's something that that I am am really proud of our district and the work that we've done with our School Safety and Security team we have two of our Safety and Security specialists in the back of the room um that we really do [Applause] appreciate you know our team of Safety and Security Specialists worked really hard this summer um we have uh Safety and Security specialists in all of our schools um this district has chosen to hire very highly skilled
064highly trained individuals to be in our school some of which who are armed um who have a background um and are trained um to to protect our schools um but it takes all of us working together and I I want to continue to encourage parents to have those conversations with our children you know um I was a principal in Florida when Coline happened um and you know it's really important that children remember that if they see something if they hear something to report it to share it we have safe to tell which is a great tool for students and parents if you haven't looked at saf to tell saf to tell .org is a website that you can learn more it's a great app on phones for kids for parents um but for students to
065remember to tell their administrators to tell a teacher if they see something out of the ordinary it's really important that we take advantage of reminding our students everyone's a part of our Safety and Security team in in our district um and we take it very seriously our safety team gets saf to tell reports I get saf to tell reports our princip get safe to tell reports around the clock and we don't wait till the next day to respond to those we I have a special text tone on my phone if I got one right now you'd hear it and we don't wait we don't say oh we'll deal with that tomorrow we deal with that now um and we respond to that and if it's a threat if it's a concern if it's a student
066who's in danger if it's a student someone's concerned about we deal with that now um and we respond and we react and it's important that people know that and so it really is important uh you know we don't want Elizabeth to be one of those districts in the news um and it really takes all of us working together to make sure that we um that we that we take Safety and Security in our district very seriously so I just wanted to take a moment uh with with the happenings here uh happenings of what occurred in Georgia to just remind us all that um while I'm really proud of the work that this District is done um that we remind each other that it's never too late to really remind our students that they're part of
067our team to and that when they see something if they're concerned about something report it let us do our jobs let us look into matters let us take do what we need to do to make sure that we remain safe at all times so thank you and I think with that that's oh also September 24th board coffee so September 24th our board um is having their coffees at dismissal time at schools September 24th is at Singing Hills um so last year the board had coffees at uh different locations around the community we're hoping that this year being at schools at the smle time that it will be more convenient for parents to just uh park in the parking lot and come in and have coffee and chat with board members I think this board has
068really worked hard to keep keep open dialogue and so this is a great opportunity for board members to be able to engage parents in two-way dialogue so September 24th 3:30 at Singing Hills um we hope parents will take advantage of that opportunity sorry took that away from you sorry all right thank all right so next up we have public comment we have 30 minutes allocated time limited time is limited to 3 minutes per person and Jamie is tracking all right so first up we have Michelle gazinski I think the mic was turned off so you need to oh yeah it might be off there you go y thank I'm a mom to a preschooler and kindergartener at Singing Hills this past week I watched a short parade of first graders carry armfuls of books from
069their classroom to the work room next door they did this myself and another mom could start to catalog their teachers classroom libraries like you asked fortunately Heather's not here but I was going to let her know I didn't find any SpongeBob books but there were all sorts of princesses and cars and cats and hats detectives and Adventures but we only finished 155 of the books that morning and we left piles for other parents to finish later so I don't know maybe SpongeBob me the parents then last Friday to celebrate a week of learning listening finishing their work and staying on task those same students earned a fun Friday each kid grabbed a book from the classroom library and flashlight they crawled under the desks and tables snuggled into the comfy spots in the dark and
070read their books in the glow of tiny lights such Creative Learning provided by their teacher or was it entertainment it's hard to tell when they're six there isn't a Line in the Sand learning is fun the teacher even sent us pictures of the kids because it was adorable we can thank God for exceptional teachers who know how to unlock and Inspire these little humans they're more educated and specialized in molding these young minds and to send a message that they're not trusted is deeply disturbing to me obviously there are age appropriate books and Librarians are the first eyes on new purchases so there lies The Gatekeepers to review and confirm their appropriate perhaps you could look and actually consult them and see what support they need at that juncture before the books even enter the
071system if I can get an email with my when my kid wants to check out a book on your new yet arbitrary list and I can get an email when her library book is late why can't I get one every single time she checks anything out I mean I'll say it might be help on Tuesday nights when I can't find the book that she checked out the previous week because you know they only go to the library one day a week and they check out one book so why not use the technology already in place and tell me what my kid is checking out every single time whether it's on a list or not that's 100% in my control and as a parent there's no need for list decided by you or a committee to
072control my child's curious mind if Parental Control is truly your motivation prove it remove these lists that are leading the edge to book Banning thank you thank you next up we have Claire Waller so I'm just going to precursor this by saying yes John Waller is my husband which is why my comment is not directed at the board is directed at the people in this room outside this building and listening to this online who are not in favor of the review of the books I've I've read the books in question that were on the short list to be removed and I genuinely want to know why exposing grade school children to a book called The Bluest Eyes which talks about touching themselves sexual acts with other children is okay for grade school I also want
073to know why a book called 13 ways is okay which talks about killing yourself I don't see why we want to have that in front of third graders I mean for that matter let's just load up the fifth graders take them to the movies theater and watch them 50 Shades of Gray oh no we can't do that that's an R-rated movie they wouldn't be let in censoring is not Banning I'm an English Lit major I know the difference of the definition children are sponges they absorb everything I've heard comments about that this is a violation of their first amendment rights let's not try to put lipstick on a pig people unless you're going to start teaching Civics in kindergarten they have no clue what the first amendment is teachers are The Guiding Light of what
074these children are exposed to and absorb on a daily basis the classroom is not their personal social experiment yes absolutely email the parents when a book is checked out I've heard comments about books called The Kite Runner and The Diary of Anne Frank I read both they are appropriate at a certain level absolutely but parents should be informed I don't disagree with that so again I ask the people in this room who are not in favor of reviewing these books what is your intention here other than to rob the innocent of childhood from our children I am a mother and I am a grandmother and I don't want this kind of Filth exposed to anybody's children let alone my own social media shovels enough of this on a daily basis so that parents are already
075having to monitor so least of all we don't need it in our school's libraries and in our classrooms I understand that the teachers want to have classroom libraries wholeheartedly yes but why do they want to hide what the books are if you're hiding it it shouldn't be in the classroom let the parents know thank you Sunni Mills what up next sunny sunny I'm sorry I'm a retired teacher and I'm 70 so I have a lot of experience however I'm not commenting for myself today although I have to say there were a lot of allegations just made that I think are totally erroneous but maybe you can explain them to me later all right so what I loved is the presentations everyone made how fabulous that's the School those are the people who love children those
076are the ones who give their life to the children that's what I did that's what all my people did and that's what I'm sure I would say everyone in the school district probably does but I'm going to be speaking for um roxan Nicole she asked me to come and say this I would like to address recent developments regarding the right to read and potential First Amendment infringements within the Elizabeth School District it is essential to acknowledge that recent actions concerning classroom libraries sensitive booklift and the Banning of texts appear to exceed the boundaries of your Authority let me draw your attention to a clear violation of Elizabeth School Board policy public concerns complaints about instructional resources the policy emphasizes first the board acknowledges the need for students to have free access to a wide range
077of books and materials and recognizes that the professional staff's right to select these resources it also outlines that challenged materials should be judged as a whole considering their purpose rather than their isolated Parts criticism is expected but censorship by any individual or group is not permitted this is in your board uh directives a re-evaluation process should involve a thorough review by a committee of each book including the building principal a subject teacher a media specialist and a parent representative this is your board policy regarding materials that could be challenged states that one religion factual unbiased material on all major religions has a place in school library two ideologies librar should with no thought towards sway reader judgment make available a balanced collection of primary and factual materials on various ideologies or philosophies which exert or
078have exerted a strong force either favorably or unfavorably in government current events politics education and other phases of Life three profanity of s materials shall be subject to a test of literacy Merit and reality by media Specialists and teachers since our left thank you okay so I suggest you ReRe your own policy and follow it next up we have Tom Peterson good evening bo uh Tom Peterson at 1366 Conifer Trail and uh just a couple of comments I'd like to uh thank the board for your support of the technology program and the event that we had a couple weeks ago what a phenomenal uh program for the district we should be proud of and I'm aware of at least one family that uh had kids in the district uh and went out of district and
079one has come back to Elizabeth because of the technology techology program and I think it it will only continue to grow and and be a great thing uh secondly I I shout out for the high school and Military Appreciation at the football game that is just such a you you think of ice cream and popcorn and celebrating our military as ways to draw the community together and I can't be more proud of our high school for doing an event like that um thirdly I did come in and review some books uh that uh uh were on the Shelf I focus on high school books uh that's U my K I had three kids graduate from high school here and the ones that I read and I filled out the form had no educational value and
080I felt they were inappropriate and uh they were consistent if it was a movie it would be an x-rated movie and and that needs to be addressed thank you for your efforts to to uh provide accountability what the end game looks like that's up to the board but I appreciate your efforts on on accountability and then finally I heard there were some protesters and demonstrators outside um I was told they weren't there when I came I was told they were Democrat activists or those that were or are part of the Democrat Party U Mr sreed spoke to a community school um Community uh voter registration there are 420 pre-registered Elbert County students uh kids ages 16 to 17 that have chosen to become pre-registered in Elber County and and five have chosen to register with
081the Democrat Party so that's just over 1% so as you look at Community Values community school and Community efforts that is one data point that I think is uh is is accurate with respect to the viewpoints of the community so thank you for what you do and for your um your attention next up we have Dave Fletcher good evening um director pal I want appreciate uh the book yall curating the books I I read through every single one y'all had out there disgusting filth they are x-rated they were had no value whatsoever to a child who is trying to learn they should be even adults shouldn't be reading those books they were disgusting and I I appreciate what y'all are doing I I appreciate what the whole board is doing for this uh you were
082elected to stop the Soul Murder of our children which is what these people want to do they want to murder The Souls of our children and we have to make sure that they can't do that and I appreciate everything that you're doing it is I I just couldn't believe some it words uh Escape me for some what I read in some of those books it was just it was just filth and uh um I I want to offer my services if you need help uh just reviewing curriculum uh just a little bit about me um I am a Scientist and engineer I build Space Systems I have a degree in electrical engineering and I graduated Kum LA from the naval war College I was a naval officer for 20 years um that degree of the
083from naal war college is basically a history degree it's National strategy um but that's basically a history of War so I can uh I can help you with uh those the any curriculum review you're trying to do if any of the people in this District want to debate I'm happy to do so we can go maybe rent some space out and and we can go at it because Soul murdering children is not going to happen here um and that's that is the bottom line the uh I anybody who believes that they know more about how to raise my child I naturally distrust I I don't trust anyone who thinks that they know more about my child than I do and uh the you trying to to remove these books it saying that someone can bring
084a book into the school without it being uh reviewed says that you trust 100% everyone that walks into the in those doors I was a naval officer for 20 years I don't trust all naval officers and I don't trust all teachers they uh I know that 90 plus perc of them are there to do a good job some of them are not so but I thank you I appreciate it thank you okay next up we have have consent items I move that we approve the consent items 8.1 through 810 as presented second can I get a roll call please director Callahan hi director Olson hi director Powell I and director Waller hi okay motion approved um next up we have action items so the first one we have to review is the adoption of policy
085GBE e- E-1 social media and uh we talked about this one at the last meeting various edits have been made to create this policy based on feedback from us um we looked at some other District materials we've got our wonderful Pio and administration so I move that we as the board approve the adoption of the new policy GBE d-1 social media as presented second this policy is one we know will continue to add to it um it's far from from exactly as I think the board would like it to be I think there's some additional policies um uh samples that you've seen in other districts that we'd like to add to it I think our request as a district is that we go ahead and adopt the elements that are in it um Jeff Maher
086public information officer I know know um Mary has spent some time the past couple of weeks um going through some of the model policies that that have been identified We Believe what's in this policy are really the essential pieces that will give us what we feel we need to implement a social media oversight right now um and give us kind of the framework necessary to make sure that we can um get some control of social media both a district platform form as well as some guidance for our staff and a use of of personal social media um and then we can continue to build upon it so we we don't believe this is it but we believe it's a good start and we'll continue to build upon it so with that we we'd recommend adoption
087of what what you have in front of you and then certainly we'll continue to build upon it moving forward who was the second was that you m okay I agree I mean it's it's a work in progress I mean it's better than what we had before y all right um any other discussion it will be a work in progress with AI and everything Conant all right so can I get a roll call director Callahan hi director Olson hi director Powell and director Waller okay motion approved next up we have the first reading of revised policy ik kfb graduation exercises so this policy if you look through it it's got some minor verbage changes regarding the dress code dress code including now stating that students must comply with the dress code at graduation so I move
088that the board approv the first reading of policy ik kfb graduation exercises second okay and you'll see the the importance of that as we get to the dress code policy specific to graduation um this will come back to you unless you feel it needs to come back to you uh for further discussion I'd recommend to come back to you on consent at your next business meeting I agree I mean the changes were very minor but important any further discussion okay can I get a roll call director Callahan hi director Olson hi director po hi and director Waller I okay motion approved next up we have uh first reading of revised policy JB equal education opportunities and this policy has also been revised to include some minor edits and legal reference changes as there were some
089revised uh Colorado revised statutes added so I move that the board approve the first reading of policy JB equal education opportunities second and discussion yeah again I don't I don't see anything that that would lead us to have to have further conversation that uh adding relevant data other than just discipline records and again some statutory references um unless there's concern i' also recommend this come back on consent at your next business meeting okay any other discussion right can I get a roll call please director Callahan hi director Olson hi director pal I director Waller I okay motion approved next up we have the first reading of revised policy JF admission and denial of admission and again this is another policy it's been revised to include some minor changes to verbage and it added the added
090religion to the criteria in the non-discrimination section so I move that the board approved the first reading of policy JF admission and denial of admission second okay any discussion I just want to comment about the the addition of religion was to make it jive with the list of all of the protected categories in all of our 47,000 other po where that little string of things happens and it was just inadvertently left out of there so that was kind of why I was added there and same on this one unless there's feeling that you should be discussed again I would recommend consent okay can I get a roll call director Callahan hi director Olson I director pal I and director Waller I okay motion approve next up we have the first reading of revised policy jca
091student dress code so this policy has been revised to include minor verbiage edits shall the will or must um and language regarding our graduation adornments and legal reference changes so I move that the board approve the first reading of policy J IA student dress code second okay this specifically adds inappropriate or disruptive uh to clothing paraphernalia grooming jewelry hair clothing accessories um which is from casby's recommended language then graduation adornments um uh it does add tribal regalia uh cultural um decorations graduation caps um and it does indicate um uh require and request permission so um so that things must be preapproved but um it does list some specific things that that um are recommended um that that should be should be pre-approved so obviously things that are excessive or considered to be um disruptive would
092would would need pre-approval but but um this is why that dress code was referred to for for graduation because of that addition to this specific thing um again I if you're comfortable with it I would say I think this could also go on consent unless you feel like the the major changes would would be something you'd want to discuss further no I just I just look forward to enforcement yeah exactly y i agre umre I think it does give give that that ability to yeah I think certainly with the decoration of of graduation camps and things like that it does sometimes lose that yeah decorum at at graduation which I haven't seen it in Elizabeth but I have in other graduation ceremonies so I I do kind of like the ability of being able to
093control that and I think Elizabeth has done a good job of that but this does give the enforcement Mobility for just day to day yeah okay yeah and day to day exactly yeah I understand okay so consent would you agree I I agree consent you guys okay with that okay okay all right any further discussion okay can I get a roll call director Callahan hi director olon hi director Powell hi and director wallers hi okay motion approved uh next up we have first reading of revised policy Ji C DD violent and aggressive behavior and again uh minor edits um to include legal reference changes so I move that the board approve the first reading of policy jic DD violent and aggressive behavior second okay discussion definitely looks like just more statutory reference so consent again
094next meeting and this won't be the September meeting but the O October meeting all right can I get a roll call director Callahan hi director Olson hi director pal hi and director Waller hi okay motion approved next up we have class so um so last meeting we talked briefly about it um it's an organization put together as a potential alternative to casby um and I went to a summit and I thought it was very helpful hearing differing opinions on policies that we're looking to implement you always have the casby opinion but it's nice to get a a second opinion to just kind of confirm or if you're having any questions to go maybe we don't need to go that route so um basically what we're proposing here is um joining with a membership for the
095rest of the year um we would get it at $3,000 um so I move that the board approve the membership into the Colorado leaders for academic success second all right discussion I am just full disclosure I am on the board of class it stands for Colorado leaders for academic success is what it stands for and it is um a newly forming organization it has been um the uh Articles of Incorporation and the 501c3 um paperwork was filed um about five or six months ago and um we are trying to build it up we are trying to get it going so that it is a real useful tool it has they have had a lot of U good people that they've had uh webinars and um and there are I think like three or four of
096them I don't know if you got the email just yesterday or today there's two or three uh ones coming up here in September um they they have some excellent speakers and the summit that um Rhonda said we were it was at the beginning of September I think or end of August I can't remember the day it was a couple three weeks ago yeah my life is out of control but anyway August 24th August 24th there we go um and uh it was an excellent an excellent thing it was an inperson event and it was really well done um and we have now hired a person who will be our policy um Guru I guess so to speak she will be developing model policies and be you know doing the research that casby does you know
097with regard to um statutory changes and stuff that are required and so it will become a a resource for that we um are a member of casby so we do get that information and we will continue to because obviously casby has been around for a long time and so they have you know a lot of stuff built up already but this organization will be um building it up and uh I I I suggest that we vote to to go for this membership the membership is kind of on a July 1 through June 30th timeline so this uh this this year's membership is sort of the initial inaugural inaugural year membership and it will be effective through June 30th of 25 so any further discussion can I get a roll call please director Callahan I director
098Olsson hi director pal I and director Waller hi all right motion approved next up we have our district accountability committee updated membership approval so we've had a few changes to our DC membership um based on resignations and students uh transitioning between schools so Robert Roland has resigned from the Dack and what we propose is Chrissy Hal is shifted to Robert's former role as a community representative Kristen sanbor take Chrissy's role as the EHS parent representative as she is no longer a parent at Legacy and Jennifer Wallen to be appointed as the parent at Legacy of canopy to join the Dak all other appointments are going to remain the same um on the parent Community side we're also changing the teacher rep at Singing Hills as if you recall our new salary plan if if they're
099involved in committees it gives them the opportunity to get those points and so it's it's fair that we um spread around those opportunities to be involved so um that's pretty much a summary of what it is and um so I just to point out um we only have one Elementary on the bylaws we have one elementary teacher rep which is will be Singing Hills Christine b Stony um Renning Creek last year we had a parent who also was a teacher um um meliss Melissa Melissa's no longer a teacher there she she'll be the parent rep so we won't have a teacher rep at mning Creek um and your bylaws really don't call for that so um so just to point that out um so we'll make sure that um we get that the teacher from
100Singing Hills reaches out and gets teacher reports from Renning Creek but just just to point that out last year we had it kind of naturally built in but our bylaws only call for one Elementary one Middle School one high school teacher that so yeah that's a great point it's important to get those updates yeah exactly so but I think it I we'll we'll make sure that Christine Knows to reach out to to to running creek teachers to make sure that she gets an update from teachers at both elementary schools so okay but that's still open for running creek to come in with a representative we we don't have a position because we have to have more uh non-staff members than than than staff members on Dak Dak has to be more non-staff members than staff
101members and so um so we so our bylaws purposely don't have have a teacher from every building because when you have teachers and principes you you can outnumber the number of of parents and community members and so Dak has to have a larger number of non non staff members than staff members so that's why the bylaws only have one teacher per level uh on on representative uh so so in larger districts you have an elementary teacher and that elementary teacher gathers feedback from teachers at other schools and we'll have Christine do that at both elementary schools so any further discussion okay so I move that the board approv the updated DC membership second all right any further discussion okay all right can I get a roll call director Callahan hi director Olson hi director Powell
102hi and director Waller hi all right motion approved next up we have disposition of suspended books um so tonight um we need to make a final determination of the suspended books that we had people come in and review so I move that the board permanently removed the 18 books that have been on display in our district office for parent feedback over the past days second okay um so for discussion I'm going to start it off so I understand this this was not an e easy decision there was a lot of of back and forth should we you know some of those books even though they seemed a little benign should we just mark them as sensitive move them up a grade level move them to the high school um you know that would have definitely
103been an easy way to do it but um ultimately the majority of the community feedback was to remove and it did play into my decision but what probably played into my decision more is that it's my goal to get this District's Focus back on academics and I think that our kids will do better our teachers will do better um I think everybody overall all in the community will be better served if we put the focus where it needs to be and that's back on academics in our district so so based on that in the direction that I that the my vision for the district is again back to the basics um let's keep the focus on academics and um you know this is this is just one small step forward so that's that's my opinion
104on it I with you okay I mean you know one of the things that I looked at is I looked at some of the other very successful schools in Colorado you've got some charter schools that are extremely successful and you will not find any of these books in their Library what you're going to find is you're going to find Rich contents Rich curriculum stuff that stimulates their lines makes them you know someone said it earlier they're little sponges and um maybe some not so little but it's what's important to me is that we give them the education and the tools that they need to succeed that's the most important if kids are at the heart of everything that we do then these aren't easy decisions you know you take a lot of blowback for it
105but for me it's it's important that we do what's right for the kids so that's where I'm at and I I do believe that it is the board's responsibility to protect our kids from exposure to inappropriate content and I believe that's what we've really tried to do and there are studies that show that um this you know the sexualized kind of content and and things um actually increases um sexual risk taking in minors and leads to all sorts of all sorts of you know bad things down the road from that um there are studies that show that these kind of this kind of content is not a good effect on our children and so that's what we are trying to protect our kids for many of these books hadn't even been checked out for years
106honestly um and like Ronda said uh the majority of feedback from the people who came in and reviewed the books was to remove them and so um like she said that wasn't we we wanted the con the the U the feedback and we really appreciate all those people who came in some people came in and spend a lot of time looking at every single book and writing um things up and or most of the books at least and um they spent a lot of time and we appreciate it very much we appreciate all the feedback that we got uh it was good to know but uh the majority were in favor of on each of the votes okay any further discussion no no okay can I get a roll call director Callahan hi director Olson
107hi director Powell hi and director Waller I all right motion approved next up we have item 9.1 sensitive book list review and we have all have a copy of the book list and we talked about this at the last meeting um this list was modified to remove um some of the books that we discussed at the last meeting and as well as to add some additional books identified over the last few weeks um also um we we looked at some of the some of the titles that are considered classical that we decided maybe it would be best to remove those um because they're used for historical instruction within our classrooms as well so that being said I move that the board approve the changes to the sensitive book list as attached second all right discussion
108you might want to clarify remove remove from the list not remove from the library remove from the list y remove from the sensitive list right so um last at last meeting we did decide to go ahead and remove 1984 Diary of Anne Frank there is actually one additional instance of Anne Frank in the EMS that is not stricken off of this so that needs to be corrected but we are going to put these back onto the Shelf without sensitive so uh 1984 an Frank um uh bra pardon me BR new world yes and was there any others like that Skippy Skippy John Jones yeah that that was in both of the elementary schools so those um are on this list and have been struck uh from here meaning they are not flagged as sensitive any
109longer um there are also some on this list that were struck because they were duplicates from the totally removed from the Shelf list the ones that were out there and so those are include beloved burned glass The Bluest Eye and Kite Runner so those are struck off of here because they were inadvertently included uh on this list when they shouldn't have because they were on the removal from the Shelf list um and then as uh Rhonda said we did um there were some later identified books that we are adding to the sensitive list that are at the end of this list um and this this is a list um this is never going to be a done list let's just say um there's going to be things that we see that perhaps we should you
110know the people teachers say you know we use that occasionally and and I think there are several books that we probably will strike like we did 1984 Etc but we we need some time to kind of look at this a little further it is uh it's a it's a lengthy list it took a long time to get where it is but it is an ongoing project that will continue and so um so just don't expect that this will be a one and done and and you'll never hear about it again because it's just it's just not practical there's still a bunch of books in the library um there's hopefully feedback from uh parents who perhaps if they receive an email that some their student checked out one of these they will say you know give
111us feedback and let us know that they either think it should be uh you know not on the list or whatever or they won't you know they have the option to not reply to us at all when they get this email they can do whatever they want it's just a notification to them um and then as we continue to look and hopefully we get parents to kind of uh be uh and a lot of parents are very aware and we appreciate that of what their kids bring home what their kids look at what they read um regardless and um so we are hoping that that continues with them and we're hoping that other this kind of brings an awareness so to speak of uh the kids bringing things home from library and that maybe the
112parents can take a look at things and just know what their kids are reading and let us know if they're questioning you know this is this is not exactly what I think my kids should be reading and let us know and if it's not on this list then we'll take a look at it and kind of take it from there but uh we we really want parent engagement we want this to be an empowerment to parents but also a way for them to just kind of have it a little more in the Forefront of their minds to to kind of keep track of what their kids are reading and again this is putting the power into the parents hands if you don't care that your kids read any of this do nothing yeah do nothing
113you don't there's no required response at all to these emails but if if you want to be informed that your child has checked out one of these books or if you just want to have them not check it out until you give your approval then just sign up I can ask your M your motion to to um approve the list with the addition of an Frank Diary of a young girl at the middle school being also removed from this list you men your your motion the middle school was that middle school that was one of the ones that we moved last time but it was there was one instance of it mared on this list was that one of them we talked about moving to moving to the high school because there some it was
114just one to take off of this in together from last time so if you could just amend your motion to to include the removal of diary of Van Frank at the middle school as well okay and then you seconded it correct yeah second so I secondly amended okay um I expect you to say you're a mind reader sorry um just sobody can remove that one too and there's one of the books that's on here that was actually on the removed list The Perks of Being a Wallflower I think that was on that was on the remove list so we need to take that off of here as well okay good I just didn't want it to cause confusion yeah so that one should be struck also where's what school is that one in high school
115high school okay okay I see it okay okay so those two will be removed from the list I see it it's on the it's on the same page it's right under fourth from the top yeah okay so could just are you okay amending your motion to have both of those removed from this one yeah okay so I would like to amend my motion and have the board approve the changes to the sensitive book list with the Diary of Anne Frank removed from the sensitive list and in the Middle School in the middle school and also um The Perks of Being a Wallflower removed all together y okay second thank you um I think it was John that made the motion didn't you second it John oh it was Mary I wrote the wrong name sorry
116she's done all the work I'm letting her have all the know what I'm typ writing anymore I think you did second it that's what I was thinking she did the first one or at least I wrote you yeah I did so John are you okay second absolutely okay all right thank you all right okay can I get a roll call uh director Callahan hi director Olsen hi director pal hi director Waller hi okay motion approved last item on the agenda is the district accountability committee and financial advisory committee review of charges so each year the board approves the charges given to its board committees and um Dan you're going to review the charges before I make the motion absolutely so the only CH charges that really changed was we had um both master plan and
117um mil Levy although I left mil levy on just in case there is any desire for the board to have the Committees consider them I don't think that's something you're interested in but I left it on just in case the the committee should look at that this year I I kind of left it on in a more passive language um but um and then I added to the DAC charge the review of the charter applications which is a statutory requirement of the of the DAC U but since we do have the charter applications I added that under the specific charge for this year for the DAC so um that's the only changes to the two sets of char for the coming year um so these will be given to the two board committees they'll have
118a chance to review them there's anything they'd like to come back to you and that they'd like to ask you to add to their charges they will have the opportunity but this at least gives them their focus um for the year um they Dak will have to develop the calendar for the 2627 year which is two years out so that way we stay two years ahead of schedule um so other than that that's the only changes is we did remove the U master plan Mak sense okay any further discussion okay well I have to motion it first so hold on here I move that the board approve the charges for both the district accountability committee and the financial advisory committee second okay okay discussion okay all right can I get a roll call director Callahan
119I director Olsen hi director poell hi and director Waller hi okay motion approved um board planning new business our next board meeting is going to be September 23rd 2024 here in the district office same time same all right with that this meeting is adjourned at at 7:42 7:42 and thank you all for your interest especially the young guys over there know did a good job of sitting still e