001Board of Education meeting Wednesday, January 14th. Please join us for the pledge of allegiance. >> To the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. >> All right. We are going to start tonight with the consent agenda. We have a lot of information in the consent agenda tonight. Uh there is a lot coming up for our district and the board. Um we have the standard um routine non-cont controversial items such as approval of minutes for the last meeting and our personnel list. Um, we have some grants that we're going to apply to, which is great. And, um, a resolution for a declaration of critical shortage for key positions. Um, we are still critically short
002on guest teachers and bus drivers. So, if there's anyone out there looking for a great job, uh, talk to the district. Um, can I please have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> I move to approve the consent agenda. >> Second. >> Thank you, Lou. Thank you, Harry. Um, Miss Alter. >> Oh, I'm sorry, Natalia. I'm rushing ahead. Natalia, thank you. >> All right, Miss Alter. >> I, >> Miss Conlin, >> I. >> Miss Gawaki, >> I. Miss Hobie >> I. >> Mr. McQueeny >> I. >> Mr. Pena >> I. >> Miss Orunes >> I. >> Thank you. The motion passes unanimously. >> Thank you. Natalia. Um, next we have board reports. Um, let's see. Uh, Harry, would you like to start this evening? >> Sure. Uh, not much uh since uh last time.
003Just uh had relatives come in. I'm sure everybody did over the holidays and enjoying all the beautiful grass and nice green trees and 50° weather and you know skiing in shorts. No. Um but uh no hopefully we will get weather soon. >> Thank you, Harry Lou. Uh yeah, not much of a report here either. We had a great break. Um, I feel like the kids needed it. I'm sure teachers did too. So, everybody hopefully everybody's recharged for this second semester. >> Thank you, Lou. Um, let's see. I don't know what I did. Um, all right. So, quick real quick. I did um get the chance to see my daughter graduate high school and start her career. Um so not college I get it's a little bit bigger. Um so she did graduate college and um
004we came home for break and right after break she went straight to work. So uh congratulations Maddie on that one. Um I did attend the uh Red Hill Elementary uh Winterfest last night. It was ton lots of fun. Uh, got to play some games with the kids and very cool fun stuff. Um, personal note, after 32 years, I passed my EOSA training so I could legally ski on the hill in uniform. Just never done it. >> Thank you, Juan. Uh, Gretchen. >> Yeah. Um, let's see. We have a lot uh to look forward to between now and our next board meeting. Um so I'm I'm um really excited about what we have going with the superintendent search and look forward to uh lots of participation from our community and um yeah I think it's I
005think it's going to be a really interesting month. So >> thank you Kelly. >> Um couple things. Uh first of all, effective Apple awards are live. So, uh go ahead, nominate your colleague, your teacher, your child's teacher. Um it adds a lot of cheer and will, uh desperately needed. Um thank you to our teachers that are working incredibly hard. So, it's always great to go to schools and present. Um and it was super fun to see the uh kids from Homes Peak on the golf course yesterday doing their Nordic program. we finally at least have enough snow to have the golf course covered. Let's hope it stays that way. Um, so that was great. Um, and other than that, my daughter too graduate from college, so that was super fun. And, um, that is why
006I missed our last board meeting. Um, I was back in DC, but uh, that's kind of it. So, yep, next month's going to be busy. >> Thank you, Kelly. Rachel, hello. Um, from last month to now, I feel like December was a little bit of a blur with the holidays. My youngest son just moved to Spain to play soccer and so that was pretty exciting to get him going. And I will say Battle Mountain really came through getting his transcript because he was fumbling. So I was like, kudos to Battle Mountain. Um and also just sitting here in the um the work session of just how hard the principles work and knowing what's coming just kind of breaks my heart. Um but to see how creative they are and how willing they are to work
007and just make it work for their teachers and their students makes me really proud to be sitting in this seat. >> Thank you, Rachel. All right. Um, so next we're going to move on to public participation. And before we get started, um, I always want to thank everyone in the audience to that's here to speak. Uh, as a board, we always appreciate input from the comm community and thank you all for being here. Um, Harry, do we have any blue cards this evening? >> I only have one. >> Okay. >> Any others? Uh, Tim McMahon, we know Tim, come on down. Okay. Uh, to McMahon Avon, thanks for allowing me to speak tonight. Just a few things. First, when teachers teach your kids to think for themselves and make up their own minds, it's not
008indoctrination. It's teaching critical thinking. Something we all need to do more of right now. Second, I would like to see more students here at these meetings. their insights and thoughts could help could really help you make all make you all better decisions. Maybe mandatory meeting attendance is part of the curriculum. And then lastly, as before, I challenge more parents to attend whether in person or Zoom these meetings and be an active part of their child's education. That's it. >> Thank you. Um, okay. So, we are going to move on to new and old business. Um, as Gretchen mentioned, um, the board and the district have a lot going on in the next, uh, month or so, and we've tried to list a lot of that out in the new and old BIS business section of
009our agenda. Um, starting January 28th, we are going to as a board have an executive session to focus on superintendent search. And then um we are going to have employee for forum, meet and greet and public forum for our um superintendent finalists on February 9th. and we would love for all staff and community to come to those. So, um please be on the lookout for more information on that and how to provide um feedback to the board and the district after those. It's very important to us and we really want to hear from you. Um February 10th we have finalist interviews and then finally February 11th we're back to a regular board meeting and um actually um I'll mention at that board meeting we are having um Tia Luck and our student voice and civic
010engagement conversation where a lot of our students are coming to speak to the board which is um one of our favorite parts of um the year um the meetings that they come and speak with us. So with all that said, is there anything else that anyone here would like to add? >> Hopefully not because it's a pretty full agenda. So let let's just keep it that way and concentrate on what we got here. >> Good plan. Okay, so that is what's coming up. Um, next we have public interest items for discussion. And the first item on our agenda is adoption of a resolution supporting a statewide ballot initiative to increase K through2 funding and enhance educator salaries. Um, so the state um of K through2 funding in Colorado is um abysmal. I think we all
011know that um the education association in our state has been um brainstorming along with the rest of us on how we could possibly fix this problem um at the state level. And we want to thank the association for working to make K through2 education in our state better. And thanks to our local association and um the association president for including the board in this effort. Um so tonight we are showing our support for getting that initiative on the ballot in November. Um this is an action item. if um anyone has any questions or comments before we make a motion. Anyone? >> Well, I just think it's great that we're doing I think everyone needs to work together in order to make education better. Um hopefully our state will turn things around. Um right now we're
01248th in the nation in funding education which is abysmal as you said. Um, so every little bit of effort that we can, um, both state and locally, um, you know, I think it's going to be left up to us locally to really push the piece and be able to help ourselves. Um, but that's it. If else I I'll make a motion. I move to adopt resolution 25 20225/26-10 a resolution expressing the board of education support for the inclusion of a statewide ballot initiative on the November 2026 ballot to increase K12 funding and enhance educator salaries. >> Second. >> Third. Thank you, Harry. Thank you, Juan. And thank you, Lou. >> Miss Alter, >> I >> Miss Colin, >> I. >> Miss Lawy, >> I. >> Miss Hovie, >> I >> Mr. McQueeny, >> I. >>
013Mr. Pena, >> I >> miss >> I. >> Thank you. The motion passes unanimously. >> Thank you, Natalia. >> Um, next we have Miss Jessica Martinez. she is going to give us a presentation on English language acquisition in our district. Thank you for being here. >> Thank you. I had to put my glasses on. Sorry about that. Um, so I'm here to talk about um our English language learners. Um, they are also called multilingual learners. So you'll see within the presentation that both of those terms are used. So just so you are aware, it's the same the same thing. Um, so we have two tactics that address our students who are learning English. Um the first one is the multilingual education tactic and that is that we um are encouraging multilingual opportunities across the district
014so that every graduating student can speak multiple languages um for our students who come in already speaking another language. We want to be able to uh maintain that first language for them so that they can use it as an asset um once they leave our school district. they can use both of their languages then um to have options and and opportunities when they leave. The other tactic that you see multilingual learners in is the multi-tered systems of support and that one is utilizing MTSS to meet the diverse needs of our students and that includes um the needs of our students who are in the process of learning English. Um this slide has a lot of data on it but essentially um it is to show that about half of our district comes to our um
015about half of our students come to our district already speaking another language. So if you look at the um side the left side you'll see that we do have students who are um in the process of learning English. Our students who are um at basic levels of English are um called NEP and these are federal um federal labels that we use um non-English proficient and that's about 9% of our district. Um 14% of our district um are students who are considered limited English proficient and some of these students are um soundfully fluent. they um can have interaction socially but maybe are missing some academic vocabulary or um some academic supports that they need within writing or reading. Our students who are listed in the other language category are students who um maybe they used to
016be in the process of learning English. They they're considered former ELLs or they could be students who came in fully fluent in English or fully bilingual when they came into our school district. Um, other data that's important to know is that we used to have one of the highest percentages of English language learners in the state and we've been um decreasing over time. Um, I'm not sure where we are within other states right now. We're still fairly high with 24%. Um, but we have seen a large decrease in our English language learner population over time. Um, just like we have as far as our general population, we've seen some decreases. Um but I think it has been bigger within our language learner population. Um it's been typically about 50 students. We see a decrease about
01750 students each year since about 2012. Um but this past year we saw a drop um of about 130 140 students. So it is bigger than we typically see. We still have around 1,400 students that are considered in program and those are students that are NEP and LEAP. Any questions about the data? All right, I'm going to keep going on. Um the tactic summary, um we have two two points that um kind of over I will say the tactic summary and the goals that we have um kind of cross over into both of those original tactics that I had mentioned. It is about um having um our students being bilingual and biliterate and maintaining their first language. Um, but it also is about them having enough English to then be able to be academically proficient.
018So, um, we want to ensure that all of our English learners gain sufficient English so that they can have academic successes and then we want them to maintain that first language so that they can have success and options after they leave us. Excuse me. Um, these are schools. Um, as far as the dual language offering, that's our major method of um of advancing that ability to be bilingual and biiterate. Um, we have dual language um full dual language schools in our elementary programs in every single major community in our district. Um, we also have uh three schools that offer just English. And so some of our um in in each of our communities, our families do have options. In the middle schools, we have what's known as a dual language strand. And so that's not
019full school. It is just a cohort of students who go throughout their middle school having dual language opportunities. But our middle schools work really hard to make sure that when they're not in those dual language classes, they are intermixed with other students um in their English classes so that they're not um just following a track. they do get a variety of um classes um just like everyone else does. Um we in the past were able to offer world language classes um and we still are um in certain grade levels at certain times but it is really dependent on funding um and so as we see cuts to funding cuts to FTE um it's likely that world language is going to it's going to be hard for us to maintain over time. Um, and then at
020the high school level, um, it's not really dual language, but it is an offering of a highlevel Spanish class, and that is the AP class. Um, we have AP language um, in both of our high schools, and um, sometimes we're also able to offer AP lit. Uh, in the past, we were able to offer multiple languages um, and at this time it is just Spanish. So, um, we have three major goals and like I said before, this is for both tactics. We want our students to have high, uh, language development growth because if they're growing quickly to gain that English language, um, level, we will then see like a a ripple effect. It will see that their academic growth is also increasing. Uh, we want our students to become bilingual and biiterate and then we
021want them to once they can speak English, they'll then be able to gain sufficient academics in order to graduate. like I said for them to be able to have options in life when they leave us. So each of these um different data points will address each of those goals. So the first one is about that high English language development growth. These are our access scores over time and it is how um students are growing from one access test to the next access test. Um you see the major dip in 2021 when COVID those are the impacts of COVID. We took um we took the access test in 2020 prior to to anything happen happening here related to COVID. So that one is still pretty high. But it's it's important for us to see what we
022looked like precoid versus now. Um during COVID what we saw is that students were not um able to have a lot of interactions with each other. So you see the impacts of that. um a lot of our EL teachers were acting as subs or taking classrooms and so they our students missed out on their English language development at that time. Um we also have seen that with the impacts of COVID that literacy has struggled. Um and I'm sure you guys have seen that in other presentations here. And so a lot of our English language development teachers and our courses um turned into literacy intervention. And so what we've seen, especially at the elementary levels, um students have not been getting sufficient English language development um as we would like them to have. And so they
023we've increased the the literacy intervention, but we're still missing that solid English language development. Um if you look at the different colored lines, the yellow one is middle school. So that's the one at the bottom. Um they each have different targets though just based on how kids typically grow in language. So that 30% goal is middle school's goal and this year they hit 33%. They're actually higher now than they were our last normal year which is really exciting. Um these this calculation is something we do in-house but it helps us to predict how students or how our schools will show up on this um school performance framework and the district performance framework that we get from the state in August. Um and all of our middle schools our middle schools hit almost every single target
024on the SPF this year which is fabulous. The first year since prior to COVID, which is amazing. Um so even though that line looks really low, it's actually really really good. Uh the green line is the high school line. Their target is 38% and like I said before that's our our it's it's developed by us in where we think that they will have the most success on the on the school performance framework. Um they hit 35% this year and they actually hit all of the targets um for the SPF. Um which is great. So I think I need to lower our our district target for for high school because they're hitting it at that 35%. Um the 51% is the target for the district. Um and that one uh we were at 45% this um
025this year. So you can see that we we dropped um quite a bit during COVID and we're kind of bouncing a little bit but making our hopefully making our way back. Um and the last one, the purple one is elementary and um that one the target is 59%. This year they hit 52%. Um, and as I mentioned before, they um, they had a lot of shakeups that happened during COVID that we're still working on recovering from. Like we're still providing a lot of literacy development um, sorry, literacy intervention and that sometimes comes at the at the um, the sake of English language development. So this year we purchased an English language development material um, so that our English language development teachers can get back to teaching ELD. Um, ideally we are still able to provide
026that literacy intervention, but we're also needing to provide that EL. Uh, so our hope is that that will help us to be able to keep both in place. Any questions about this data? All right. Um, oh, I should say there are other things that impact this data. So things like our demographics changing that impacts this data. So we have seen at the elementary level that we're we are seeing less and less students come in as monolingual Spanish speakers um a lot of our kids nowadays have two languages as a first language their first language bilingual and when we see that happen growth is slower because they're closer to to fluency and that's a bigger band. So that may also be part of what we're seeing at the elementary level is that kids are coming in
027higher. So it appears like they have slower growth. When we have a lot of newcomers, the jumps are really high and we do tend to see um higher higher growth. But quite a few different things can impact these scores in this calculation. Um and so what we did is we decided that we wanted to add another calculation that can actually give us a better indicator of how we're doing. it doesn't have as many impacts of other factors that are not some of them are not even related to language like if we have a um a tech issue while we're testing that impacts this um if we have like I said before changes in demographics changes in the test that will impact this so um we made a new calculation and that is really seeing how
028long our students take until they move out of ELLL status the goal is 80% And um we are right at it. So we're like 80.1%. Which is wonderful. This is exactly where we want to be. So this is a really good sign. So even though this last graph it looks like we're dropping down, we're still within where we want to be for moving our students out of ELLL status. Um of the kids who are in our program seven years or more, it it's harder for them to move out. there's other things that are that are keeping them within the ELLL program, not not just language. A lot of times it's academics. Um, so I did want to break out how many of these students are on an IEP because typically they'll take longer and that's
029typical for that group of students. But we still have about 14% of students um that are in that seven years or more category that we have to figure out how do we move them forward. So um the second goal that we're looking at is graduating students with the seal of biiteracy. Um our final goal we had set originally as 65%. It was very lofty. Um I would really love to see all of our like our um this mirror our percentage of students who come in already speaking another language. I would love to see that. And so that's what we're working towards as well as the 65% would be great too. Um we have had changes within um foreign language requirements at the high school level. We've lost um teachers at both high schools. Um a
030and we're just I feel like we're starting to gain more traction again this year, but we're working in any way we can to be able to pro promote that seal of biiteracy. We want all of our students to be able to get it if they are truly bilingual and biliterate. And so, um, that's our goal is that any kid who can possibly get it, we really do want them to achieve it. Excuse me. And then the last one is academic growth um, and achievement. And that is looking at our um, graduation rate. Um, I took one calculation which is the 4year ELLL grad grad rate. Um and um this last one I have is from 2024. I did it was just released right before right after I made this um presentation. So I do have
031this year's grad rate also. Um and that is 67.3%. So it's slightly less but it's still kind of within that same range. Um when we look at other calculations for the grad rate, if we look at like the five-year grad rate, um for our ELLs or multilingual learners, it is 79.4% which the goal would be 80%. Um our our language learners need more time. You know, they do need more time to be able to achieve the same thing sometimes because they have to learn the language first before they can gain the academics. So that's a good example of that. Um so we have a few goals um for this year that we're specifically focusing on that'll help us reach our goals. Um our major goals I should say. Um and then these are big ones.
032So they probably will be the same goals that we'll be working on next year. Uh the first one is ensuring that everyone knows where a student is at in language and where they're going. Um our our platforms where we can see like student data. It's it's kind of hard I think for a lot of our teachers to be able to find the data we're looking for. So we asked um our tech te tech sorry our technology department to create something for us that would allow us to see everything we wanted to see in one page and they did it and it's beautiful. So it is a document that shows anybody who sees this document what the student is able to do languagewise right now when they come into their classroom. what the goal is for
033them to reach by the end of this school year and um what are the supports that can be used in class to help them get there. Um and it's been um just I've heard such great feedback on how schools are using it. Um we are going to pull it back out again pretty soon to be able to look at it and say, "Hey, is this accurate for next year?" And that way we can help next year's teachers to be able to start right away. Um, sometimes we have um students that um we think don't uh speak a lot of English and then we find out, oh, they can totally write full sentences and it takes us a little bit of time to get to know the student. This actually eliminates that guesswork. The last year's
034teacher said this student could totally write paragraphs in English. Um, and we can start off the school year at expecting those higher levels. Um, so it's a great thing. Um when I say everyone uh we're also working on do the parents know what their students growth and progress and and goals are towards English. Do the students know what their growth is and what their teachers expect of them. So this document is going to create a lot of clarity and so far we have seen it um create clarity but I feel like it will continue to um support everybody moving forward because everybody now knows the goal. Everybody knows how we're going to get there. Um, so I'm pretty excited about that um that tool. The second one is strengthening ELD instruction. As I mentioned before,
035we did purchase EL materials for the elementary schools. The difficulty is that we don't have methods for training people or days they can take and get sub coverage. Um, so being able to expand that quickly has been it's been pretty difficult. So, we've got to start um and we'll expand it more next year, but it is slow moving. Um and the last one is reviewing and updating the seal of biiteracy and bilingual pathway awards. The goals on those, we're working on that now. Um and they're also adjusting it. I'm on a committee that's working on adjusting it at the state level also. So, we'll we'll start to see that change. Um and it's and it's helpful. I feel like it's very helpful for us to be aligned with the state um and um be able
036to share those goals and everybody knows where they are um so that we can produce bilingual and biiterate kiddos. Our challenges um as I mentioned before, it's being able to meet the needs of of teachers districtwide, especially when it's difficult to find subs for them to be able to work with them um or to be able to provide professional learning. Um and then we also continue to see secondary students with interrupted or for um interrupted formal education. In the past, the bulk of our language learners was at the elementary level or newcomers at the elementary level. And the gap is not that big at elementary or at kinder. But when we receive a student um in 10th grade who hasn't been in school since second grade, that gap is huge and it is really difficult
037for our high schools to be able to address it. And so FTE is is still a need. Um um my my hope is that at some point we will be able to increase that FTE ratio for our our non-English proficient students who come in with those ginormous gaps. Um so resources needed uh we need a unified and systematic method for district office fa staff who focus on instruction to be able to support schools effectively because we don't have um subs a lot of days. Um we have lost a lot of PD days. um it makes it really difficult for us to find that time that we can work with teachers um when they're available and and be able to make the growth and the alignment and the collaboration that we need to. And then again
038that increased um FTE ratio at the high school specifically for NEP students is still a big wish for me. And that's it. Do you have any questions? I do. Um, what's the ratio of those secondary students that have like that gap like coming in at 10th grade and not and being at a second grade? You know, >> what do you mean by ratio? >> How many how many students like average of that happening in our schools? >> At each of the high schools, I would say there's 15, but there there's a lot of needs that come with each and every single one of them. >> That's a lot. Thank you. Yep. >> The other part I was wondering is, you know, you get kids that come in and then they have that gap, but then
039at the same point, um, do we see a lot of this where we start with the kids and we're teaching them, we're teaching them, then they leave like they they just the families move and so we we can't complete the uh education with them. We do see some of that, but they usually come back. So, so we try to do our best with them because they do usually come back. A lot of times they'll go to neighboring districts and then they do come back to us. So, >> um, another question I was going to ask is I see it. I don't know if you track it. do you see more kids that have completed the English learning, you know, and get the biceller of literacy? Do you see more of them going to education after
040high school, whether trade school or college? >> Yeah, I I I think we do. Um I will say that CMC has um this has been a wonderful a wonderful thing that they've created and it is um an education course that's taught in Spanish. They have two courses right now that I understand that CMC is providing um that students, our high school students can take these courses while they're in high school and they're offered in Spanish. So although it's not a dual language program, it is an option for our students to take a content area in Spanish and they are geared towards education. And so that's really exciting um for us because we need bilingual teachers. Um and so yeah, I think we do um see a lot of our students go into the education field,
041the ones that are going for the seal of biiteracy, but we also see them going into things like nursing um and criminal justice and and a variety of of areas. That's kind of was wondering do we do we track how many of them decide to continue to college or trade school or do we track any of that or no? >> I'm not sure as a district if we do that. Um I know for our seal of biiteracy recipients they talk about what they're doing where they're going to be going for next school year. Most of them are going to college of the students who present. >> Yeah. I think it'd be neat to show at the end of the year like >> out of 80 75 said they want to go to college >> which
042I think would be cool to just brag about. >> Yeah, >> we do track >> Thank you. >> when they graduate and leave us, but it's very very hard to track beyond that. >> So, we don't have good statistics on are they completing college. Um but we do have um information on where they're going when they leave here. Yeah, I think I mean and I I know we can't track them, but it'd be great to like say this class that's coming up, how many of them that are, you know, when they get their syllabi literacy even I know a lot of them have gotten it since sixth grade, seventh grade, but it'd be neat to know, okay, this kid's had a syllabi literacy, you know, are what are you going to do? What are you
043going to do now? Are you going to go to college? Are you going to go to tech school? Um cuz I sure hope you're not just going to stay home and do nothing. You know, you you've done us some major accomplishments. Um it'd be great to see like just out of the next class out of a hundred we had 75 that want to continue. And I see it. It's just we don't have a number on it. You know what I mean? >> I I think we could do that through Zello. I would love to hook you up with uh Shannon >> um and Trisha and see if we could add seal of biiteracy into >> how we track things. Zello is our our college and career ready platform that we use. Um and so it
044would be interesting to see if we could >> specifically look at that. >> Yeah, even with commitment letters if they if they would, >> you know, I think it'd be neat to see. I I I know when they present to me, they tell me like that's a part of what they need to prepare in their exit interview and most if not all are going to college. I just don't always know if they're doing a technical school or a fouryear. But I can ask I can ask them when they present >> and it it doesn't it's just cuz because my thinking is they've made this accomplishment and it actually gets them ready and they feel that they can do it and they do. They do. >> Thank you. >> I'm gonna shut up. >> Any other
045questions? >> Just I'd just like to say thank you because I remember I mean you were a department of one way back when and uh uh just to uh look at the FTE ratio. What is the ratio right now with the kids for in the high school? How what's their case load? >> So right now um it's like 80 to1. >> 80 to1. >> Yeah. for all of our English language learners. And then we have a bump for NEP students which is 40 to1 which is still a lot when you have students with big gaps >> in academics as well as language. So yeah, >> thanks for everything you're doing. >> Yep. Thank you. And I'm I'm a department of two now. So >> those I I have one more question um or comment. Um
046those numbers are huge and you've really shown how um numbers like that um affect a program and I I think you really pointed out um the effect of FTE guest teachers and PD days and all of those are so important and can really change the face of an entire program. And personally, um, my daughter went to an elementary school that did not have dual language, and we were so grateful that there were FTE available for world language when she started sixth grade in a dual language middle school. you were able to help >> right >> the whole spectrum of kids which is huge especially um with your um constraints on your program. >> So thank you so much for all that you do. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um next on the agenda is Mr.
047Bryson Beaver. >> All right. Hey everyone. As if you haven't heard from me enough today. Uh today we're going to look at the revised budget for the district for the remainder of the school year. Natalia, if you want to hit the next one or do I can I do it or both of us can do it? Okay, I'll then I'll do it. Um thank you. Uh the board adopted the original budget for the current school year on June 18th of this year. The Colorado state law allows the district to revise the budget by January 31st based on how revenues and expenditures have come in thus far through the year. So we've taken a look at the budget in the most recent weeks and we've made some changes which we would like to present to you
048tonight. So for context, this budget is the budget that the board approved in June of this year. Um the notable numbers here are a ending fund balance of $7.1 million for this school year and that was contingent upon our ending fund balance uh for the prior school year being $10.6 million. That $10.6 $.6 million was about a million and a half higher or better than our budget for that year and that was a um expectation that was set by the team uh going into this budget season. However, instead of the budget ending at 10.6, the budget ended at 9, which was right on top of our budget. Um, so once that flows through, our current budget for this school year would put us at an ending fund balance of five and a half million, which
049is lower uh than my comfortability level and lower than the board's comfortability level. So, we wanted uh my goal has been to bring that ending fund balance for the current school year up as close to the $7.1 million mark as possible. While I wasn't able to reach 7 million, we were able to salvage the ending fund balance and get it up to 6.7 million for the current school year, which is huge progress. And I'm going to review a few of the changes that we had to make um during that process. Um we had major revenue headwinds. One of which is we had to revise school finance act revenue down by $600,000 due to enrollment coming in 195 students under budget. So the the school finance act currently pays us per pupil and so when you
050have fewer students you get less money. Uh also had to revise down specific ownership tax um as that was set uh too high even though that formula is a little loose. We expect that number to be around 6 million as opposed to 6.5. Um in order in total uh we revise revenue down in the general fund by close to a million dollars. So on the opposite side of that we have to cut expenses and uh to make up for that difference on top of the difference that I mentioned previously from where we ended the previous school year. The way that we went about that was we removed $1.4 million from the salary budget. Um, how we did that is there were some vacancies in the first semester. Um, so there were some savings that we
051were able to capture from that and then we put a hiring freeze on non-filled positions for the remainder of the school year. Any positions that have been filled or are vital to the district will be able to be uh have a replacement. So, we're not completely freezing or keeping teachers out of the classroom, but for any positions that weren't filled in semester one, for the most part, we are not choosing to fill those for the remainder of the school year. We increased benefits by $420,000. We have a 13% increase in health insurance premiums for 2026, um, which was a little bit more than we had budgeted for. Um, a few stats on that. currently for an employee only in the district. For our highest plan, the district's covering 88% of the health insurance premiums. And
052overall, we're budgeting that for every dollar we spend on salary, we're spending 42 cents on total employee benefits between health insurance and perah. We saw slight downward revisions for purchase services and supplies. Uh most notably, we had budgeted to spend $250,000 out for the school-based therapy program out of the general fund, and we'll be able to cover that in the grant fund. And good work to all of our grant writers on maximizing our grant revenue for the current school year. And on the supply front, we asked uh all of the departments outside of the schools to cut another 5% out of their operating budgets last week. Uh which is on top of the 3 to 5% that they cut during the last budget cycle. So I am appreciative for many department leaders helping us with
053that. Um let's move on to the preschool fund. Oh, go ahead. >> Before we move I'm sorry, did you want to finish? Before we move on from the general fund, I had a few questions if you don't mind taking a little break. >> Um, so first I want to clarify we are um scraping to get back to the 7 million um number that we approve the board approved. But what is the policy um without if we didn't approve a change? What what number would be be trying to get to in the general fund? >> It would be 10% of total expenditures which as of the current budget would be $10.2 million. >> Okay. So really this the 7 million was an exception to the 10 million and now we are really struggling to get back
054to even seven million. >> Correct. >> Thank you. Um, and then the 13% increase in health insurance premiums. Um, that seems like a huge increase, especially considering we're getting about a 1% increase in revenue from the state. Um, and what percentage of did you say you you just mentioned this, but what percentage does the district pay of um employees health insurance? >> Yeah, for the the for the employeeonly plan, the district covers 88% of the overall insurance premium. >> 88%. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Those were all my questions. Oh, and one other notable change on the general fund is um uh transfer outs have gone down $840,000 and that is because we are going to based on some savings we had in previous years in the capital reserve fund, we are going to forgo
055a $1.1 million transfer from the general fund to the capital reserve. Um but this will allow even without that transfer, the capital reserve fund ending fund balance will be about $3 million higher than what the board agreed to in June. So, that's a positive. Let's go on to preschool. Oh, that's me. Sorry, Natalia. Um, preschool fund. We had to revise revenue down here by around $500,000. This is primarily due to uh reductions in the Eagle County infant toddler subsidy. It's coming in at about half of what we were expecting as well as a reduction in tuition due to um a slower opening of G the new classrooms at GLC. Um as well as consideration of our current budget pacing and revenue pacing um through the first six months of the year. We are able to
056realize some savings on the salaries and benefits within the preschool fund um due as well to the slower opening of classrooms at GLC. nutrition services. We have slight upward revisions to revenue based on better than expected state reimbursements and slight increases in expenditures. We added around $200,000 worth of food expenses to the budget as food costs continue to increase at a crazy rate. Um so that was the major change there. Lastly, transportation. We had a slight downward revision in revenue here uh based on our state categorical audit and uh expenses across the board there are more or less flat to our previous budget. >> Can I just go back to the nutritional service once again because I know that uh they did pass the state for the food uh funding. Can you explain why that
057doesn't I mean it's great that they did that but how that really doesn't affect our bottom line? >> Yeah, it does. Well, it doesn't does impact our bottom line in the sense that I think you can see here on state reimbursement we have seen uh about a $300,000 upward revision in revenue. So that that pacing has been a little bit better. Um but overall what kind of the headwind to that is fed overall federal reimbursements with things happening in Washington have lowered our reimbursements on that front. So um it's kind of offsetting it doesn't we also were already doing that and that was already budgeted for so that that passing was just status quo. So >> So how much are we funding our our food then? >> Yeah. Yeah. So, the nutrition services fund to
058be solvent is getting a $780,000 transfer every year from the general fund. >> Okay. >> Grant fund. No changes from the original budget. We're estimated to bring in between 9 and $9.3 million in grant funding for the current fiscal year. Student activity fund, also no changes. The student activity fund is where fundraising revenue goes for um different clubs and athletics. Bond redemption fund. We are seeing a $5 million increase in the property taxes that we are able to collect to service our debt. This is due to uh increases in assessed value in our county. Our assessed values were up about 16% during the last assessment cycle which is positive. building fund. We ended last year having spent a little bit less than we expected. So, we always fully appropriate this amount to give the district
059uh flexibility to finish all the projects that are outstanding. So, we just adjusted this to fully appropriate that remaining amount and allow the district to spend the remaining $73 million. Um the projects that are still outstanding for that $73 million are GEC, which is actually open. Um, so we're finishing paying those bills up and finishing the remaining classrooms there. Typome employee housing which will be opening at the end of the month. And we have a few outstanding bills for the expansion at EELC and then some money left over for Malloy Park infrastructure capital reserve fund. No major changes here other than as I noted, we will not be doing a transfer from the general fund of $1.1 million this year. However, I'd like to note that in future years, we will still need to do
060that transfer to keep the capital reserve at an adequate level. Um, lastly, housing fund also no major changes. Uh, we slightly revised our master lease expense up as we have a few more master leases this year than we were expecting. and we revised purchase services down slightly um due to current pacing. The last slide is the ECCA budget which I don't have control over but this is for your information. Does anybody have any questions for me? >> Yeah. Um, thank you Bryson and thank you for presenting to us during work session. This is um, thank you for all your hard work. So this is an action item. If um, no one has any additional questions or comments, does anyone want to make a motion? >> Sure. Somebody's usually quicker over there. See if I remember
061how to read. Um, move to adopt the 202526 revised budget for Eagle County School District RE50J as presented and appropriate. Each fund is specified in resolution number 202526-8 for the fiscal year beginning July 1st, 2025 and ending June 30th, 2026. Second. >> Thank you, Kelly. Thank you, Gretchen. Natalia, >> Miss Alter, >> I. >> Miss Conlin, >> I. >> Miss Gawaki, >> I. >> Miss Hovie, >> I. >> Mr. McQueeny, >> I. >> Mr. Pena, >> I. >> Miss Vunas, >> I. >> Thank you. The motion passes unanimously. >> Thank you, Natalia. Um and Bryson, one more thing. >> Yeah. Approval of the fund balance resolution. >> Thank you. >> And this resolution um gives the district the ability to spend down um in its current budget to spend down existing fund balances. It's more
062of a an operational resolution related to what I just presented. >> Okay. Yeah, this is this is a tough resolution to pass, but um I feel confident in all the work that you've done. So, thank you so much. Um would anyone like to make a motion to pass this resolution? Go for it. Um, move to approve resolution number 2026-26-9 authorizing the use of a portion of the fund balance. >> Second. >> Thank you, Kelly. Thank you. One Natalia. For the record, the resolution is 2025-26. >> Apologies. >> 25. Would you like us to >> Oh, the motion isn't correct. >> Apologies. >> Say it again. >> The motion itself is incorrect. >> Would you like us to say it again? >> Yes. Can we Can we redo the motion for the 2025? >> Yes. >>
063No, you didn't. >> I'm so sorry. >> Move to approve resolution number 2025-26-9 authorizing the use of a portion of the fund balance. Thank you again, Kelly. Thank you, Juan. Natalia, >> Miss Alter, I, >> Miss Conland, >> I, >> Miss Glowaki, >> I, >> Miss Hovie, >> I, >> Mr. McQueeny, >> I, >> Mr. Pena, >> I, >> Mr. Aquinus, >> I. >> Thank you. The motion passes unanimously. >> Thank you all. >> Thank you, Bryson. Thank you, Natalia. >> All right. Um, that was our meeting. Um we are now in the feedback and evaluation portion of our meeting. Um does anyone have any feedback before we adjourn? I state your name. Juan Pena. No. Um, I would like like to thank the principles for coming in today um sharing what they uh their
064needs are and some of the demographics of their schools. It's great to hear from them. Um, we do know what we do what what we have ahead of us that we need to do. Um the other thing I would like to talk about is the adoption resolution 2025 2610 inclusion in the statewide ballot. Um the state has done a couple things uh past few years and to look at it and talk to the state treasurer. They're small bandaids. Um so it's this is something to help. Um, but in the past it's just been a band-aid and so this is a bigger band-aid. So it's not fixed, but right your people in Denver, let's get it fixed. >> Thank you, Von. Um, anyone else? >> I'd just like to thank all the staff. I know Bryson
065was working really hard uh trying to get this balanced budget and it's not the number that we really like uh or really need. Um we need to get it higher. Um but it sounds as though everybody was pitching in once again and found, you know, little bits and pieces everywhere. Um which are going to affect their dayto-day. Um there's no way around that and some areas are really affected badly. Um, you know, so hopefully we'll be able to maintain what we're doing this year and be able to look for some things to do locally and uh hopefully statewide of them actually funding some education and being able to put some money back in where it belongs in teachers pockets and the people that are doing all the hard work with, you know, less staff than
066they've ever had. So hopefully things will get better. Thank you, Harry. I think we all agree with you on that one. Anyone else? All right. Well, thank you all for coming tonight. Meeting adjourned.