East Otero School District R-1 - April 28, 2025 Board Meeting

001Mrs. Le, please rise 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. Okay, first up tonight we have um item Z student recognition class of 2025. I'm sorry that's J. Um I'd like to bring Miss Fox open up um to introduce our validator. So if we didn't have our validictorian this year or sorry um so Zoe has shared that she is involved in pretty much everything that she had time and especially those activities that she didn't have time. She tried various clubs such as Dungeon, Dungeons and Dragons, student council, high speech and debate. She was a member of the knowledgeable team for all four years, participated in theater and as an

002underassman, and served as a team leader for two science fair projects. Zoe also participated in golfing fresh. We just want to say thank you for all your efforts. So, Kinsley is not here this evening. She's at statef. Kinsley did honor earned the honor of validictorian and she shared that she has been the class treasurer of the last four years of her high school her career. She has served as NJHS as well as an NHS president. She has also served as a FFA chapter reporter and faculty chapter vice president. She has participated in FFA and Kai teams all four years in addition to being a member of FBA for the past two years. She's participated in positive impact for two years and was um a member of student council. She's competed in basketball all four years

003and served as a team captain for the past two years. She has competed in volleyball for the past three years and served as team captain this year as well as competed in prospect freshman year. Kinsley has competed in track and field for the past four years and just this last weekend she won the Tri Kings League triple jump championship. And if we have come back up, please. So tonight, it is my distinguished honor to introduce Nory Mononttoya, a recipient of the prestigious Veter Scholarship. Each year, approximately 1,600 Colorado students apply for this highly competitive award. Out of that acceptable pool, only about 50 students, that's fewer than 3% are selected as veteran scholars. These students represent the highest levels of academic achievement, leadership, service, and character across the students. Zoe has excelled academically at Junior

004Senior High School. Her selection as a veter scholar places her among the very best young leaders in Colorado. We are extremely proud of Zoe's achievements and the honor that she brings to our school community. So please please item. We have No, sorry. We have item E, celebrations. Are our show winners? Yes. Um, we we're going to start off here with um our second overall best show and grade. We have a Reagan Smith. Flip it around. Show the crap. I got you. And again, I know there were some teachers here that wanted to celebrate with them. Do we have a teacher come up say anything before I move on to the next one? Come on up. Come on up and I'll let you introduce the rest of you. Why? I'd like to start off with the

005kindergarteners. This is our third annual art show. Uh the art show is juried by an outside jury, outside source. So these winners were selected by an out outside jury. So I'd like to call up India please kindergarten and then I'd like to call up Maya Perez a kindergarter as well. Good job Baker. And then I'd like to call up Reagan Smith. She already got overall show. Thank you very much, guys. I just want to say thank you is the third annual art show that he's put on. We do this after primary school and he hosts the whole event. So I want to make sure he gets ready. And I jumped down a little bit just because I was excited. I saw winners start shouting out. But I'd like to bring um intermediate school up to

006recognize those winners as well. So the intermediate has a contest every year for the yearbook to put in their drawings. So Valerie Santa Steven is our sixth grade winner. Aaron Ortega stay up here for a photo. Yes. Um, our fourth grade winner is Adriana Ayella. [Music] Opal Cordova. And then our winner for the cover is from Lenny Glee. Ready? Next, I'd like to bring up our junior senior high school arts festival visual arts. music students that were able to come that got awards. Go ahead and come out and we'll run through. We had a very busy season with the music. I was very excited with so many students that were able to participate. We have eight vocal solos that um participated. Nine vocal ensembles, seven instrumental solos, and two instrumental ensembles. So, we did really

007well this year. Um with the high school vocal we had honorable mention D Moreno. Third place Diana um Jendro, second place Sarah Love. Junior high vocal ensemble we had a first place um with Kaylin Martinez, Alysa Valero, Tillier Gardner, and Mia Venus. High school um instrument Oh yeah, instrumental ensemble or excuse me vocal ensemble. Honorable mention was Maria Lavin and Pace Urban. Third place, Zanda Diana Gendro and D. Morena. Second place, Emma Mason and Len Romero. First place and Herrera with their song Poetry in Motion. Um, junior high instrumental solos. Third place we have Levi Schroy. Second place Kayen Laura. And first place the mascarina signed the belts and xylopones playing high school instrumental ensemble. Second place was a group Taylor, Viviana Herrera, Dan Roas and Charles Ravener playing American. Viviana plays the French horn.

008Jones and Michaela Martinez both on the flute playing Over the Rainbow. We have some high school um instrumental solos. An honorable mention with Landon Fisher, third place to Courtney Strody and first place to Maria Lavin. Overall, here's our winners with the music. We had our junior high best musician went to Achilles Vaser. The high school best musician went to Maria Lavin and the arts music scholarship went to Alejandro Palasia. I'm teaching arts and I had several students interrupt with I am no longer got first place with her essay. Varela was second with her essay called the Rocky Ford Fair. called Backstage Buzz. An honorable mention essay by Jere Aragon called Time is Precious. was honorable mention with her essay called first heartbreak and then two poetry recognitions. Ariel Marquez was third place with her poem

009called Hands of Love. Was also um placed with her poetry called warmth in winter. Honorable I'm Robertson. I mostly teach 11th grade playing darts. Um, and all of my winners are from my concurrent composition 1021 class. Um, so I have a few. So I'm just um, so I do have different categories. So I did have a first place in short stories. That was Danner Kushman and an honorable mention for Joe for third place essay for Sophia Riger. Three honorable mentions for Nate Rder, Nemani Johnson, and Hill. have first place in poetry for Adriana Torres. Second place in poetry Joe. Um third place in poetry. Um, honorable mentions for Silus and for Emily. For creative books, I have best overall creative books for Maria Leven and most original book for Joslyn Marks. higher engagement. So I'll

010go ahead and read first. So for 12th grade essays we have third place Smith and Christmas title the mischief of rock of And we also had 12th grade poetry second place Zoe Montoya with the mature falling in love. Satie Harington, come on in. Creative books. The most creative book was Jacqueline Bisera. Angelos the high school architecture and I'm going to recognize the 69th JC show winners have a good mixture of 9th through 12th grade um and these students placed either first, second, third or honorable mention. So, first one that I have on my list is Indiana with her base titled Laurel Essence. Second one is Amy Malik with her magazine. I think it's called perspective. Somebody touch my water. She plays her drawing titled Around her acrylic painting titled Many Men and her charcoal titled

011uh Bones and All. She titled two of her paintings which I don't have beautiful paint. She did two paintings both in her senior portfolio. So she didn't give me the title that she could all with their temporal pain titled sunset. Zoe Montoya. She plays in multiple paintings as well. She's also a few times. And then unless I'm missing somebody else from junior year, I like to bring up GTA. We'll let we're gonna take pictures of the little kids real quick. I'll look with your artwork. Gather along the wall for a photo, please. Do you want to jump in? Very nice. Readybody say good jobbody Thank you. Looks like for the most part that moved out. I'd like to bring TT out to kind of talk about on their celebrations as well. Um, I had, um,

01211 students that went to the art show, um, with some blues, some reds, and whatever. But, um, they all did really, really well. And, uh, one of my senior portfolio, Lily Klene, got the Otero scholarship. Yeah. And um senior portfolios there and they did fine too. And I'm very proud of these kids. They I don't do it. They do it. They're they're the ones. And I'm going to miss these girls a lot, my three ass students. But there's some other really nice art up there and we ought to look at it because it's they've done a good job. We did mosaics this year, um, which was new. We try new things because we're a small school, so I have to have new stuff every year. And um I just want to say that these kids

013put their all into it. I love my job. It's the best job ever. And these kids are just these kids are the best. So thank you came all the way around. [Music] Thank you. I just want to say my band's killer. So, Okay. Is that everyone? Now we'll move on to audience portion. I have one sign up. Mrs. Julie. Okay. I'm here tonight just as a concerned citizen, a taxpayer, and an advocate for our youth in East Oer School District families. And I want to just encourage you board members to very soon pass a policy uh regarding the no only biological boys involved in girls sports. I think we owe that to our girl athletes in Easto school district. And so I just want to be on the record that I have made that request.

014I think you should have all received an email from me. I sent it out in an email. So, uh, just consider it. I hope you see it pass in the future. Thank you. You have any questions? Thank you. Thanks. Approval of the agenda. I to I recommend yes I recommend the approval with changes. Um you're done here. The change that was submitted was an updated quote for the math curriculum. Um it was updated just to be uh more precise in uh the numbers that we need for everything as far as student count, teacher count, um consumables. So move second. We have a motion and a second to approve the agenda with the published changes. Questions or comments? Roll call. Mrs. Aial. I. Mrs. Sol. Hi. Mrs. Hines. Hi. Mr. Kitz. Hi. Mrs. Lea. Hi. Item

015H. Uh, this is the to accept Dr. Blinko's resignation and approve the mutual separation agreement. Make a motion to accept Dr. Blinko's resignation and mutual separation agreement. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve and accept Dr. Blinko's resignation and mutual separation agreement. Questions, comments? I did want to say that um Dr. Lingo has offered his resignation in order to pursue other interests and he'll be available for the district until June 30th if we do need his assistance or expertise. Roll call. Mrs. Aal. Hi, Mrs. S. Hi, Mrs. Hines. Hi, Mr. Kovitz. Hi, Mrs. Lea. I item item I um we have chosen to or well it is recommended to appoint Jared Wilson our chief academic officer, Richard Romero, our safety and security officer and Heather Nelson, business manager as the interim committee

016those responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the district. So move second. We have a motion and a second to appoint Jared Wilson, Richard Romero, and Heather Nelson as our interim committee. Uh my statement is that or statement would be that um the reason for that is these three district employees um alone are not quite at, you know, superintendent and we didn't want to go through that process of um doing the interim yet, but we still have things that we need to get done for the end of the year. So putting them together as an interim committee um will cover our academics and then operations and financial. So um these three district employees will work together to help advise and make recommendations to the board until the board has completed a new superintendent search. And

017it is important for this time of year just to continue the collaborative work in those areas. And um they'll also work on a district staff communication plan and point of contact. Questions or comments? Roll call. Mrs. Ai Olive. Hi. Mrs. Siol. Hi. Mrs. Hines. Hi. Mr. Coleman. Hi. Mrs. Lea. Hi. The item two consent agenda. We make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. motion and a second to approve the consent agenda. That's for the personnel approval and um approve resolution authorizing signing of checks in district bank account at First National Bank and Colorado banking trust. Questions or comments? Roll call. Mrs. Aial I. Mrs. Si. Mrs. Hines. Hi. Mr. Povitz. Hi. Mrs. Lea. Hi. Item three, minutes. Make a motion to approve the minutes from the regular meeting and the two special meeting.

018Second. Yes. Motion and a second to approve the minutes of March 24th regular meeting, April 1st, 2025 and April 15, 2025 special board meetings as printed. Questions, comments, or corrections? Roll call, please. Mrs. Aial. Hi. Mrs. Sial. Hi. Mrs. Hines. Hi. Mr. Kovitz. Hi. Mrs. Le. I. Next we have presentations. Natalie Brown and Sandy Mal. I'm Sandy Mal with our Santa Fe. Good. Hi. Thank you. Social treatment. So yes, Natalie Brown, executive director. Thank you guys so much for having me to kind of share what exactly is. So go over that just real quickly. Okay, you told me what to do now. Oh, sorry. Okay, perfect. All right, you're good. All right, thank you so much. So, what does BOS seats actually stand for? It means board of cooperative educational services. And underneath the board

019of cooperative educational services, you as well as six other member districts in this region join together in efforts to um allow us to provide services for all of you. It's collaborative effort to help form for students, families, community members, etc. to receive programs and services in this area. It is unique in that we are an extension of you. We don't work in isolation. It is a great partnership. And so what does that mean regarding um what this partnership is all about is that HOSES exists to supply the educational services to school districts that alone you cannot afford single single to provide for your districts. So it is an advantage and it's a cost effective model joining with other smaller districts together to provide these services and these programs across the region. These services represent that

020financial commitment is best meet by the means of all districts sharing that cost in that program. In many instances, including ours, we provide your special education services and we're the administrative unit, meaning that we are the responsible party to the state department of education for special education. So, here is a list. You have a packet in front of you that provides a very detailed list of all of these services that we provide. I'll quickly go through them. As OC3 provide an aiologist, an autism team, behavior interventions, child law, certified occupational therapist assistance, extended school year services, grant management, gifted and talented education coordination, hearing interpreter, hearing teacher, alternative programs such as Sill Academy, which we'll talk about in induction program, occupational therapist, physical therapist, preschool special education, professional development, projects coordinator, school psychologist, secretary, speech

021therapist, speech therapist, assistance, SWAT team, transition into postsecondary and visionary. I will also like to say to kind of expand past this, a lot of the services that we provide is a culmination of what district leaders suggest that we as a Boseies provide to each district. So it is a commulative that's why it's a cooperative of everybody coming together to say what it is that best serves the districts. So the Boseies doesn't make a single decision of what is best for everybody. Everybody joins in to say what is needed for as a whole group we have a kind of hidden goal but basically it's that at least if two districts are saying that they're in need of something we as the bosses help to provide those resources and those programs so for example with a

022grant districts by themselves pursue getting grants on their own but there are some cases where the federal government or the state department of education will ask that a boseis be the host of those grants and so we come together and say who across the region would like to seek out those grant opportunities. So the Boseies houses it but all the districts benefit from the grant if they so choose. So it's a great way that we can kind of come together again combining resources, supports in order to make sure that everybody benefits from that. So students are able to get a lot more without the burden being placed on each individual practitioner to do that by themselves. The seal academy seal academy is a branch of it's a specialized program that we have and this is

023a therapeutic environment that our students receive again as an extension to this is not a school it is a program and what's really great about seal academy it does not belong to the bosses students that attend seal academy still belong to the district so they are your students or their students of their member districts that they belong to students that come into this program are right now between preschool to a secondary level. But right now we have a very high saturation of students in the elementary level. We don't have a great deal of students in the secondary level. That was a decision that was made a couple of years ago by superintendent wanting to ensure that we are putting more focus on early interventions for younger students. Students are able to get um support not

024only academically but also behaviorally to get supports in that arena and it helps them to have a more structured environment. again an extension of what they may not be able to get from their school district because of you think about of a continuum of services once a district is somewhat out of opportunities of what can be happening in the general education setting. This allows another alternative for students to get additional support without being at the most restrictive. This environment also helps them to get um a pace that's very similar to their peers while they're still um at SE Academy. And we make sure the curriculum is still in their own individual ability, but still in as best alignment as we can with districts. As you can imagine, we have to partner with multiple districts to

025kind of offer curriculum, which everybody doesn't choose the same curriculum across all the districts, but we try our best to make sure that it aligns so that students are a able to easily transition back to their schools when they're ready um based off of the variety of criteria to make sure that they can easily transition back when they're ready and um able to questions. What is swack? Swack. Sandy, do you want to help share statewide assistive alternative augmentative communication? So, um those cannot communicate nor technology are voice activated. We have a team that deciding what is best. Help them choose what works. What's the enrollment seal? Currently, we um vary between 20 and 30 25 and 30 students. Um the numbers sometimes vary due to the fact that students are um transitioning sometimes part of

026their day back in their brick and mortar um school and some of their day they were still at SEAL. So, it's kind of averaging about right there in this moment in time. You happen to know how many are students? Yes. Um, the last time I checked that, I want to say we're at about 21 students, I believe, is where we are currently at. And they do range, just to kind of tell you, from preschool to 9th grade. Well, had a traditionally I could also add this if that would be helpful has traditionally had a very high population of students out of town and that could just be that because we're a bigger district so we have more students or do you feel that we have things that we can't provide specifically in our district? So

027it's necessary for us to have that partnership so that our students have that opportunity kind of lean into standing so we know more of the history on that part of it for sure. I think it's a combination of things you guys do have the largest um like sometimes um a lot of high need um because does have so much to offer. So I don't know this principles probably help out more so than I can. I do have to say that Lahana really has some strong systems in place in their buildings. So it it isn't just their answer is to send them to SEAL. They actually go through that process and that is one thing that we do require before they go to deal. They have to go through process to show that they cannot be

028successful um with interventions and so forth that are being tried in the district in the school. And that's kind of my job is whenever they send a referral to me, I go back and say, "Is there something else we could be trying before we send them to SEAL?" That's a strong strong process. What's your max number of students? I would say about 40 students currently has always been about our max. I would say number of students Yeah, on positive note, in the last two years, we've transitioned probably eight to 10 students back to 30 just last week. The goal of SEAL is to get them back in their schools as quickly as possible is to teach them the skills that they need in order to be successful in their in their home districts. So people

029don't find them very often very long. Well, and then like you said, it's a program and not a school. I think some people have the idea that it's like a charter school. Um, but if it's it's a a score grant for students with high needs and then not just from our So if we didn't have both these but we didn't have this program then each district would have to fund their own what is it called our administrative unit right and then that's not really cost effective right for each district to do that if it's if we pooling our resources into both these are you saying for special education Are you saying specifically for civil? I just want to make sure to answer your question correctly. So, regarding like the services and the programs that we

030offer. So, in the state of Colorado, there's criteria for what it takes to basically be your own administrative unit. Basically, somewhat stand on your own and be able to have the resources and the services that can be provided. That's just an example. Um, we have been in, as you guys can imagine, you guys see this all across the news as it is, we are having a very difficult time in education right now filling positions. And so, specialists are even harder to come by because in a clinical setting, physical therapists, speech, language pathologists can make a lot more money in hospital settings than they do in school districts. And so, um, partly it's the cost savings of coming together and pulling those resources together. But for example, I'm just gonna kind of throw something out there.

031A smaller school district. Um let's say I'm gonna use a district not even in our in our system like a Branson that has less than 20 students in a brickandmortar setting to hire a speech language pologist is going to run you anywhere between, you know, about 60 some thousand on up. The services that they can get from Boseies is going to be about that same amount of cost. But that's not just for speech language pythologist. That's going to give them a psychologist. That's going to give them a PT. That's going to give them an OT. That's going to give them professional development. It's going to give them the gamut for the same amount of money. So, it's cheaper that they join together and expand those resources across the board versus just hiring one specialist. The

032problem is is being your own administrative unit as well. They're responsible for all the state reporting whereas the OSES cover all of that for each individual district. Um the state right now has a very specific criteria of what that is to kind of stand on your own. Um school districts can easily apply for that, but they have to be able to demonstrate that they can cover all areas of special education on their own in order to do that. Yeah. And some do. Some have applied for the last several years and some have um separated and others have joined in and out of differenties across the state. larger school districts. I'm going to use examples like in PLO, Colorado Springs, Denver, they're large enough because of their resources, their enrollment, their number of students, they're able

033to hire an ample amount of service providers because their budgets are large enough to do so because they have I mean, I'm going to use Denver public schools. When you have 90,000 kids, you have a funding source that can certainly cover that. I will say even in Denver public schools, they still even struggle to provide special education services because when you have enrollment of those numbers, it's still really hard to cover all those costs. So, we're all behind in special ed in a nutshell. But I really love that the most model is what it is because we can do more work together than we can do apart for our kids. Natalie, can I ask a question on the SEAL Academy? Absolutely, please. Um so we are the only place in the state of Colorado that

034has a program like skill academy um that is run by the posties. There are some there's one other place in Colorado Springs that has a school that has like this and actually we pattern skill academy after that school but we're the only one in the state that has a program because it's hard. It's tough. It is it is very challenging to run a program like that. Um, and we have a great group of superintendents and a great board and so forth that help support that. Um, so much so that we had legislators come and um, I've been on a legislative committee because they would like to try to figure out how to replicate this program throughout the state which is very very very difficult to do. Um, but I just want to say that we

035bring kids in from all outside of our LOI charge of more. Um, but we bring kids in because nobody has programs like this. And in the districts that don't have programs like this, they do have to make like their self-contained classrooms. And it is very very very very expensive um and not quite as effective because they don't have a full-time clinical and educational counselor that's right there with them. So I don't know if that helps with the Seal Academy side of that that um yeah, it it's unique, very unique. And right now we're the only state for the past seven years. Can you tell us what seal stands for? They changed the name. So I it's on your Yes. Still in the back. It's alternative learning. Thank you. Yes. Oh, go ahead. Okay. Sorry about

036that. Yes. The Southeast Alternative Learning Academy. Okay. All right. I don't know if many people knew that there was an acronym. So, I just wanted I know we love that in education, right? It's all about acronyms. Yes. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you all so very much. Appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Thank you. Just before we move on, um I just wanted to make sure I said thank you um to Boseies. I know even just uh the little bit that I've gotten to start really working with them. If I ever need anything, it doesn't matter time time of day, I reach out to them, they write back to me, they give me some advice, they give me whatever supports I need. Um I mean as good a situations where I wake

037up, I think it was like a Monday or something where some stuff had taken place in the community and in the valley. Um and Natalie was the first call that I had that morning to say what resources are available, how can we support? And so really just the human side of Boseies that I've got to experience is tremendous and I just want to tell them thank you because they help us out in ways that are not always just documented on paper and it means a lot to us. So thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So we're moving on now to our interim committee's report and recommendations operations. As always I'll be about 45 minutes. Uh first of all I spoke with you guys back in February talked let you guys know about the

038SSD grant to school security dispersement grant we got 300 some um just this past Friday got notification that we got an additional 197,000 for that I owe big thanks to some of the junior senior high school kids who actually attended the safety summit in January and at the end of the summit we did some sort of survey and a lot of kids indicated on the issues that put it junior standard high school. So the SSD committee reached out to us said hey we might be able to help you and when Pat after I just talked to them and talking to the best ground people it wasn't looking feasible that we could use the SSD monies for roof repair simply because if we use that money for roof repair then rip it off with best grant

039money there are chance of that. So I reached back to them and says, "Hey, you know, we did have a project. Is there any way that it's more fun to continue on our project and said absolutely." So we were awarded that on Friday. So I'm pretty happy for that. Put a big gift to that. So that's that. Um currently working with our maintenance director. We got our summer projects that are going to be firing up here at the end of school. We'll have our normal, you know, floors and apartments just over like that. Once we get those final lines, they'll probably address those things. Usually comes in the June meeting, but we'll have those all together. We also get with directors and principles to get kind of their needs list, not necessarily their wants, but

040the needs that we kind of have to have. So we kind of get a good idea of what they're going to look like from state level. So we're working on those and I'll get those over to Heather so that we have the budget make adjustments accordingly. Moving on to some staffing stuff. uh friendline which is our new application website software place to go apply. It's actually a pretty cool system. I went and created an account and try to apply for a job just to kind of see if how easy of the process it was. I actually found some um wrinkles if you will in it and got with fixed and made it a lot smoother. But I can tell you I was in the portal today and there are quite a few apps in there

041already. So I think this is going to be pretty huge for our district uh simply just because it's going to be a lot easier for people to apply. Um we are also going to set up a computer at central office for those that don't have internet access or access to the computer in general. Uh we'll have a computer set up there so that they can just come into the office and apply for whatever position they need. Don will help come out with that. Uh J and I also spoke with our HR director Don and she is going to be here to present HR to all next meeting Tuesday. So she'll be here next May that this coming May that you guys report on that insurance. Uh we are stay. We're going to continue to stay

042with them school district self insurance pool. Uh there's just so many benefits to them. We've been with them for a long time. Stay with them. Uh and now with except she'll finalize the changes and get it back and we'll have a quote to you all. Our health, dental, vision, and life insurance had a big 0% increase all across the board. So that's huge huge for the district to where we don't see any major changes on that. So, we are going to stay with Anthem for medical insurance, but again, the zero increase on everything across the board, which that would be good. May 1st is a big day because we are going to have open enrollment for our health insurance starting May 1st through May 15th. I think she put out an email today concerning that.

043But May 1st, we will also have American Fidelity, who is our cafeteria plan folks here that day as well to do all that stuff. So May 1st going to be a insurance day. Mark Huie, am I saying his name right? Will also be here on 51 from 12 to 3. They'll be over at central office during those times for any staff members that may have questions concerning their health insurance. And so they can make those email Don just let her know and make it a range of time and maybe figure out some other way to be able to find. Just just to add to that, I know that we've had a lot of conversations um that Don has kind of headed with with Mark to kind of, you know, as we heard some of those

044um from confer notes and people that were struggling through those things on how how we can communicate better, how we can get the information that Mark has to all of our people better. And so I know she's had a lot of those meetings with him to try to set up more opportunities opportunities so that he can come in and have some of those conversations and address those things. So we're kind of trying to streamline some ways that we can communicate and utilize him so that it just any questions thus far on that piece. I'm going to jump ahead and go into the role. I have a quick question. Yes. So I don't know how how long ago this would look at me. agent and myself at some point we used to have uh a maintenance

045list where we were on rotation with upgrades that were happening to our district. Do we still have that list in place and if we do what's next? I think we have some sort of that. That's a good question because I remember we used to have that on that board downstairs and I think Chris is actually running that list maybe on his computer. So that's something we can definitely put together and provide for you at the next meeting or maybe June meeting that work. I just know that you started the project here at the intermediate school. We were working on floors and then I don't know I spent a lot of time here today and I realize I'm not all the floors are the same. So obviously we haven't finished yet. So just checking up on

046that. Yeah, we could certainly put that together for that grand. What project is that going towards? So, it'll continue with our ex at the back to the junior senior high. Right. Right now, yeah, junior senior high will fix the gym over there and depending how I got to meet with our guy. Uh we're going to try to bleed over into actually starting interior access. Right now, the previous budget was there to do exterior. This will allow us to start interior stuff. So that would be good to hopefully next year SSD will come out again. Uh like everything else is open. So I had a a thought about me conferring some of the things that was given as feedback. people not having access to all the resources they they would need. Would it be beneficial to

047our staff um maybe before we head back into a new year to have like a teacher resource night where we put all of these respective professionals in one place for the teachers to access all at one time. Um, you know, it makes sense to have maybe a financial advisor there, an insurance rep there, you know, maybe we bring in a tax professional that helps you go through how to fill out your your W2s because that's not always common knowledge. And then that really helps our new people who are just getting started. That helps our our veterans really ask any questions they want to. You know, we did that one teacher appreciation event where they brought in like the people who did the ear acupuncture or whatever. Equally important, but maybe we should prioritize helping them

048get their financial house in order before we help them relax their teachers. They don't really relax, but maybe just putting together a beneficial affair with local resources where they can all come at once and if they feel they need additional help, then they can get on the schedule with the correct professional. But at least it's all at their fingertips. They know what to expect and whether or not they take advantage or not would be their choice. But at least we provide it. I think that's the answer. I have a quick question on the front line. How does that work? If somebody submits an application, it then goes to HR and then HR forwards it to the she has it pre-loaded in there. So say for instance if the high school position there it'll go to

049everybody else report. Please forgive me as I read from the script. Try not to sound like a robot. These are the posts that Heather left me. Uh so I did talk to stay with them obviously um advocates on our budget budget system and moving forward we can utilize the budgeting tool that's system with that budgeting tool made so much so much it might have been just an option in that system that we just weren't aware that they're going to be built into there. So that'll be a huge help for them. Um she should have a rough but she should have a rough draft completed by the first part of May. Then Heather will go over and make the changes that they need. Final budget will be completed and ready for order June board. We'll see

050a copy of them. I'm sure it's it's getting close. And so again, like I told you, I was working on the needs list from U directors and principles. And so I don't suspect we would see something probably in the end or so. Uh let's see. Final will be clean by June. Uh Tim is also working on creating board reports for present financials to you all. Um these are out of STS once she has been completed. This is Kim. She would like to come to the board and present to you the show all the different reports that are there. She is looking at wanting to do those types of reports monthly rather than quarterly. Guess she can decide if that's something that you want to stay with or go to monthly. Uh but she also when

051she creates the reports um you guys can look at them and see if that's something that you like want to change you know formulated however works best for you guys. Moving on Dimmitri from the auditor is finalizing the fiscal 22 2030 single aid which is advanced funds and he's currently working on the fiscal year 2324. Last week, Shay and Heather finished all the journal entries for Lisa from Redlands. That itself is a huge thing. Just the journal entries alone and like entering stuff in your checkbook. Those those are done. That's for the 23 24 year. Heather will keep the board updated on any changes to the audit and when Demetri is supposed to finishing the audit. In addition, we are working on the accounting insurance controls questionnaire by Demetri uh for the audit and shel

052back any changes and recommendations that last but not least as we've all been hearing funding is still not finalized by the state defense will keep you updated as she finds out. That was my rendition of Heather. Thank you. Did we know a date because we passed the date, right? That it would be Did we have have an extension again? I'm not sure. Okay. I'll find that out. Um, sorry. Did anybody else have questions for the Heather part that he can answer? Anybody have any questions for Richie to relay to Heather? She might be watching. Heather, if you're watching, write this down. Sorry, Jerry. No, you're good. Um, I guess I just like to start off my report with looking at um looking at next board meeting. Um, it looked like it was going to fall

053on the 26, which would be Memorial Day. I just wanted to throw out there. I didn't know if we need to discuss an opportunity for a different date for that as or not. I just wanted to throw that out there to so all on the same page. Last year we moved the May meeting to the second Monday of the committee. Are we going to start scheduling the work sessions back in again on the second Mondays? We did that in the first part of the year and then after they kind of dropped off. I think that we should, but I also think that that will kind of run in with like the training from Dan and then like our strategic planning and then talking about policy updates. But for now, do we want to move the

054regular meeting in May to the second? I don't know if people are going to be out of town. We are going to be a lot Anybody else? Yeah. We that would my only concern about that is I think we need a vote from Memorial Day, but if we meet on May 12th, that's going to be almost six weeks before we have enough at the end of that seems to be but really maybe not. I mean an official meeting. Yes. A secondary maybe work session. Work session set up. But we still have to have Yeah, we have to do that. Yeah. And then we have graduation. Yeah. And that was kind as we looked at that May may just get so things in May. Yes. Y 12. Perfect. Awesome. All right. Um, so moving on to

055my TNTP update. Um, we are going to be going to our kind of our kickoff conference. Um, that begins June 9th through June 12th. Um we will kind of just as a as a timeline breakdown um beginning early May I'll be meeting with TNTP as we kind of look at our snapshot data that they they collected in February. Wait a minute not February maybe it was February February March on top of my head. Um they were just down here kind of pulled some of that data put together some of their reports starting early May. Um we're going to start off with a meeting with Lee as well as DTP. We're going to go through some of that and then kind of coordinate how we're going to plan the rest of our leaders as we kind

056of go to our building leaders, instructional coaches, and things of that nature. Um, we I was also introduced to a gentleman, his name is Josh Smith. Um, Josh Smith is going to be he's kind of like the boots on the ground worker for TNTP. Um, he's a third party contractor. He comes in um he's and I'm sure he he'd love to present and give you his resume as I listen to it. Had some turnaround school knowledge. um middle school principal knowledge um seemed like it was a great fit for us. Um and so he um he's going to work with TNTP. Um I'll also mention him again um whenever I talk a little bit about the strategic planning um as I get into that, but he will be um coming down. We'll start working together

057and um within the month of May, we'll have a couple of meetings get ready to go. So, as we step into June, we have our goals kind of set up as far as how we want to start planning out the start of next school year. And with that, we're going to meet those four days will be design each day for all of our school leaders um as we progress through the first eight weeks of school. Josh is going to help us put together all that data, put together what our goals are, work with some of our UVA goals so that that um meeting in June as extensional as it can be is as extensional as it can be. Um UVA, we also have UVA um here on the 27th. Um not sure yet if it's

058going to be virtual or in person, but we do have them here on the 27th is ready to continue. Um and then we are also going to be prepping for our July conference um where we will go. It's the 13th through the 18th. The education leaders, principles will be attending that conference with UVA as well. Um here April 27. Yes. um testing as we kind of looked we looked through um in the last couple of weeks we've had third through eighth graders that they took taken CMAS ELA math uh CA mass as well fifth eighth and 11th graders taking the CA mass for science we've got ninth grade that took the PAC or um eth and nth we have 10th grade who took it PSAT for the 10th 11th grade that took it took the

059SAT um and so as we've started looking at all these different tests and all this data. Um the district had also looked at this program called Aubry. I know we've kind of mentioned in the past Aubrey essentially is going to be a data warehouse. It's going to allow us to look at all this data together on one um one program if you will and then be able to pull in other data such as attendance um things of that nature so that we can kind of make some connections between um correlations that we might see for example attendance and test scores. um just to make sure that we're we're getting the best perspective of that that testing data. Um I think it's something that's good, but it's something that's new that we're going to kind of

060work with our building leaders to see what data we really want to investigate, what data we could kind of isolate to have that better picture. Um moving on to our grant section. Um I know Richie had talked about the public safety roof grant. Uh we are still ramping up with our best grant right now. Um we have a meeting. I believe ours is going to be the 15th. I think it's at [Music] 10:45 my head. Um right now that's going to be a virtual meeting. Um and I'm going to prepare prepare for the best grant. Um I've been working with a couple of different representatives from CDE. Um, I'm also reaching out to a couple of superintendents that have won the CBE or I'm sorry, the best grant previously and seeing how um, you know,

061what what tips, what things that um, I can be best practiced for so that eventually we prepare to present on that we're ready to go, you know, is set up the best that we can. Um I believe it was last meeting we talked about um what we're going to do if we don't get the best grant. Um one thing that we've kind of looked at again um Richie did an amazing job getting back with this with that public safety grant to see if it was see if it was feasible. Um the way it looked with spending that money and then potentially turn around getting the best drive up just didn't it wasn't feasible. um it looked like an opportunity that we could be not being as efficient as we should be with everybody's money and

062so it just didn't feel right. One thing that we had talked about as well as Mr. Chrisman kind of looking at in the event that we don't get this best grant, how can we start identifying our our I want to call them our hot zones. So essentially the the places that we're having most issues with within the roof and allocating money monthly to that so that um in the event we are able to get the best grant and replace all at once, we're not just throwing a ton of money in at the same time all at once and then having to replace it. But we are addressing those needs because we do see the needs for our kids. We see the trash. We see the we see the water leaking. We see that we're just

063trying to figure out financially the best route to to go. And so we have done that. Um that's something that as we kind of prepare this budget um that we're communicating whether or not we could have set that budget line that monthly we can we can do that. We worked with Chris and kind of talked to a couple different contractors to see what that might look like kind of identify those options. Um for strategic planning um I kind of talked a little bit briefly about Josh Smith TNTP third party contractor. We had talked about um whether our strategic planning was going to empower TNTP. We presented with um CDE. Uh we originally had named Empower as our as our strategic planning go to. That was the company that was going to cover everything. Um they

064helped us get you know when we got our grant to pay for our board training. Um everything was strategic planning. It all went through empower. What was really nice is empowered and TNTP and myself got together um and rather than pulling in just an entire different philosophy from empower in part as they've agreed to work with Josh as well and Josh going to be a third party contractor between empower and TNTP so that as we move forward with our strategic planning it will all be underneath the umbrella of TNTP rather than just another entity we don't have to use auto power stuff they're going to help us support um the work that we're doing with TNTP to make sure that everything's as possible that that all been communicated to the state. Are they cool with

065that? Yes, I guess I should say from my recollection, yes, that's what's going on. Um I've been meeting with uh with both TNTP and with Empower and then meeting with um Dr. Sam Snyder um to make sure that we're kind of following along with that. Um they also have a field um field agency of superintendency that kind of help just make sure that you're checking off those boxes, make sure you're following everything. A meeting with them as well to make sure that anything that we do need to present um to CBE that we're all on the same page. in the roof. Yes. So from my understanding then it was not in our best interest to use the the grant money that you received towards the roof because then it's just wasting taxpayer dollars. On the

066one hand by doing that and then ripping it off we are the best grant. But then on the other hand if you do make those repairs and that changes our need when we apply for the best grant, right? Yeah. And and that's kind of the thing that is as we continue to communicate with the best grant um committee. I want to say her name was Katie. I'm sorry top of my head. Um that is a question that we kind of had this whole time as we were looking at all these other grants. What what money or what changes might impact our ability to receive the best grant. Um and that is one thing that that if we did a bunch of money, a bunch of renovations um that would impact our best grant as we're

067moving forward and looking at the possibility of if we had to worst case scenario put in those monthly installments. Um, I want to make sure that I'm coordinating with um, the grant committee for best grant and make sure that we're not doing anything that would jeopardize our money for that as well. Um, what I'm really trying to negotiate them with is that they're going to have to meet me somewhere. We got a roof that's leaking and dropping water. We got a need for money, but we're kind of caught in between and I can't also sit on my hands and not do anything either. And so I'm going to kind of try to um thread that needle, see what I can do to negotiate and and take care the best that that I can at the

068moment as we're waiting to see whether that grant can go through for us or not. But yes, that's that's a very valid question. It was something that we were not sure of that we started doing a lot of digging into because we did not want to jeopardize all the work that had gone into this and the the opportunity for success if we did it. We were kind of in a pit to be the SSD after we spend the project completed by June 30. Well, we're going to have to rub back on that, but what they wanted to give us first what the road was going to cost feasible and again we didn't want to ruin a chance. So, so you found a different use for the money and got well here we've been awarded the

069pass granted that day, right? When I think it's it's right quick turn around. Um, I know that I I assumed it was all on the 15th, but as I look through the schedule, there's enough presentations. I think they've spread it out 13, 14th, and 15th. I remember off top my head. So, I know as soon as those are done, they'll let us No, no, no. I I'm glad you asked that because that was something that um I really had to look into to make sure and still want to continue to look into. So I don't back that route. Awesome. Um and then the last thing that I have just to discuss uh we heard from the last meeting about a hall pass. Um essentially the scanning system for kids to communicate with community between um

070classrooms at the high school. Just wanted to give some more information on that. Um essentially we were funded from a grant that was the school health professional grant um which I believe helped us secure. Um essentially what this does is it's it's allowing us to provide a better a better security for our kids in between um classrooms. It seems like right now um we're finding where you know I guess for that one thing that we liked about this program was that it allowed you to see what kids were going on at what specific time. And the reason I say that because we're starting to see whether you have conflicts and I I looked at the system more from a counselor's perspective. Um, if you, as a counselor, you're working with kid A about problems with

071kids C or B and they're worried that there might be a conflict whenever they're going to use the bathroom or something along those lines, we're able to sit and use that program to identify, okay, we're having an issue with student A, student B, student C. So that in the event that they may be all the way on the north side of the campus and going to use the restroom when they sign out, we're able to tag so that student B and C, it'll flag them, say that they're unable to use the restroom at that moment. As soon as that student checks back in, other students can check out. And so it kind of allows some different perspectives on how we can establish a better protocol for safety that way. Um, but the other thing that

072we kind of talked about as I met with principles was that I didn't want it to be a gotcha type of a system, but really a data collection system. You know, it's it's something simple as I broke it down. If they take two minutes out of five classes every day, that gives you 10 minutes a day at the end of the week, you're looking at 40 minutes of instruction time that they missed. And then you look at it for 10 weeks and you're looking at 400 minutes that kids wanted in the classroom. Now, maybe there's a health concern, maybe there's legitimate, you know, we're not trying to get go after and chase that that rabbit into the gotcha systems. But what we do want to look at is, hey, parents, when we have those parent

073teacher conferences, when we're saying, hey, your kids struggling, what does that time look like for your kid? Then it also opens the avenue for things that that leaders can look at and say, I notice in this one class we have so many kids that are gone. Is it because it's right after lunch? Is it because maybe our kids are really struggling with math at that time? And so it kind of gives us just a different perspective to look at data and where our kids are and see if those minutes can tell us something that we can change instructionally to help support our kids. Um and so I know that there's kind of some different views on that. I know the district had looked at using something earlier. I believe it was called Salamander for the

074same type of attendance tracking. Um this was just an affordable that came from a grant. Um, and it's giving us a more a better perspective on where our kiddos are, where they're not, and where those minutes are going, how we can we can make better choices to uh support. Yes. And Mr. Um, so it also is integrated with RSIS system. So it wasn't a large portion of money that was able to um add this provide us with this add-on. just a very small person with a lot of different um opportunities for us to do that. I'm really empowering our students um in a way to understand what they need to do and where they're going and how they can um take a look another layer of leadership within their education. Um so just trial and

075error figuring out what works best and how we can support our students. looking at trends like Jordan was saying trends has been very powerful and figuring out what early interventions or what different interventions we put in place. Thank you. Is this something we're looking at districtwide or is it just um right now we're kind of starting at the junior senior high and seeing as we go. I think it's something that we could um potentially look at, but uh again that management system looks very different for standing, you know, at the high school level versus uh Mrs. Miller at the primary level. Um, and so just kind of looking at that and seeing um, and kind of looking at our need to see, you know, test results. Um, off the top of my head, I'm not

076sure. I know when we do do NWA, those are usually really quick off the top of my head, but most of the time for our CES scores, correct me if I'm wrong, but we're not going to know until next year. What's the date? It's usually it's like second month of school, right? Yeah. September, they have a date, but essentially that that's for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Long term a little faster. Teacher a lot faster. Yeah. When we get the data back, [Music] I recommend to a room certified staffing Employment renew rules resolution 20252N, resolution 20252P, and resolution 25 2025-3. So moved. We have a motion and a second to approve certified staff employment renewals resolution 2025-2N, resolution 2025-2P, and resolution 2025-3. Questions or comments? Roll call. Mrs. Aial. I. Mrs. S. Hi. Mrs. Hines. Hi.

077Mr. Coleman. Hi. Mrs. Lea. Hi. Item B. Am I allowed to elaborate on this one or just give my recommendation? Give your recommendation and then elaborate. Sweet. I give my recommendation to approve capturing part capturing kids for us. So moved. Second. Motion is second to approve the renewal of capturing kids arts program in the amount of $20,850 as presented and what did you want to bother that is also being paid for and correct me if I have the wrong one but it is also that school health professional grant um so it's basically we pay for it that grant reimbures us for that money um the other thing that I wanted to highlight and I don't want to steal any of Mrs. Miller or Mrs. Griffy's um thunder, but we got a really exceptional award using

078that program. Um they just the amount of work we're seeing, we heard it whenever we did our CDE report. Um you know, we're it's we're starting to see the benefits of those of those programs and be acknowledged for that. Um and both our primary and intermediate, what was the exact term? It was the national showcase schools. Yes. So um they did a tremendous job with that and we're being we're being honored for that. I think it's a great program and I'd like to continue with it. That was a big part of the C. Yeah, I mean it is, you know, we have a lot of academics that we need to uh to cover. But, um, one thing that we're going to have to always go back to is the culture and the climate here. And

079that's one thing that I do think our primary and our intermediate are really starting at their roots. Um, and then we have um, Miss Jen and Mr. again um kind of facilitating that as the kids are growing to our secondary. But it it it starts with the culture. Everything's in the culture and they are setting a fine example of what our expectations are, what our gold standard are and what we want to get to. Is there a program for the high school in TA? Um I don't I know there are programs, but I know they're not using CK at this point. And I just want to put out there for anybody who may not be aware, we were doing CPH for quite some time. So we weren't selling the board of education to board of

080education on the program. We actually been utilizing it for a long time. We're just seeing the fruits of lots of labor. Right guys? Any other questions or comments? Roll call, please. Mrs. Aial. Hi. Mrs. Sol. Hi. Mrs. Hines. Hi. Mr. Coleman. Hi, Mrs. Le. Hi. Item C. I recommend to approve the purchase of the new math curriculum. I make a motion to approve the purchase of the illustrative math curriculum for grades K through six in the amount of $75,898.36. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the purchase of it's elusted. Why don't you just I am a lot of people just I am claustrophobic or grad $75,898.36 questions or comments. Was there training that came with this? Is this something that was talked about? Yes. So, um the professional development is not

081included in this quote on purpose. Um we're looking at how we can use some different funds to help support um with that professional development. I also when I met with them um I was very clear that how crucial the professional development needed to be. Um and with that I even wanted it separated in the purchase agreement so that it would it would be honored that that professional development when it was going to happen, how often it was going to happen and how it was going to happen. Um not a huge fan of the virtual um PD stuff. I know that sometimes there's a time and place for it, but I want to be very specific with what that looked like and the type of PD that our teachers are getting. Um, if I'm being just

082very very frank about it. Um, I I really get frustrated whenever, especially as a teacher, I went in um to professional development. It was a sales pitch for something they've already purchased. And so I was very transparent with them that whenever we do this professional development, it's not going to be a sales pitch. They've already collected the paycheck. Here's what we're going to look at. professional development. Here's the specific needs that we're going to need for our staff. And so I have it separated. Um I do have an agreement with the company that will outline it. Um if I can find a way to purchase that with different funds rather than just uh these funds, I'm going to do that as well. Do we know about how much that portion of it will cost? Um

083right now it looks between eight and 10 grand. Is that per year? Um yes. And and it kind of depends. They have they have separate they have separate packages on on you know they have like their silver, bronze, gold, platinum kind of packages on which one you go with and what that looks like. This program will start next year. Yes. So the training will that's I know I I wrote down our specific days our our best days. um we're going to try to make sure that we have our training um from IM before we start this school year next year. So that's what they're working with him. Another thing that we looked at was um tons and tons of people that I talked to was that whether it be district or CDE the use IM

084they would they were hiring out different math consultants to offload IM. That's something that I'm working on as well so that we can provide some professional development um to all of our you know to our primary intermediate building leaders our instructional coaches of the best way to even break down PDS what typically teachers tend to struggle with what the trends are with that and so I'm looking at providing some of that professional development the leaders as well prior to that so that as we offload this uh curriculum it has a highest chance of success one thing that I also met with them on is with this professional development is helping us build this roadmap so that as we're working throughout the school year and we have our Wednesday PLC meetings, we're also going to be

085have different meetings that are designed specifically for the new math curriculum so that it's not just a one day for the school year. Here's your math. Try to digest everything and then go have fun. It's going to be here's our math curriculum. Here's how we're going to offload it. I anticipate us having this meeting X, Y, and Z on these dates. Um so we can kind of reconvene, see what our needs are and see how we can best um secure Does it also seem like parental where them learning to parents to help the kids? Yes and no. Um there are some additional um parent tools. One thing I kind of mentioned about whether or not we're going to go with an additional company for the online portion. Um they kind of highlight more in that

086realm. Um but I do know that even right now student can go on create their own you know any parent can go on to I in create their own login um and have access to our full curriculum um minus the hard copies of the books. I mean they could they could essentially print the curriculum out but they could be able to access that. Um, that is something that I think especially going through year one that we kind of survey our parents on and see, you know, if it's something that we get through this year and parents are going, man, we really need more to help support our kids at home, then that's something we could reconvene um and look at purchasing for the next year or, you know, maybe go out with another company that

087has that that niche, if you will. Um, what I find is it seems like just about every every company has decided what their niche is and and everyone just does everything just slightly different. And so that might be something that is as we navigate through some of the feedback that we're getting, you know, this will be a this will be a learning curve for sure for everybody. Um, and so as we continue, I I've had a lot of conversations in structural coaches about how when when we're unloading this, we're going to provide opportunities for people just to kind of share some very honest feedback. um how they're digesting the system, how they're teaching the system, but also for parents from home, how they're able to support their kiddos if it's completely different and if we

088need to offer some trainings for them in that that area as well. Um one thing that I'd really really like to get to is not paying outside um resources for that, if that makes sense. I would love for the opportunity to the professionals that we have in our buildings every day working with our kids to have nights where the community comes in and communicates what that looks like, how we can best support each other and kind of strengthen that relationship rather than just having a resource if that makes sense. I got a couple of questions. So, it's my understanding that once we implement this um this map system, there will be no deviation from the system. Is that right? Yeah. Everybody will be on the exact same page who's teaching the exact same thing. Um

089is black and white and on paper is that sounds Yes, that that is the goal. Um will there be times that we're going to go through and see that we're going to have some needs? Yes. Um, when I'm working with instructional coaches right now, um, we've got a few days set out this summer that we are gonna deep dive with staff to look at making sure that all the standards that we want to cover for next year are hit, when they're hit, how often they're how often they're taught, and see is there situations that we might need to supplement or situations that need to come back. Our goal is to be able to provide teachers with these curriculums that are strong enough that they don't have to go to teacher pay teacher. they don't have

090to go to these outside systems to supplement it. Now, there are going to be times, I'm sure the staff are going to come to a situation and think they could teach it better with a different resource. Um, my goal, our goal for that is to make sure that those sources are vetted, that they're they're researchbased, um, and that they're not just kind of coming from anywhere on the internet. Um, and so as we transition through this, that is our goal. um it's not something that we're just going to go in and recommend people from for deviating from the plan, but we want to make sure that we're having conversations with them on it so that those resources are being embedded there is up to the level of rigor that we're wishing them to be. And

091the reason for the question I've been hearing is a little while um and we have in the past purchased new curriculums where people felt maybe it didn't really jive with what they wanted to do. They didn't like it for any reason. So they they decided to deviate from what we were teaching. And then we bring ESCAP into our buildings and they tell us that we don't have any curriculum alignment throughout our classrooms and that our buildings don't talk to each other because we've all deviated from what we really like to do and what we spend a lot of money purchasing. Uh unbeknownst to the board, we come to find out that that's in fact not what we're using. Uh, so I just want to make sure that we are being good conservators of taxpayer dollars

092and when we spend $75,000 on a curriculum that we in fact give it the best college try that we can to make sure that we're not spending money for this previously because obviously we do have other large projects we need to penny for. Yeah. Um, no, thank you for recognizing that. Like I said, you know, it's always our goal to streamline that streamline that as much as possible. something that I've been very open with is we are spending an incredible amount of money on this curriculum. Um, and then on the on the other side of things, um, there are people that are making a lot of money on this curriculum that have the degrees, they have the practice, they have the data to support why they're doing it. Um, my myself, I I do not

093have a million-dollar curriculum that I'm selling to somebody, right? And so um as we do this research as as we're as we're looking at this um we are putting um you know our emphasis on the fact that it has been researched they do have the data support that it's successful and when you compare that to systems that don't have that um it makes the decision really easy with which which curriculum you should be going with and that is the initiative of the district to get aligned with the curriculum that we have found to be researched. It follows our maps. it hits the standards, the priority standards that we want our kids to have throughout that school year. I'd also like to discuss what we tried at one time, and I'm aging myself tonight, I guess.

094Um, so at one time, a long time ago, we offered um parent math nights. So, as a parent who went to school just a few years ago, you know, uh we don't learn math the same way. When I'm sitting down with my daughters to do homework, I'm like, go ask your dad. I don't have any idea. Um, we invited parents to come in. Uh, they didn't bring in their children and we had our staff sit down and walk them through some problems where they can ask questions because the last thing you want to do is have your child come to you for a problem and you can't give them a confident answer or you give them the the answer and they come home, it was wrong. You know, that's every parent's worst nightmare. But this

095is a great opportunity for us to re-engage with our community, let them know we're putting forward a new curriculum. And we want to be as transparent as possible to help everyone get on the same page for success. We bring them in, we serve them dinner. We encourage them to ask questions in a space that's safe, where you can not feel silly for asking questions, but really give them the tools they need to help their children. You know, I appreciate you saying that. Again, I as you're speaking and I'm hearing you speak, I just keep hearing culture, culture, culture or I can turn around and I know that I have leaders that I can empower and that they will empower to to take, you know, chances and and offer those opportunities for families. Um, you know,

096I think it's huge. I think it goes back to the buyin, community relationships, the things that we're working on um that outside of the curriculum, but we'll support our curriculum. with that. Thank you for saying and that is something we are discussing in our correct um when we applied for the easy grant I believe it was didn't we try to allocate some of the easy grant monies towards is any part of that going towards funding? Yes, every every part that I can make that it's going to go for that route. as kind of more towards what I'm looking for from the professional development and things like that. um that I know that there's a I wish I had more information to give you guys as well, but there's another portion of the AC grant that

097came available um the deadline for it was Thursday um that I was working on and it will also um hopefully provide us with opportunity um just for summer programming um offloading a new curriculum training our basic essentially what what it's being utilized for is training our professionals here to be the leaders in the community and leaders in our trip rather than always looking to pay an outside source or somebody from Denver to come down and teach it. I want to get all of our people on our level that they're teaching each other, their peers. Um, and we're able to pay them for that and use grants to do that. Um, I know we're running into the night, but I'm going to put you on the hot seat for just a minute because you said something

098and kind of p my curiosity. So um first I want to start with this particular um curriculum was recommended by TNT correct? Yes sir. Okay. And then and then we have said before that this is going to replace our Saxon map. Yes ma'am. And then so like Angela said you know this is a lot of money but you also said that you know we want to try this but then if it doesn't work then next year we'll go with something else. So, I want to know first when we made this decision um to choose this curriculum, did we have staff when you were talking to your instructional coaches? So, like did we already go into that? Yes. And then I think more and clear I think what we're looking for is um um lost fidelity.

099That was the part we were working for is is you know we had some like you said like there are some teachers are like I want to use this instead and then like so that will be communicated so we're not just all over the place and then so I mean this has to be a group effort and and I want to make sure that we're supporting our staff with what they need the professional development and that like you know it's not like the day before school starts and they've got an idea of what they're working with and I know I think you guys wanted to try this earlier before it's spring break but um just with some yeah just to rearrange the fonts and things like that we had to get allocated now that we

100got that squared away um it is my understanding that we'll start as soon as I meet tomorrow morning that's going to be sent off and I'll be communicating with them about um sign work on getting things rolling um to get as soon as possible we'll have access to all the online stuff um just to kind of recircle back to some of the things um if I said that it would be something that we do a year and try something different uh that would that's not my intention. What I was trying to say what I was trying to say was that if we go through a year and we're finding things that we need to supplement different whether that be more in communication with our parents whether that that's more kind of what I was trying

101to say was that we we need to stick with the system and make sure that we give it its time to make sure that we've given it the fidelity that it needs. But there might be things that we go through going man this keeps burning us this building we keep missing this piece. Is it that the curriculum doesn't offer it that another company might offer that piece to? Is it something that we need to work on together? Is it something that we're just not communicating? And so as we work through that, there might be other resources that other companies do that offer the same curriculum um that we might be able to pay for an additional service or something like that. So just more like supplemental, but still I Yes. Yes. If that makes sense.

102Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to I just wanted to say that out loud. Yeah. No, you're good. Um, anybody else questions, comments? Oh, one more. I think Angela Colleen, we're both a little bit jealous that there would be an opportunity to log on so you could see all of the lessons, especially for me now that my kids have graduated, but I love that for everyone else. Well, and and let's face it, as much as I'd like to say there's going to be no bumps and bruises along the way, we know that there's going to be. Um, and so I think one thing that we as leaders have to do is communicate communicate with all of our people. Hey, this month this is what here's the kind of roadmap of what we're looking at. So

103you're just not signing in and saying, hey, here's what we're going to be coming up. Here's here's what's here's what's going to happen in the next three or four weeks. Anticipate this and just really really be open with our communication. There's there's going to be some frustrating parts. Um, as much as I want to say no way it's going to be perfect, um, it's different, you know, and when I researched it, you know, oh, that's what I'm going to go back to. Uh, when I researched it, um, that was one thing is that we've had some district input. We had some people involve, but we didn't have a ton of outside input or some CDE input. That's what I really started doing when I direct for Scott was reaching out to these different schools. And

104that was the biggest thing they said was it will be it will feel like a 180 degree change for your staff. And and we fully see that. We want to anticipate that. We want to support that and acknowledge that there's going to be some frustrating things for them. Um, but every person has said that it is basically you could take the safe route and go to some other programs that it'll be easier just to hop in and teach day one. Um, but your end result is not your end result is not going to be your gold standard. You're going to settle and you're going to give us over. So, um, you know, it just seemed like the right time that we want to jump on the deep end. We want to get a program that

105looks like it is giving us gold standard, has data that looks like it's giving gold standard and we run with it. We do their best to support people and communicate what's coming ahead. Roa, Mrs. Aiial I Mrs. Sol. Hi, Mrs. Hines. Hi, Mr. Coleman. Hi, Mrs. Lea. Hi. more comments. Yeah, I was going down the line. Great, doesn't it? Perfect. Um, just a couple of things. First of all, I thought that that those recognitions tonight were really great. And I think as a district, we should be really proud of everything that those kids accomplished couldn't be done without great staff, faculty. So, thank you for everything you guys do. Um, thanks to Richie and Jared um for stepping up and did good presentation. You answered all my questions that I didn't even have to ask.

106So, so I appreciate that. I guess um my biggest thing is um guess this is more to my fellow board members. I think we need to get a plan in place for a superintendent search like tonight. That's I'll be facitious, but as soon as we can, I think we need to get a plan in place and we need to get as much. That's all I have. So, I got to spend a lot of time in this building today participating uh with the Ward Intermediate School career career day. I didn't realize that I had so many fun things about my job till the kids so kindly pointed them out. Um it was very fun. Thank you guys for inviting me. I hope the kids don't get too scared of working in their lives. I also wanted

107to congratulate all of our children that were recognized tonight. I can't tell you how many years I've sat up here and we've been able to recognize Beter Scholars and Daniel Scholarship winners. That is a great great kudos to our staff. I know you guys are probably feeling that end of year stretch, but we're almost there. You could just hang in a little bit longer. Um, last and never least, I'd like to remind my fellow board members that um there's going to be an Arbor Day celebration um honoring Mr. Bill Reck happening at Tiger Trades Academy on Wednesday at 11. Of course, this is the district part the district partnering with the city of Lansets to make sure that we we carry this on for Billy. He left TTA and and this is very appropriate and

108fitting. So, if you all can make it Wednesday at 11. I was gonna I got you. Um I just wanted to give a shout out again to the capturing kids heart um showcase award that they got. Um they really put a lot of work into that and it really shows that the kids um my kid comes home all the time talking about all the things that they're doing with it. Um so I feel like that program just really really reaches students. Um, I also wanted to give a shout out to the remova for it. Um, but it was success. Very good. I saw the video. Very impressive. I saw it. It was good. And we were able to provide um a seat for prom which is really really special I feel like. So um shout

109out to that high school this weekend. fun. What was cool about the kitty is that um we went saw the net. We didn't know much about him and we found out later he's the goat at Bola Catholic kid which is one of my daughter's students and so she was able to take some pictures with him that prophet even and he got prom. So it's super cool. I would just like to shout out to all the artists. Um I went to the show and I really enjoyed it. moment twice, but it it was really great. And then how we honored him tonight was I really like that seeing all the little faces and then the primary because I didn't get to see the primary and then so that was I love that. So yes, I can

110say that was um without any further business we are. Thank you everyone for coming in.