001Welcome to the Eagle County School District Board of Education meeting, Wednesday, February 11th, 2026. Please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. All right. Sorry about that. Okay, we're going to start with the cons consent agenda tonight. There's a lot of um interesting stuff on the consent agenda. So, even though it is um routine and non-controversial um and we just pass it with a single motion and vote, I'm going to mention besides the usual agenda approval, approval of minutes and personnel um information, we also have um two field trips that we're approving. Battle Mountain High School has um an art department field trip to Europe, including Berlin, Prague, KKO, and Budapest. So, if you need um any um parents to come along, happy to help. Um and then we also have um a Spanish language
002and AP Spanish literature student field trip to Puerto Rico. So, um from Battle Mountain also. So, very cool stuff. Um, if someone would like to make a motion, we can approve the consent agenda. >> I move to approve the consent agenda. >> Second. >> Thank you, Luth. Thank you, Rachel. Natalyia, >> Miss Alter, >> I. >> Miss Conland, >> I. >> Miss Gawaki, >> I. >> Miss Hovie, >> I. >> Mr. McQueeny, >> I. >> Mr. Varunes, >> I. >> Thank you. The motion passes unanimously. >> Thank you, Natalia. Um, next we're going to move on to um board reports and the report of the superintendent. Superintendent Qualman is not with us this evening. He has um some other stuff going on um for the district and has left us in charge. So, um I
003am going to um go through a few of his um his uh comments for him. Um we will be announcing a new superintendent soon. We had a spelling bee champion Von Parish from ECCA last night. Congratulations to Vaughn. Um, and always a fun event to be at the spelling bee, I think. Um, Melissa, were you there last night? Oh, you got to be a judge. Um, I bet it was a lot of fun. Um, we also have some state champions in speech and debate to report. um Abby Dominico um at EVHS in the impromptu category and Iris Sheldon also from EVHS um in the informative speaking category. Um congratulations to both of them. That's quite an accomplishment. Um, and then the EVHS boys basketball is ranked um is eighth in state rankings, which is just
004very cool. So, congratulations um to all of those um and great celebrations for our district. Um so, we will Oh, more and there are some more celebrations. Um this is great. Um, Battle Mountain High School boys hockey is currently ranked number one in the state. Um, and Battle Mountain High School is hosting the state skiing in Vale on February 18th and 19th for anyone that wants to come out to that. That'll be a really cool event. And um finally, Judge Arie is the state champ in creative storytelling, which is really awesome. >> I think that Mr. Coleman also uh forgot to mention that the dance team at Eagle Valley High School is 14th in the nation. They went to nationals and they were ranked 14th. >> That is awesome. Congratulations to those all. I love
005having that many celebrations from our district to talk about. Um, that's really great news. So, congratulations again to all. Um, okay, we will move on to board reports. Um, would anyone like to start? Gretchen. Yes, I would love to. That just threw me through a loop. Um, all right. Well, it's been a a busy few weeks over here. Um, I got to participate with the student leadership teams from um, middle schools from around the valley as well as high schoolers from around the valley. And I loved hearing all of their great ideas and um, how, you know, they see themselves as leaders of change. Um, you know, not just talking about change, but being willing to lead it. And thank you to the four middle schoolers who are here today um chatting us chatting with
006us about their ideas for um Eagle Valley Middle School. So that was awesome. Um I I'm so glad you mentioned our our athletics. I've been to basketball games. My my nephew plays for Eagle Valley High School and so I've been cheering him on and um been to some hockey games. So, it's been really fun watching these just absolutely stellar athletes and also uh have been pretty consumed with our superintendent search. I'm going to, you know, we'll get back to regular scheduled programming soon, but that has been consuming and I want to thank uh both Dr. Regan and Dr. Summers for uh taking the time to come come to our valley, participate in the the multiple forums on Monday night. um spending the day yesterday interviewing with us and um it was just I felt very
007fortunate to have um been able to meet them and and talk to them. So yeah, thank you. >> Thank you Gretchen Kelly. >> I do not have much to add to what Gretchen just said. Um yeah, it was really fun to have the students back in the boardroom. I think it's been a while since we've heard from student voice and we had uh four very uh confident and well presented uh seventh graders from Eagle Valley Middle School. So that was a highlight. Um and yes, I think my head's kind of spinning. Uh three nights in a row of uh of lots of busyness. Um but uh yeah, super exciting. Um and uh Project Funway March 21st uh at the Hyatt in Westale now or kind of between Veil and Westvil. So um yeah, super exciting.
008Get your tickets. It's going to be a new venue. It's going to be as good as ever, better than ever. Um so yeah, March 21st Saturday in >> Thank you, Kelly Rachel. >> Hello. I feel like we will hit the ground running since January. I have like some notes because I go to the DAC meetings. Um, which is the district accountab accountability advisory committee. And I say that because I'm learning all these acronyms. So for those who are watching and don't know what the heck I'm talking about, we can all start get into that practice of saying what the acronyms are for um, people watching. Um, so it was the dual language schools that came to talk to us and one of the main things that I thought was pretty cool is that how dual
009language works and the ESL students in dual language schools are outperforming their peers in English only um, programs. So, I thought that was really interesting of how they are just excelling in Spanish. Um, and also the emphasis on empathy that when you are working with diverse classrooms, it strengthens emotional wellness and that to me was a great takeaway. Um, highlight is families are engaged. um especially at the elementary level, all the conferences are really well attended. And so like for us who really care about parent engagement, that to me was a win. And then of course there's wins and then there's challenges, right? Um one of the challenges for the dual language program is that the teacher pipeline is pretty fragile. um and native um Spanish-sp speakaking teachers face like the visa limitations, onboarding gaps,
010and unexpected last minute like can't come and be here. And then there was something that I haven't heard before is like the certification barrier um and obstacles that our Spanish um teachers are facing. they have degrees and are way qualified from all of the countries that they're coming from and then when they come here um they have to take tests and they're taking it in English and it's timed and it's really really limiting for them and I don't know what the solution to that could be but um just want to be mindful of maybe we can talk about that at some point on how we can make that better. Um and then it was in the height of when ICE was here during that DAC meeting um where a principal was like no one prepares
011you for this in principal school where a parent was petrified to pick up her own child um and what's going to happen to my child um if I can't get there. And so to me, um, that impacts our learning when our kids are scared and our families are scared. Um, so I don't want to take too much time, but I think that's super important. And then we handed out keys at the Gypsson Flats. So Kelly was there and Lilia was there. Um, Juan was there. And it was just really cool to be part of a district that really cares about housing, mental health, and all of these things. Um, I didn't get to go to the last act meeting, but basically in a nutshell, I think everybody doesn't want FTE cut and what can we
012do to make that um, you know, do the best we can with what we have and make it easier for our classrooms. So, yeah. >> Thank you, Rachel. >> Woo! That was a great report, Rachel. Good job. I know. >> Um, so I don't want to like repeat the same things. It's been a busy week with the new superintendent search. It's been exciting and amazing and tiring, but we're we're here. Um, and I just want to add today I was able to go to Eagle Valley Elementary School on the staff visit. Um and you know to me it was just like it brought all this nostalgia because it's the first year I don't have any kids in that school for the first after 11 years. So it was great to see you know very familiar
013faces and spirits were great. They had great questions about finance and possible MLO. So it was a very productive morning and yeah that's it. Thank you, Lou. Harry, >> I was also at that meeting this morning with uh Lou uh in the spring school visits. Uh both Bryson and Phil have been going around. Um I've been to four of them so far. Um Red Hill and Gypsum Early Learning Center was one, Gypsum Creek Middle School, Eagle Valley Elementary, and Tech and Nutrition. and the themes that are coming out. Uh well, first let me go back to thanking Phil and Bryson for great pre presentation that they're giving staffs of what where we are as a district budgetarily. Um where we're looking at uh the future, how we can help not only the staff but community.
014Um looking at different options of what might be available come fall. uh possibly putting on a a ballot issue. But um the staff questions, they were really looking at some of the things that the district spends money on. Housing is one um and uh our school-based therapy pro program. And those are very pricey things, but the good news is it's not coming out of our general uh budget. Those are different line items and housing in particular. We have grants, we have habitat, we have mortgages. They're not really mortgages, but um ownerships uh possibilities that are going on that isn't part of that pool to put into raising money for teachers. Um it can only be spent on housing. But Bryson and Phil did a great job of explaining all that. teachers had good questions of,
015you know, where are other funding sources? What can we do? Uh the state is going to put a couple ballot issues on um which should help education. Um the only thing is right now we're 48th in the nation on funding students and even if those things passed, we might move up, but we're not moving to the top 10 with those. Um so looking at local uh participation and what we can do as a community to improve our schools and make sure that um we're getting the best put in front of our students in teachers and support and moving forward. So being at all of those it was really nice to hear uh one that the comm the teachers and staff are behind us. um they're all looking for the same thing of how can we
016help ourselves. Um so that has been really interesting. The effect our uh education group came and they were talking about campaign pieces which was really good. They passed out flyers super informational to being able to work with that. So um great job. Keep it going. I think you still have dozens albeit a few more. But um it's funny because their presentation is pretty much the same the whole time. So I'm really focusing on how the staff reacts to them. Um but they answer all their questions. And so if you have any questions about that, um I believe the schools that you've gone to, uh principles should have that slideshow that you did which had some really great uh information on there that they can share with their neighbors. Um the other meeting I was in
017was our land resource committee. uh meeting and it's amazing of looking at some of the holdings we have of you know what can we do with them um are they fit for building houses or are they just good for open space um so I'm learning a lot this is my first year on that committee so I'm learning a lot there lastly um running into uh teachers at all of these uh buildings it's amazing I've been in this valley for a long time every building I go into I I find four or five people that I've worked with over the years. So, that's fun. Um, but one of the things that is coming up is uh tech and uh trades night that is going to be next Tuesday, February 17th at Eagle Valley High School from
0184:30 to 7:00. It's going to be open to all students and families who are interested in learning a lot about trades or technical opportunities in our region and scholarships available available to students for pursuing those pathways. and that's with our uh secondary group that uh has been working with that and making our connections. So, but yeah, it's been a busy couple weeks. I think that Yep, that's it. >> Thank you, Harry. And thank you to everyone. Thank you for getting out there into the community and staying involved in all the things that are happening. It's it's busy right now. So, thanks. Um, all right. Public participation. Do we have any blue cards tonight? Do we have anyone here that would like to speak? No. No one tonight. Okay. Well, um, then we will move on
019to new and old business. Um, our next meeting will be March 11th. we have um some exec session stuff and then in work session we have some policy review and budget um work to do and in regular session um we have some monitoring reports and um some exceptional student stock takes and early childhood items. Is there anything else anyone would like to learn? One of the pieces that I did hear in the tours around was uh how our uh inschool therapy uh sessions or or us taking it over from the hope center. Um just to hear more information of how is that going? Um is there anything else we need to do to support? Do they have enough staff? It sounds like there's um enough support in each of the buildings right now, but again
020um with the needs out there, I I would just be I'd like to hear more. So >> yeah, it's a little different this year. Rachel, >> that's something I forgot to share about the TAC meeting in the dual language um schools is that there is a need for Spanish speaking counselors specifically for the um elementary school students with that like maybe still like not really being proficient in English and needs that support with all of those fears and concerns that they have. So, >> well, thanks Harry and Rachel. Um, Natalyia, could you add that to our list to discuss to add to a future agenda? Um, I was just talking to Tia Lak, our engagement coordinator, who just came and presented with some students. And this presentation was mostly about a specific project from a
021specific school, but she mentioned that um she has a lot of new things going on and she's doing things differently and she feels like we might want to hear about how she's doing things this year. So, I personally would like to get a quick presentation from her, see what's going on in in her world. >> Yeah, I know she's doing a lot of exciting things with student voice and civic engagement. So, um, Natalia, could you also add that to our list? Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Awesome. Let's move ahead. Um, next we move on to the public interest items section of our night. Um, the next item of business is the superintendent selection. Um, I'd like to introduce the next agenda item by again um, thanking the candidates for their time and commitment throughout
022this process. We just completed the public forums on Monday and the individual interviews last night. And again, thank you to all who were involved. Thank you for the feedback. Um, the board is now continuing through the remaining steps of the search process, including all the necessary due diligence as we move toward a final announcement. So, um, on that note, is there a motion? All right. Uh hearing no motion, the item will not be considered at this time. This item will be scheduled for a future meeting with proper notice so everyone is aware of the announcement date and um when we will be doing that. Um very exciting. So um hopefully you'll join us for that. Next, we're going to have the business and operations section and Tad Degan is going to give us a presentation
023um for the approval of emergency responder communications enhancement system upgrade. Hi Todd, thank you for being here. >> Of course. Again, I'm here asking for money. So, we'll start out with that. I'm asking for $60,153 to be out of the bond funds for security and safety. And I'll tell you a little story on why we need that. This is for what in is generally known as a birectional amplifier or BDA. Those are required in certain buildings due to the size of the buildings, the makeup, the concrete, the metal structure. We currently have two buildings in our school district that have these BDA systems in them. Eagle Valley High School, Battle Mountain High School. The one at Battle Mountains had kind of a little problem which brings us here and we'll get to that in a
024second. These repeater systems utilize the 800 megahertz system which is commonly used by fire, law enforcement, and ambulance. The neat thing is is we also are part of the state 800 megahertz system. We own two channels on that. Our bus is operated on it and we have another secondary channel that we can use. So, if you think about inside a building where the reception's bad for your cell phone, this is like a little repeater on the building that then talks to the repeaters that the state runs and allows the fire and ambulance personnel in our buildings to get get what they need quicker and it is required by international fire code, state fire code. About a year ago, year and a half ago, I got a call from the office manager at Battle Mountain High
025School and she said, "The Department of Homeland Security was here and they just turned off some of our stuff." Like, what? That kind of strange, right? So, I ended up tracking down what happened and I worked, this has been a team sport, mind you. This has been Joe Reene at facilities, John Evans, our electrician, Mountain Communications, Michael Thompson, has done a lot of work for us, the county 800 megahertz guy, Mick McQueen, and a guy at the state. And what was happening is half of our BDA system at Battle Mountain was on the fritz and it was creating this pulse that was jamming emergency communications at this end of the valley. Somehow it was bouncing down the valley and they figured out with these detectors. They shut it down and they said, "You need to
026fix this because it's required by law." So we went through the steps to see if it was the whole system or half the system. It ended up being half. And then we found that there's a Verizon tower on top of Battle Mountain High School right above that antenna. So we thought, is that a problem? We spent five months trying to get with Verizon to figure out how can we shut down your tower while we test it. At the end of the day, after a year and a half, it's our system that's bad. Now, the systems that they placed when they built Battle Mountain High School years ago was called a class B system. The class B's have been replaced by the class A. Now, I would have done ABC. I went to a school I
027class A is the the current thing and it's the best stuff. It narrows down the frequencies. It allows better communications. And I can't just replace half of the thing. The good thing with our building is that the antennas, the framework that we have written through the building is compatible with current A's A repeaters, just the boxes. So, we can buy the two boxes we need without having to pull the cable, which would have been, I figured, eight times the cost to get that all done. So, that's what a BDA is. That's what it does for us. We got to have one. Um, we've already found a company in Denver working with the fire marshal at Eagle River Fire. Um, facilities went through a looked around for bids and people that can install it and are
028qualified and can do the inspection and they chose me to come present. Are there any questions? >> Um, yes. If it's required by code, why is it just in the high schools? Do we like do we need it in any other >> by the size of the building? And basically they they do the square footage and you got to do an RF. It's a signal test. And another step I did in there, I was like, maybe we don't need it. So I had a guy go in there for a day. He spent eight hours doing a full signal test for every classroom. And unfortunately that building where it is in conjunction with the other repeaters, it does require it. I move to approve the emergency responder communication enhancement system head headend replacement project at Battle
029Mountain High School as presented to ensure compliance with acceptable fire and life safety code requirements. >> Second. >> Thank you, Harry. Thank you, Lou. And I just wanted to say um thank you so much for working tirelessly to keep our schools and students safe. And it's fascinating to me that there's so many systems in place to take care of our community that a lot of us don't even know that they exist and thank you for knowing and taking care of them. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. >> Um Natalia, >> Miss Alter, >> hi. Miss Colin >> I. >> Miss Glowalki >> I. >> Miss Hovie >> I. >> Mr. McQueeny >> I. >> Mr. Varcunes >> I. >> Thank you. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you Natalia. Next we have um Mr. Jack Donnelly.
030He is going to present on um a student on excuse me student devices stock take. Hi Jack. Thanks for being here. Hi Brandon. >> Oh no. Sorry about that. Uh odd time for my for me to lose connectivity because uh I made some adjustments to my slides. But um we'll go with these. Um so uh I'm here to talk about obviously the student devices. There are three uh tactics or specific strategy items as part of the strategic plan for the technology organization. The first one is the student devices and that's what I've been asked to present about and I'm never good with this thing. Okay, so this is the call out. um provide safe and secure devices for each student that can enhance the learning experience. Um and I thought what I would do is
031present to you guys um not only about the student devices but to share with you the context in which all those devices run on the network and then also what runs on the network. Uh because without the network none of those devices are really worth anything, right? Not going to help you with anything. So um so we'll talk about the device numbers and the amount of traffic on the network and if you guys get bored just let me know and I'll I'll speed it up or move on to something else. So the history of student devices here um has been uh you know we started um deploying student devices uh into the schools in the early 2010s and I thought I'd kind of show you the history that you know how this has kind of
032tracked over the years um but it was always about unique kind of uh funding sources um that kind of thing that um you know that a few devices would be added here and there and then as the 2010s progressed We introduced the district introduced a program called connect tolearn. Um and that expedited uh the deployment of student devices out into the schools. Um it was a you know a few classes at a time. Um teachers would apply uh to be able to participate in the program and those that were accepted the devices were you know distributed to their classes. Um so that's how it started and you can see we started tracking this better uh back when I joined in 23. So, and I only picked a few items you a few years, but you
033can see that we had about 2,700 2,800 student devices in the 15-16 year. Uh, the year before COVID, we had we had ramped it up to a little over 8,000 and um and you know, our high water mark was 2425 for with 8536. Um, and we've dropped this year and I'll talk about that in a minute. Um, you ready? >> Yeah. You want to swap it? >> Thank you, >> sir. >> Um, one of the items that I really wanted you to focus on was um is the number of devices supported per user support tech. Um, so one of the questions you might ask is who supports the the devices? Where do they come from? It's my user support team that supports them. Um, we create the configurations and uh we get them prepared each
034year. In fact, we're in the process of doing it now for the next year. Um, and uh, you know, so so you can you can see here the number of devices they support has gone up dramatically over the years. Um, we were up to 1519 uh, and now we're down to 1382 and there's some good reasons for that which again I'll talk about further. Um now when I in the early uh stages of of network support devices being deployed out to people to users to us to staff be it in a school district or uh in companies the average number of PCs that was supported per user support tech was a good organization was like 50 gold standard was 75. So to put that in scale, this is the way the industry has evolved and
035the way our organization has supported these is actually tremendous that uh Diana and her team are able to support over 1500 uh per user support tech. So devices on the network. Um so those studentissued devices are but a small what maybe 25% of all the devices that are out on the network. Um which is pretty remarkable when you consider it. 27,000 devices showed up on our network during January. Put that in perspective. I think the census for Eagle County in 2020 said there were about 55,000 uh people in Eagle County. So that's like one per for you know for 50% um showed up with devices on the network. Um what might the other devices be which is pretty interesting. Um and I have them in my cards here a bit but I'll wing it. Um
036so we have bird feeders come on the network. We've had we have uh sprinkler system controllers. Um, we have sensors in freezers and refrigerators, several per. Um, but the biggest volume though comes from I don't know how many of you have iPhones or you know your your your devices plus a an Apple Watch plus a laptop or something. I mean, if the average person who walks in the door brings three devices that come on our network, you can see how it scales up pretty quick. Um, so what are some of the others? um glucose monitors, uh monitoring monitoring devices. Um you know, these are some I could find my list and share them all with you if you'd like. Um so, uh any questions on this, feel free to ask. Um you guys remember last
037year we got the approval to proceed with replacing the phone system with the IPbased phone system, the networkbased phone system. So those that's all the VoIP phones that got added. Um security cameras, uh access control and sensors, plus the um the infrastructure, the network equipment. I mean back in 2017 18 or so, I think we had about 160 um access control security cameras on the network and you can see now it's up to over 800. Um the access points, the more their devices are out there, the more wireless access points we need to deploy to handle the density. um of coverage. Um so that's why these numbers have scaled up so dramatically. Is that a surprise to anyone? No. Um so also uh they ride on our network all of them. Um and obviously and
038uh this is the this talks to the traffic in uh in the month of January. Um so 50,000 over 50,000 gigabits a day. um and uh 1.5 1.6 um uh million gigabits in a month. Now uh what's a gigabit, right? What's a gigabyte? Why is it and what does this mean? Um so there's eight bits in a bite. That's how those numbers get calculated. Um when uh um when we talk about storage things stored on, you know, your hard drive, you usually talk about that in bytes. When you talk about network traffic, it's talked about in bits. So that'll be important in a second. So to put this in perspective so that you know what does this mean? Um we're going to talk about the movie Titanic and we're going to talk about um the
039Miriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary. So anybody know how many minutes the movie Titanic streams? I can tell you it's 194. Netflix would tell you that it takes one gig of data um to stream a movie for an hour. So 194 is obviously a bit over three hours. And I'll share why that's important in a minute. The collegiate dictionary um you can see it's a little thick. It's about 2.1 2.09 in thick. And the average Webster dictionary has about three meg of data in it. So what does that mean to us? So for the amount of data that goes through our network every day, you could stream the movie Titanic 15,559 times. And in a month, 482,000. And the number of copies of the Mariam Webster dictionary, 2 million over 2 million a day, 66.5 million in
040a month. If you were to stack those dictionaries on top of each other, they'd go 71 miles high um in per day and 2,95 in a month. And from sea level to the top of the mount of the Holy Cross, right, 27 times in a day and 827 in a month. And uh for those of you who like to scale that mountaintop, you'd have to do it 2,19 times to equal the amount of times you could stack those Webster dictionaries up from base to top. So any questions, comments? I'd love to hear it. It's not easy to just blast data at you. It's not as interesting as what Bryson gets to present. Okay. So what's our tactic summary? Um, you know, our district needs to provide and we we aim to prov to provide uh
041managed secure devices to every student. Um, so that you know, we buy uh the extended warranty on our Chromebooks and have been doing that now for several years. That's important because we don't want to go out to the families to charge for repairs etc. So that's covered um by the warranty that we began to purchase three four years ago. Uh and this uh also then I called out again that you know back in 2015 we had six FTs in the user support group. They supported 621 peri uh devices per tech and you can see what that's up to now and they do a pretty good job. We also provide a secure scalable and reliable network on which all of it runs. Um, and probably the thing you guys might be most interested in is the
042content filtering tools, which we'll talk about more and you guys feel free to ask any questions at any time. Um, and we obviously are constantly assessing the configuration of our devices. There's um, endless security patches across all the types of devices that we manage. We have Chromebooks for the students. Um, lots of folks like MacBooks and then of course the Windows devices. Um, and they're always issuing security patches. Um, for reference, um, Microsoft issued 130, uh, patches to their operating system in November and December alone. Um, that's a lot. So, uh, what's the, uh, student impact? Obviously, it enables um, equitable access to learning tools. That's the most important reason. That's why everybody does it. Um and uh and also uh enables personalized learning, right? So people students can learn at their own kind of
043pace that they need to. Teachers can have you know they can um bounce around classrooms and target their you know the learning activity on the on the devices for wherever the students at. And then uh we also of course aim to teach students to be good digital citizens. And um that digital citizens is a link takes you to a um you know to what Gemini AI says is is the definition of a good digital citizen. So for reference you can um jump to that if you'd like. So K12 device management sits at the intersection of instructional continuity, student safety, operational sustainability, and fiscal stewardship. And like everything certainly technology related our goal is to move the needle on all four. So um we'll start with uh the instructional continuity and you know ensure uh teaching
044and learning can proceed without interruption. Um provide students that work well on the uh I'm sorry devices that for the student to the students that work well on the networks on the network. Um, so, >> so do we have issues with connectivity >> in our buildings? >> Not generally. No. I mean, there's always a random, hey, like I had, right? Why did I have no idea why my my device stopped being connected a little while ago, but >> you had to present, >> you know? So, it it happens. We respond as quick as we can. Um, so, uh, but for instructional continuity, one of the best things that we've done, of course, is to add redundancy. Uh, as well as one of our objectives. um obviously as an improvement strategy um also work on our
045our uh uh filtering policies and um you know ensure the devices connect quickly and get repaired quickly um that's an important one and I will take you to so here's the progress made towards the the goals right so we now have 75% of our district facilities have internet redundancy um and we're working on the last six. Um last year we put some numbers together. Some of you may recall um we had redundancy in seven of our schools and um and we measured uh for the one network internet connection was down the the school remained you know without without even knowing they had a problem. So in essence we saved the user the learning experiences the student classes um for those days when we had those problems. and we saved over 44,000 student class experiences just
046in those seven schools as a result of having that redundancy. Um al also one the content filtering obviously is a big challenge. Um we block websites based on category um you know bedding sites and that kind of thing just we just block them. Um but once in a while teachers want to make use of a site that is blocked. um as part of their curriculum. They're always looking for innovative ways to deliver their curriculum. We love that. Um but then we have to they have to submit a request for us to unblock. We go through a process of vetting it and then we issue the unblock. But we now have a um an application, a teacher override application that they're able to do that themselves in the CL just for their class. Um so, you
047know, it expedites the process. So continuity in the learning experience, right? Um then the other is the uh improved uh uh time to repair the Chromebooks. Um and this is a great story for us. Um it used to take 45 days. You can see the data there. It used to take 45 days when we first started the process to get a warranty repair done. Because we're remote, we have to, you know, send it um to one of their depots. They fix the device, send it back. Takes quite a while. Um so because we wanted to reduce the time it takes um we entered the uh uh Lenovo is who we buy the devices from but they have a self-maintainer program. We enter that program and uh so for the last two years we've been doing
048that um and we've taken the time to repair it down to four and a half days. So the students get uh the devices get back into the student h students hands a lot quicker. that has enabled us to buy less of them um because we don't have to keep as big of a float pool um which obviously has some pretty good financial impacts on us. So these are the types of things that we're doing. Questions? Give me a chance to catch my breath. So somebody please ask a question. All right. um student safety um also about content filtering obviously but improve student safety by enhancing our ability to protect students from harmful content cyber threats uh we spend a lot of time working on this >> I have I actually have a question on the
049student safety one um is the same is it the same for a student is it the same type type of safety when they're bringing their own device >> oh good question so um you know, uh, no is is no, it's not the same. I mean, they're expected to follow the policies. The teacher is expected to kind of watch the classrooms, but because they do not, um, access the curriculum through our device and our configuration um, uh, with the Chrome browser, the no content filtering happens. And I know we've talked briefly in the past about this and it sounds like it's more of an issue than anything when students bring their own devices and I'm not quite sure why they're allowed to do that when we are providing one. Um and I don't know if you
050are the right person to to answer my question. >> Yeah. But um I don't know. Can we have a talk about like if the student is not as safe because they're bringing their their own computer, why are we letting them bring their own computer? >> Yeah, I know there was um others can speak to this as well, but uh I don't have the history like everybody else, but what I can speak to is >> um there are many parents who want the students to use the more powerful devices. I know that's one dimension of it. Um, >> and that's an answer that I actually don't like because that's not equitable in my opinion, you know. So, >> I understand. I think >> and I think Katie has something to say also. Um, we we've gotten
051a lot of feedback from teachers who would like to see personal devices go away. Um, and respectfully, it's simply not um an issue that Mr. Qualman has wanted to um weigh in on or change, I guess. So, I think it would be um a great conversation to have with the new superintendent. >> Um thank you, Katie. Um I will say that I don't hear as much churn about that this year as I did last year. um you know for for what that's worth, but I do know that it's an you know that it's an issue in in some pockets of the organization. So um I do think it's a worthy conversation. Uh okay. So uh progress towards the goals. Um, so we learned through observing um those that have been able to circumvent our content
052filtering, which students do regularly. They're very, very creative. Um, and there's all sorts of YouTube videos that tell them how to do it. And we actually found um some documentation that they keep and share with other students about what sites to go to, how to go about doing this, and they update it constantly. It's it's it's remarkable. Um but what we did find was um because of the way the devices the Chromebooks were configured in the past um they could uh student could get to a proxy site um which hides the content fil uh it it prevents the content filtering from seeing what's what the traffic is basically secures it for them. Um, but they would download an executable like a gaming executable or something and onto the hard drive of the Chromebook and they
053would just launch away you know go play games while they're so we found this and uh we changed the configuration of the devices so that they could not store uh could not save anything on you know on the hard drives of the devices. So um so that eliminated the problem but it created another um in particular there are some applications and some clubs that use uh students need to take pictures um you know with their Chromebooks and those pictures by default the camera will store it on the local hard drive and we just took that ability away. So we had a problem we had to solve and we actually wrote an application that provides for the camera but stores the uh you know the um the picture uh the image on the students G drive.
054So we enable that to happen without dealing with enabling them to get back to the hard drive. So that's an example. Um we had another that uh what we learned um this is about a couple years now that um when students apply for colleges and senior year in colleges they have to provide a email address um you know when they submit an application and they would provide their school district email address but when they graduate and leave all of that goes away. So they lose the access to the history of all their applications and in particular the school they chose to go to. So that was another one where we wrote an application that allowed for the duration of a class when they're going through counseling um dealing with college applications um that they were
055able to use their own personal email address um Gmail, Yahoo mail, you know, this kind of thing. We just enable them to get to it during that class and then it the access to it goes away when they're done with the class. So we kind of we call it the soft browser because he wrote it. Um so that's an example. Uh also a new app I think you guys will like that we're uh it's kind of in pilot. who are starting to release it. But it allows parents, it's uh it's a GoGuardian app, and it allows parents to see what students browsing um activity has been. And it also provides for a tool where when they're home, they can basically pause the access to the internet from our device via the, you know, Chrome browser.
056So, what it really does is it just stops traffic from going through the Chrome browser. Doesn't doesn't actually shut off the internet in the house. It's it's, you know, just on the device. But um so there's opportunity for parents to get you know take more control basically and I know you guys be happy about that. I already talked about the camera and the personal email application. So questions um and operational sustainability and fiscal stewardship um you know just find cost efficiencies um refresh the network keep it current um extend other op you know other solutions maybe we can get rid of some you know it's called app rationalization um where we get rid of one you know solution because the others are uh have added features you know that kind I think sometimes we have
057redundancy in tools. So, um progress made towards the goals in this space. Um we reduce the the refresh volume by 15% um as a result of not needing to put as many of the devices out there. We also get paid by Lenovo for the uh uh for the warranty repairs that we do uh to the tune of $33,000 over the last couple years. So, it's another benefit for that. Um we have wireless access points that are becoming obsolete or you know we have a plan for getting rid of those replacing those over the summer. Uh and the tools consolidation which I talked about. So challenges obviously for us keeping up with the threat vectors um up to date with the tools um and uh uh keep keeping up to date with the AI landscape and
058how that impacts the configuration of the devices. Uh I think some of you talked about I know screen time you know is of a particular interest uh for many people of late um these links here will take you to what the experts are talking about like what they're saying about screen time. We're working on adding tools that enable us to actually track it so that we can get a better handle on it, better picture of it. Uh and then training uh funding for infrastructure and user support staff and uh and funding for keeping the devices in the network up to date. That's my presentation. Any questions? Anybody want to stream the Titanic? >> I actually have a question. Um, and I'm sure I've seen it somewhere, but uh, how many years do we like how
059frequently do we typically have to rotate machines in their own cycles actually year or >> Great question. So, the plan for the student device rotation is every four years. So, first graders, fifth graders, and ninth graders get new devices. >> Um, kindergarten students that need to use devices, we basically make the best of the ones that are older. Um, now I did a kind of a sample of a lot of the the Western Slope tech groups. Um, and um, only about a third of those I've gotten feedback from follow the same rotation schedule. Um, some just they don't have any money whatsoever, can't possibly even buy them and they just run them until they die, can't use them anymore. Um, the average is probably five to six years. So, um, does that answer your question?
060>> Thanks so much. >> Learned a lot tonight. >> Okay. >> Yeah. This Oh, go ahead, Harry. >> Do you know how many personal devices? I mean, is it a big issue throughout our schools or is it, >> you know, I um I think it's unavoidable. So, I I don't we don't think of it as an issue. There's just there's tons of them, right? I mean, like I said, anyone who walks in with an Apple Watch or, you know, a phone, there's two um and and uh you know, it scales up pretty quick, right? And most students have devices, you know, they have a phone even though they don't use them in in schools now that I think, you know, for the most part they're still on. So, they're, you know, they're connecting to the
061excuse me, to the network. So, you did mention that breakage and things like that that they're under warranty, but if a student destroys a computer, they're held responsible, I hope. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. I mean, if if it and we, you know, we've had some examples of that, you know, just throwing the device across the room and that's a problem. And, you know, >> or when they lose a charger like my son, you got to go and pay for a new one. Yeah. You are held responsible for sure. But but we certainly don't want, you know, things break and we don't want families. It you that used to be the case. We charge, you know, send bills to this, you know, to the families. We don't do that anymore. >> So, >> okay. Well,
062thank you. >> I have one just question. Um, well, thank you. Um, I learned a lot, too. I appreciate the the link because I'm excited to look at it. the um just the screen time guidelines. And I'm just curious, Matt, if that is on our website for parents, so like when parents are looking about our technology policies um because I'd be that parent looking. Is it on there? >> So the tech department runs their actual website, but if it's not on there, we can certainly help them add it. >> But they actually take control of their website. >> We'll do that. >> Yeah, that'd be cool. Thanks. >> You bet. Thanks everybody. >> Yeah, thank you Jack and thank you for the impact you've made and technology in our district. It's >> well thank you
063for that. Thanks for your guys service um as well. It's very impressive and humbling. So appreciate what you guys do. >> Thank you. All right, that is not an action item. That was just for information and it was very informative. So thanks again. Um, we are moving on to most exciting part of the night. Quarterly reports, Mr. Bryson Beaver. Bryson, I don't have a connection. If you can just run the PowerPoint yourself, please. I don't have a connection to that laptop anymore. If you can run it yourself. Hello everyone. Welcome to the your quarterly report. Um, everything's looking good. Uh, we'll go fund by fund, but there's not a lot of areas of concern. We're just going to look at how things are pacing through the end of December. So, through the first six months
064of the year. And what we're looking at typically through the first six months of the year is just to make sure that things year-over-year are pacing at about the same rate. Um, and that we're receiving our revenues and that we're not seeing any expenses way out of line. Uh, let's start with the general fund. Um the columns here that are particularly important is I look at the second the first column of numbers on the left. That's actuals through the first six months of last year. And then the middle column there that says actuals under uh December 31st, 2025 shows actuals through this year. So those are the numbers that I'm typically comparing. Um you can also see the percentages are the percent of budget that we had spent through this time and last year. Um,
065for the general fund, revenue-wise, um, we're down about $2 million. Um, but this is all timing. It's nothing to be concerned about. Last year, we received more money from the state through the school finance formula. This year, we're going to be receiving more tax money and less money through the state. And due to that, um, most taxes come in March, April, May. So, we're just a little bit delayed on that. So, we'll be getting our money in the next couple months, but there's nothing to be alarmed at there. Another thing to call out would be interest income. You can see last year through this point, we had collected $1.1 million in interest income and through 6 months this year, we're at $885,000. That's due to lower interest rates in our money market funds with the
066Fed cutting rates as well as lower reserves that are interest bearing. So, um nothing to be concerned about there. and that's been reflected in our revised budget. On the expense side, um, one silver lining is you can see on the salary side that we are um, $300,000 less in salaries than we were last year. Um, and that's with the 3% increase, and that's due to staffing reductions and vacancies. So, we are coming in favorably there. Um the flip side of that is our benefits are $200,000 above where they were last year and that's due to the 13% um increases that we've been seeing in health insurance rates year-over-year. So those continue to grow. Um but nothing of concern there. Uh purchase services and supplies are both well below budget uh or well below where we
067were last year and that's attributable to the cuts that departments made during the last budget cycle um and limiting those. So, um, as far as where I'm projecting the general fund to end up, um, I do think that there's high potential that we could squeeze out another couple hundred grand, um, in fund balance by the end of the year and in the year a little bit favorably based on our salaries. So hopefully those continue to trend in the right direction and they should given the hiring freezes and things that we've put on through the remainder of the year. Any questions on general fund before we move on? Okay. Okay, onto the preschool fund. Um, you can see year-over-year on the revenue side of the preschool fund. Um, we have received about $600,000 additionally in preschool
068revenue primarily from tuition as well as this year um, we have taken some federal money that we used to grant out to our community and we have kept it in the preschool fund to help close the deficit there. So, we have received about $600,000 more. Um, tuition is higher because we have more classrooms open this year. Um however that uh revenue still isn't high enough and it does continue to lead to a significant deficit. Um we're projecting that the transfer from the general fund to the preschool fund will be approximately $3.5 million for this fiscal year. On the expense side um you can see due to more open classrooms and higher staffing that our salaries are about $300,000 higher than they were at this point last year. 2.4 4 million versus 2.1 as well as
069benefits are higher as well due to more classrooms being open. Um I would expect that the transfer from the general fund will hold um by year end around between 3.4 and 3.5 million. Any questions there on the nutrition services side of the house? Um you can see revenues about $50,000 higher. Our state and federal reimbursements have come in uh slightly better due to volume and some rate changes there. Um no concerns there. Revenues trending as it should. On the expense side of the house, you can see salaries and benefits are slightly higher. That's due to similar staffing levels to last year and the step increase that we provided to all district staff. Uh, one silver lining here is that under the supplies and materials budget item, which would be mainly food, we are trending right
070about the same as we did last year. So, we may see that pick up in the latter part of the year, but up to this point, we're spending similar to last year. Uh, budget, we're budgeted to transfer $780,000 from the general fund to the nutrition services fund by year end. Not much to say here on grants. We're budgeted to receive $9.3 million this year in grants. We've received thus far 4.3 million which is about 47% of our budget. So I'd expect us to be right around 50% which we are. And then on the expense side it shows that we're only spent 34% of our budget and some of that's just timing uh for our grants administrator to allocate those to the state. So everything is good on the grants front. Student activity fund. As a
071reminder, this is where fundraising dollars go and it creates a little bank account for our different clubs and sports teams. Uh, thus far, we've collected about $30,000 more than we had at this point that last year, which just is a testament to the work uh and fundraising that our students and staff do. So, thank you to them on that. Um, and then as far as expenses go, we've also spent about $75,000 more than last year. Uh, we do have a healthy fund balance in our activity fund of about $1.2 $2 million that clubs and students uh student sports etc can spend down for the transportation fund. Um we've collected $877,000 through the first six months. Last year we were at $840. So we've seen slight improvement in revenue. Uh it's primarily attributable to doing more
072in district trips this year and contracting fewer fewer of those out. Um and so we end up charging the schools for the transportation fund ends up charging the schools for those things. Um so that's been positive. On the expenditure side, um you can see salaries have been lower than we were at last year due to some vacancies. Uh benefits have been higher. It's kind of the story you'll see throughout these is we have some vacancies. So and we did some staff cuts last year. So we see lower salaries but because of the increasing cost of benefits um those continue to rise. Um purchase services have been slightly lower and supplies have been slightly higher um and those are natural and will wash out as we get towards the end of the year. The estimated transfer
073from the general fund to the transportation fund for the current year is estimated to be $883,000 and I expect that to hold. bond redemption fund, the most boring of all funds. Um, we are expecting our tax money to come in in the next three months, so we haven't received very much revenue, but we will see that coming in over the next three months. And we've made our first payment on all of our bonds in December, and we'll make our next payment in May. So, waiting on that building fund, this is the fund out of which we pay for all of our capital construction projects. This year we've spent through the first six months 22 million uh of that primarily on the the construction of GEC and the two housing units in gypsum as well as
074well as wrapping up projects at EELC and other um safety and capital related projects around the district. So um that's about twice as much as we had spent this year and that's just namely due to the stage of construction we're at with several of our projects. As of right now, um we have around $50 million remaining in the construction fund capital reserve fund. In total, you can see we've spent 1.72 million through the first six months of the year. Last year, we'd spent 1.63. Um this is just due to a lot of it's just due to the timing of when we do construction projects. So, we've seen a slight increase year-over-year, but um main spending light items was flooring at different schools. We've also worked considerably on updating security cameras and security systems and door
075access panels at schools around the district. Um as well as purchasing some maintenance equipment. I know that we purchased a couple of trucks recently. I don't think that shows up on here, but we did in the last couple months. So, that's another expense for the district in the capital reserve fund. Last but not least, we have our housing fund. We've collected through the first six months $660,000 in rental revenue this year versus 616,000 last year. Uh again, you have to remember that the increase in rental rates didn't go into effect till October 1. So, we've had only 3 months of the increase rate. We should see a large jump up in revenue now that Gypsum Flats is open and fully operational. And after we get a full um cycle at the new increased rates, we'll
076be providing an update at the March meeting of any projected increases to rental rates um to make sure that the housing fund is sustainable on an ongoing basis. Um on an expense side, we're slightly higher year-over-year, and that's mainly due to um additional master leases that we are paying for, but that's also reflected higher in revenue. With that, that is the end of my prepared comments. That was a mouthful. Do you guys have any questions, comments, feedback? >> That was a lot. Any questions? Okay. Get away with no questions. Um, do I hear a motion from anyone? >> I move to approve monitoring report EL-8 fiscal management and quarterly reports as presented. >> Second. >> Thank you, Kelly. Thank you. Juan Natalia, >> Miss Alter, >> I, >> Miss Colin, >> I, >> Miss Lowaki,
077>> Miss Hovie, >> I, >> Mr. McQueeny, >> I >> Mr. Pena, >> I >> Mr. I thank you. The motion passes unanimously. >> Thank you, Natalia. All right, Bryson, you have one more FT ratio adjustments. And I want to go ahead and thank you for your detailed presentation um and discussion of this agenda item during our work session. We appreciated it very much. >> You're welcome. And thanks for the board's engagement on these issues. Um, so each year Eagle County School District, we review base staffing allocations at our schools and around the district for all of our departments. Um, and weigh our staffing levels in light of our district's overall fiscal health and student performance. Um, for the upcoming school year, in light of ongoing budget constraints, the district is proposing the following change
078to base staffing allocations. That change would be a plus.25 increase to the base staffing allocation. Um, for reference, we increased that 75 last year, so we're doing a much smaller increase this year, which will keep more educators in the classroom. Um, overall, these ratios represent the number of students per staff member at each school. Uh, the district estimates that a ratio increase of plus.25 will reduce overall staffing at schools by 5 FTE for the upcoming school year. Um this move changes the average base staffing allocation across elementary, middle and high schools from it raises it from 15.3 to 15.55. Um additional FTE are that's just the base allocation. So there's additional FTE allocated to all schools for other reasons um based on the number of atrisisk students they have um school enrollment and school size
079uh elelll population etc. So these additional FTE do push the effective studenttoteer ratio um I guess lower than 15.55 which is favorable. Um but this is the base staffing allocation is the easiest way for us to adjust staffing at the schools. Um in Colorado for reference the average student toteer ratio is approximately 17 to1. So we are still below uh or better than average >> in so many ways. Thank But with that being said though, people need to understand the FTE ratio includes everybody in the building, you know. So when it says 15 to1 or 17 to1, our classrooms aren't 17 to1 because we have to staff principles, secretaries, >> correct? >> All the other staff goes into that. So, you know, it I I just want to make sure that people understand that when
080they hear that number, that doesn't translate into classroom per teacher piece. It's a mechanism in order to staff buildings. So, principles can go through, take a look at that, and make sure that they address all the needs in their building. >> Yep, that's correct. Again, there are additional FTE added though that are outside of this ratio as well. So that kind of offsets it in the opposite direction. But I I agree with your point and really the lower we can get that number the better because again it's if we look at this now say say it's at 15.3. you guys have kids in classrooms and most classrooms are at 23 to 25. Um so you know again it's as we change that number so even though it only goes up a little percentage um classrooms
081get more crowded. Um so there is a direct correlation there. So I just want to make sure that people understand that it's not just 0.25. It doesn't sound like a big number, but it really does affect. And you know, if we had more money and we didn't have to raise this, we could actually be lowering it like we've done over the past years because I remember at one point the district, we were like the state average up in the 18s and that's hard to conduct classes. Um, so just want to be aware of that and know that as we go through this that we need to look at that and make sure that it's we we try to bring that number down. >> Anyone else? >> All right. This is an action item. Anyone like
082to make a motion? Um uh yeah, I just want to agree with uh Mr. McQueeny. Uh this is a tough pill to swallow, but we are in a budget crisis, so we don't really have a lot of choices. Um so with that, I'll begrudgingly move to approve staffing ratio adjustments as presented. >> Second. >> Thank you, Kelly. Thank you, Gretchen. Natalia, >> Miss Alter, >> I >> Miss Coleman, >> I >> Miss Gawaki, >> I >> Miss Hovie, >> I >> Mr. McQueeny, >> I >> Mr. Pena, >> I >> Miss Vonos, >> I. >> Thank you. The motion passes unanimously. >> Thank you, Bryson. >> Thanks, guys. All right, ending on a tough note that every uh point makes an impact in our district. So, we're very conscious of that. Um, but thank you
083Bryson for that presentation. And um is there any feedback or evaluation of our meeting today, our work session and um regular session? I know it was said earlier, I really enjoy having the students come to our work sessions and explain what's going on and uh get their perspective of how schools are going. Um the girls that presented this afternoon um seemed to love everything that's going on from uh their presentation that they had to actually, you know, change the last part of their school year. Uh sounds very interesting. So hopefully the teachers and the staff over at EVMS uh listen carefully and uh hopefully say yes. >> They were great. Anyone else? I guess I'll just say it's always really nice to get our middle of the year updates on how our students are doing.
084It puts everything into perspective. So, that's a great data to dig into and um some celebrations and some work needs to be done. So, but it's great to see. I'll end on a really cheerful note. I had the privilege to go um be a guest at Eagle Valley Elementary to do a community leadership and as a board member and the one we talked about the difference what they're learning in school today is about the difference between volunteer work and a job and we are all volunteers and this one little first grader said Miss Rachel you get paid in happiness and I said I do And so I mean it is tough decisions that we're making here but we have those really great moments too and I just want to acknowledge those as well. >> That
085was a wonderful note to end on. Thank you so much. Meeting adjourned.