Board of Education Meeting: May 26, 2026

001(CC1/S1) abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw (CC1/S1) Test captions repeat (CC1/S1) Test Caption Message (CC1/S1) Encoded as a 2-line (CC1/S1) Scrolling caption. (CC1/S1) abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw (CC1/S1) Test captions repeat (CC1/S1) Test Caption Message (CC1/S1) Encoded as a 2-line (CC1/S1) Scrolling caption. (CC1/S1) abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw (CC1/S1) Test captions repeat (CC1/S1) Test Caption Message (CC1/S1) Encoded as a 2-line (CC1/S1) Scrolling caption. (CC1/S1) abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw (CC1/S1) Test captions repeat (CC1/S1) Test Caption Message All right. I think we're about ready. All right. We will call our meeting to order. Thank you for joining the Board of Education this evening. Please mute your cell phone. And we as we begin the meeting. Today is Tuesday, May 26th, 2026, and this meeting is now called to order at 5:50 p.m. for those attending this meeting in person, live captions are available on a TV, in the boardroom and in the lobby

002to access the live captions. In a language other than English on your own device, please scan the QR code on the screen or on the table near the entrance and select the language of your choice. The live stream of this meeting is also available in English and Spanish on YouTube. For links to these live streams, please visit the Board of Education page of the PSD website or PSD TV on demand on YouTube. All right, next up, we have approval of agenda. Would any board members like to make any changes to the agenda? All right. Seeing none, we'll move right on to recognitions and reports. Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes. Technically you need to amend the agenda to add recognitions for this evening. Oh, I see that now. Thank you. Okay. Can we please get a

003change? I move that the board amend the agenda to include a recognition section as item 3.0. Thank you. Can I get a second? Thank you Andrew. And can you call a vote? Carla. Baz, I Conor Duffy I Kevin I Scott Bauer I doctor Andrew Spain I Jessica zamora I doctor Ziegler I motion passes seven zero. Thank you. Now we will move on to our recognitions and reports Brian I believe we have some guests. Yes. Good evening everyone. Tonight we look forward to celebrating student excellence in athletics. Leading our celebration is Doctor Lauren Hutton, our district's chief of staff. Welcome, Lauren. Thank you. Good evening, President Zamora, Superintendent Kingsley Kingsley, board directors and everyone joining us tonight. This evening, we are proud to celebrate an incredible group of student athletes who have recently won several state

004championships. Our first recognition is for the Timnath Middle High School girls golf team, which won the three a state championship. Here to introduce the team and speak to its success as Emily Dunn, assistant principal and athletic director at Timnath Middle High. Good evening, members of the Board and Administration. Thank you so much for having us here tonight. I'm excited to be here to recognize the Timnath High School girls golf team for an unforgettable spring season. Under the leadership of head coach Brooke Walser, who unfortunately could not make it tonight, the Cubs captured the school's first ever class three, a state girls golf championship. At the state tournament, the team ran away with the title. The girls had a 28 stroke lead ahead of the second place team. After the final day of the 36 hole,

005two day tournament. The girls also won our Longs Peak League Conference championship and placed first or second in every invitational they competed in throughout the season. The team's depth was on full display at this year's state championship, with Timnath golfers occupying the top slots in the state. Sienna Schrick, a freshman, she finished 21st overall in the state and played a huge role in our end result. Isla Carlucci, also a freshman, tied for third place in the state and received all conference and all state recognition. Peyton Landon, a freshman, another freshman, placed second in the state tournament, also receiving all conference and all state recognition. And Cheyenne Schreck, our junior. She won her second consecutive individual three, a state championship. She shot an incredible seven under par for 65 on Tuesday to win the individual title

006by nine strokes and set the course record. She also received all conference and state recognition beyond the golf course. What makes this team special is their dedication outside of the sport. These athletes excel in the classroom and in our community and are just awesome, kind people. They maintain strong GPAs and they're all in advanced placement and concurrent enrollment classes at Timnath. They're active leaders in Timnath participating in unified Sports Volleyball, National Honor Society, and Fccla. Ladies, congratulations on your state championship and Cheyenne on your individual title. Congratulations again to the state championship. Our next recognition is for the Fossil Ridge High School girls soccer team for winning the five, a state soccer title for the second year in a row. Here to introduce the team and speak to this accomplishment is Dave Wolke, assistant principal

007and athletic director at Fossil Ridge. Thank you. Thank you. Poudre School District Administration and the board for this opportunity to acknowledge the achievements of the Fossil Ridge community. I'm Dave Walk, and I, the proud individual gets to serve our community as assistant principal and athletic director at Fossil Ridge High School, where excellence is everywhere. Tonight, we're celebrating state championships. We have Addison Smith from track and field and our girls soccer. We want to thank the athletes, the coaches and the parents for and our greater community for their support and investment and all that we do. The five back to back state champions, girls soccer, the Fossil Ridge SaberCats, the athletes and parents and coaches need to be recognized for not just being tremendous athletes and leaders, but being solid individual humans as well. Head coach

008Cyrus Ali and his staff have guided their team to this rare and prestigious back to backs. Not common, especially at the five A level, and the athletes showed grit and next level commitment to their goals, finishing 181 and one beside me this evening we have our seniors. We have McKenna Salas, Reese Morgan and Anna Rogers. They are the leadership of the program and are all moving on to post-secondary opportunities in their space. Last year, when we were here being recognized previously, we one of the board members said, we hope to see you again next year. And I would say a three peat is a very solid goal in that space. So good luck to them. Addison Smith, if you'd stand up, please, and coaches, Addison and her parents are here. She was a state champion

009in the 100, the 200 meter and the five sprints. And she was just named Chase, a five eight girls track athlete of the year, all Colorado. And so head coach Ray Bozeman and his staff are proud that she'll represent Fossil Ridge at the next level. As at Oregon State Beaver, we are all proud of Addison and the legacy she has left fossil not only in track and field, but what she does in the classroom and in her other sports as well. So a big round of applause to these tremendous humans and kids. Thank you. We'll do pictures in a minute. Thank you. All right. And in our final recognition for this evening, we are recognizing the Fort Collins High School boys track and field team, which won the five a state championship. Here to introduce

010the team and speak to its successes. Kyle Tregoning, assistant principal and athletic director at Fort Collins High. Good evening everyone. Thank you for having us this evening to recognize these young men on their accomplishment this spring. It's been since 2012, when the Fort Collins High School won their last state track and field championship. And there's a reason why we're called home of the champions, because we have a lot of track and field championships hanging on our wall. And these guys did a tremendous job. They won every meet except for one Pomona, because we had guys in Arcadia. I think that's what it was. Yeah, so they won a lot of meets and I'm going to give the microphone to our head coach, Jeff Brennan. He's our head track and field coach. He's going to be

011our head football coach next year as well. So he can speak to their accomplishments. Well, first and foremost, I just want to thank the Poudre school board School District School board for having us out tonight. We didn't get all of the guys here tonight, but we got a good representation of the athletes that we took to the state track and field championships. And we just, you know, over the last four years, what we wanted to do was be able to uphold the standard at Fort Collins High School as the home of the champions. So we had an excellent opportunity to do that this year. On top of the team championship, we set an all time all classification record in the four by two. Andre Rose, Jackson Ruff, who's here with us tonight. Preston Mosier and

012DJ Ruff State champs all time all classification record in the four by two which is an outstanding effort. And then Cadel Ruthven, who couldn't be with us tonight was the 1600 meter champ as well. But all these individuals are excellent individuals inside our building. Do a great job of representing us on the track and in the field, and just super excited to see what we can do next year. And hopefully we're standing right back here in front of you all, celebrating a back to back state championship. So thank you very much for having us out tonight. All right. We'd love to get a picture with all of our recognition folks if we can. Yes. So everyone who is being honored tonight, please join the board up here at the front. And we'll take a quick

013photo. 652. You guys. Sure? Yeah. It's incredible. Oh, yeah. Lots of money swings for our money. Oh, hey. Yeah. 84. So keep it up. We have one more year. Keep it up. Good. Congratulations. Congratulations. Yeah, good. Congratulations. Don't move yet. Yeah. All right. Ready? One, two. Hey! Come on. All right, right on. Good to see you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for being. On this call. You still want me to play? Madam President? Point of order. The the board director that said run it back for Fossil Ridge women's soccer, I believe, was myself. And so. So I put that out in the universe. I'd like to say Fossil Ridge women's soccer. Please run it back for the three peat. So it's been on the record. Thank you. Thank you for that. All right. We'll

014keep rolling. Next up we have our superintendent report. So Superintendent Kingsley will now make remarks to the Board of Education and the community. Thank you. Good evening everyone. It's great to be with all of you tonight, especially after a very long but exciting last week of school where we had a chance to celebrate all of our high school seniors as they walked across the stage in various venues to collect their well-earned diplomas. As we all know, celebrating these accomplishments is not just a celebration of our students, but also of everyone who has supported them on their journeys. So huge thanks to all of our parents, caregivers, educators, and each individual support network. They all deserve to be congratulated. I obviously all the board members were at several of the graduations. I want to thank you

015for your time commitment. It's clear that those are really well orchestrated machines. So all of the high school staff, our safety and security team, our custodial staff, our assistant superintendent's office, everybody who was involved. I just want to say a huge thanks, and I want to thank our comms team for just doing an amazing job of ensuring people who can't be there in person have an opportunity to have a first class experience through streaming. I want to turn it over to the comms team because they have a video this week that's going to highlight our grads at a glance. If I could describe my high school experience in one word, it would be growth. Curious. The best. Bittersweet. I would just say it was a lot of fun, impactful, exciting, exciting. Exciting, exciting. Probably a

016roller coaster. I would probably have to say complicated. Kind of surreal. It's extravagant. Unexpected. Sigma. We've been running out of time and talk about adventurous, scattered, I would say probably unlimited involved. So my high school experience in five words would be make the most of it. You know, it's only four years. Have fun, make friends, stay true to your values, you know? It was amazing to watch all of those seniors get celebrated in a way that they deserved last week. So thank you, everyone, for being a part of it and elevating our most important work. We have a lot that goes on in the school system, and it's all for that defining moment, in my opinion, to make sure they're walking across the stage and have options to ensure that they have a happy, productive

017life. This evening, there are several other topics on our agenda, including our Student Code of Conduct and the annual report from our early childhood program, and we'll also be discussing our comprehensive planning again this evening. The CPC, the Comprehensive Planning Committee, will be bringing back tonight some modifications to the proposed policy specific to the criteria, based on feedback that they received from all of you members of the board. And we will be asking for your guidance on how to move forward with this process later on this evening. As we continue this conversation, I want to again thank all of the members of our community who have engaged thoughtfully throughout this entire process and have shared all of their thoughts and ideas. There will be more opportunities to continue to get involved in the weeks and

018months ahead. But just please know from the bottom of our collective hearts here on the dais, your involvement makes us stronger. And to close, I want to wish everybody a really outstanding last day of school tomorrow. It's hard to believe that tomorrow is the last day of school, but I hope everybody has a safe, restful, enjoyable summer and we look forward to having another incredible school year next year, full of state championships and theatrical events to celebrate, and lots of awards and amazing graduates. But I just want to thank everybody for just having a really wonderful school year. So thank you, thank you, and ditto to all of it. A very heartwarming week. All right. Next on our agenda we have community comment. This is an opportunity for public comment or this opportunity for public

019comment is for members of the community who register to speak by the designated deadline. Those people will be called on to make remarks in the order that they signed up. Each speaker will be allowed three minutes to address the board. First up, we have Derek Franz not here. Okay, first up, we have Joshua Riley. Good evening. You have to forgive me. I've been fighting a headache all day, so my my brain might be a little scattered. I just had kind of two, two things today. One was an observation, kind of a. That's interesting. And the other was just another kind of soft call to action. Firstly, it's about the budget that was shown last meeting and all of the items there was the actual costs from last year, the budget for this year, and then

020the expected expenditures for this year. And there was one unique thing that, that that popped out to me and that was, you know, there are budget overages, but only one item was budgeted less and spent more than what they spent last year. And that was district administration. And, and that just to me kind of is a flag, not necessarily a red one, but a flag nonetheless of, you know, when we talk about rightsizing the district and we're talking about, you know, shrinking, why is it that that on paper, we budgeted for less administration and we went over by the tune of $1.4 million. That to me is just curious. So take that as you will. I'm not here to mince words about that. And the second one is just a call to action. So at

021the last meeting, you were supposed to be provided kind of a rubric of criteria to judge schools on. And you all have done a much better job this time in the process of looking at school consolidation and closure. And that works towards rebuilding the trust that you lost last time. But this is a really important vote tonight. And you run the risk of losing that trust that I think you've worked all so hard to build up. Again. If there's not a distinct list of criteria that you can objectively judge a school on. And you choose to move forward and give a list of schools, rather than a list of graded criteria, you run the risk of looking like you already have an idea or a plan in your head, and you're not going by what

022the data show. If you need help analyzing data. I teach a college master's course on data analysis and I would be happy to assist. I think I've I've talked to many of you before about that, but but just know that that voting to move forward on something that is not completely objective and transparent undermines what you're all trying to do this time around. And I'm over. Thanks. Thank you. Next up, we have Tim Hahn that Hanrahan I always hand. Okay. Oh, you're. Okay. So good evening and thanks for granting me this time to address the board and the public. My name is Tim Hahn, and in my professional life, I wear many different hats revolving around active modes of transportation here in Fort Collins. Many of you know me or actually your children do, from

023my extensive work in nearly every elementary, middle and high school in the district. If there's anyone in this room who understands the reality of how our students walk or bike to school, that person would be me. I'm here to ask one fundamental question and issue one urgent request of the board. But first I ask all of us, how do we want our students now and in the future to travel to school? I see firsthand the joy and readiness of students who can navigate and commute safely and independently. When asked, the vast majority of them express a clear preference for getting to school under their own power, rather than riding in a car or in a bus, this choice results in clearer minds, more attentive attitudes in the classroom, and sets a foundation for lifelong health,

024all while significantly reducing the driving burden on parents, reducing rush hour traffic and reducing bussing demands. However, for this to be a reality, distances have to be reasonable and their routes have to be safe. During previous rounds of consolidation, discussions, I reviewed proposed boundary maps that completely disregarded a student's ability to walk or roll to school. So my question to the board is this will you prioritize safe, accessible and reasonable active transportation routes as one of your primary criteria during this consolidation process? And my request is a bold one. I urge you to wipe out current boundary maps, wipe them clean and redraw school boundaries from scratch. Yes, that would be hard work. However, the last major boundary shift occurred in the mid 20 tens to address rapid growth, and our community needs have changed

025drastically. For many students, little will change, but for an equal number of students, I think that carefully redrawn boundaries will be life changing for them and their families. You must look forward to the future and design the healthiest community possible. As part of that task, I ask you to redraw school boundaries across Fort Collins in a way that encourages walking and rolling to school, and truly puts the health, the safety and the well-being of our students first, thank you. Thank you, Tim Hahn. Next up, we have Lucy Lee. Lucy. Archer. AM I good to start? Okay. Thank you. Good evening, board and fellow city officials. My name is Lucy and I'm an incoming parent. Thank you for the opportunity to provide community comment. My comments tonight are concerning the policy updates for student personal technology

026devices and the student use of district information technology. Last week, the Surgeon General issued an advisory on limiting screen time for children aged 0 to 18 years old with support from communities, governments and schools. Page 29. Of this advisory states that schools can help limit screen use by assigning work in books or on paper whenever possible. Implementing bell to bell cell phone policies, limiting screen use to support teachers and enable distraction free teaching, allowing medical exceptions, teaching digital citizenship and literacy skills, and creating opportunities to display screen time and promote social interaction among students. In addition to refining the student TDI and district I.t policies to reflect this advisory, other growing research and national trends towards low tech classrooms. I'm also asking this board to request a refund or rescission from EdTech company contracts like

027Iready that don't have peer reviewed research on the efficacy of their products. Reallocate the student tech budget to things like photocopiers, robotics, or other non-student device purchases, and change your mindset around the future of PSD. Consolidations are happening, but screens are not a replacement for educators. Our children are entitled to a public education, not data mining and mass surveillance. As elected members of the Board of Education, you all have a duty of care to the children in this district. The liability of harm to children from devices in PSD will flow down to schools and indemnity clauses and contracts will fall back onto school districts. AI is unpredictable and insurance will not cover it's untold harm to children. Tech companies are not looking out for us, but they are watching our children in their classrooms without

028any oversight, accountability or parental consent. I believe in you all and I know you all believe in our children. Please do the right thing, even if it's hard or scary, or if you spent a lot of money or time or energy invested in the wrong thing with the best of intentions, and update these policies accordingly by July 1st. Thank you for your time and for your commitment to our children. Thank you. We have a new friend. Next up we have Tom Griggs. That's a tough act to follow. Good evening, District Director Superintendent Kingsley and PSD community members. In my April 14th community comment, I alluded to the ways in which each of our perspectives are limited, depending on what our roles are, and addressing the ongoing challenge of resolving the current budget crunch. I've also

029made the case that we need to hear all perspectives in order to make the wisest choices about how to address that crunch. When we celebrate Psd's considerable successes, as we have consistently show, we love to do, and rightly so. At the start of every board meeting, we hear about them from district employees, from the educators and other community members who make them possible, and often from the kids themselves. We need to recognize the impact of our budget decisions on all these people. I assert that a principal reason for PSD success is is all of these people and their actions. These include IB world schools like cache, La Poudre Elementary and Middle schools, Dunn Elementary and Lincoln Middle School. Bilingual immersion schools like Harris and Irish Core knowledge schools like Trout and Kennard, experiential learning schools

030like Polaris and public school public charter schools like Mountain Sage and Fort Collins Montessori. These diverse curricular and instructional approaches are a very important reason for PSD success. Furthermore, they are essential to comprehend. If we are to truly understand what our. Makes our district as exceptional as it is when our limited perspectives. With our limited perspectives. However, you cannot fully appreciate all these differences nor how important they are to our district's success unless we take the time to learn more about them. Even more important, this board cannot act responsibly, either ethically or fiscally, without such understanding. It's time to stop, look, and listen even more than you already have. I ask that this board establish a systematic, systemic, multidirectional communication structure that ensures this learning happens even as we watch to see what else happens

031with various potential responses to the budget crunch and the projected decline in school age population going into next year and the year after that. Speaking of responses, I urge the board, without delay to pass the resolution that I've already shared with some of you, including your legislative subcommittee signaling to the PSD community the board's support of initiative 195, the graduated Income tax proposal, and clearly communicating the reasons for that support. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you. Next up, we have Reggie Johnson. Welcome. Good evening. My name is Reggie Johnson. My pronouns are she her. I'm the proud mom and grand mom of four LGBTQ plus identifying loved ones. I'm also the president of PFLAG, Fort Collins, whose mission is to create a caring, just, and affirming world for LGBTQ people and those

032who love them. As the 2020 526 school year is closing out this week, we at PFLAG want to thank you for the support that the board and Poudre School District have provided for these marginalized students, many of whom have made it through the year because of you and the decisions that you have made. So what comes next? I started my day at a breakfast where retired Admiral Rachel Levine spoke on the current status of the rights of these students here in the state of Colorado. Rachel Levine is a four star admiral. She was the assistant secretary for the Health in Biden administration. She's a pediatrician and a transgender Of women. She spoke about the two anti-trans measures, which will be on the November ballot in Colorado. The first male and female participation in sports is

033actually an attack on the ability of transgender females to participate on any sports team that aligns with their gender. What is hidden in this measure is there is no specified enforcement mechanism or funding for that enforcement. This means each of the 178 school districts in Colorado is free to determine how to proceed with that enforcement. Would you like for your elementary age daughter to endure a pants check just to determine her gender for sports? The other measure is to prohibit certain surgeries on minors, and is also an attack on gender affirming care of any kind for these youth. This invites the government into the medical exam room, where decisions should be being made by students and their families. Would you like to have the government decide what kind of care that you will receive for

034your various illnesses and diseases? Both of these initiatives attack the basic human rights of transgender and non-binary students, and they must be defeated in November by being on the board. The superintendent and those of you excuse me, in the district, each of you has signed up for the district's vision to support and inspire every child to think, to learn, to care, and to graduate prepared to be successful in a changing world. Admiral Levine challenged the breakfast attendees to do their part by educating at least 20 people on these harmful measures. And I'm asking you to do the same. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have Emil Johnson. No, we do not have Emil Johnson. Sabrina Herrick, welcome. Happy anniversary to Kingsley and Zamora. As of right now, it's been three years and seven hours

035that I've had a reason to know your names. And it's been a long three years. Three years of frustration at being handled and ignored. Three years of being mind blown that a board member had the gall to tell me that Zanella abuse would have been worse under different leadership. Three years of families begging me for tips on how to get you all to hear them. Three years of watching promotions and raises for the guilty and resignations by the empathetic three years of being called an unhinged liar, a stalker of politicians, and a harasser of staff. Zamora, your predecessor as president, even called the cops on me, assuming my silence meant I was planning chaos. Just to be clear, my chaotic plans that night were hanging out at a friend's house, watching movies and making bracelets,

036three years of panic attacks and therapy, driving my daughter to and from school because she refused to go to school if she had to ride the bus. Sleepless nights where she refused to sleep until 4 a.m. Calls and emails home from school because she had another trauma regression and ran away from staff or attacked someone. Calls to the police because she eloped while I was sleeping, sleeping in chairs by the front door to keep her out of traffic. Suffice to say, I've earned these frown lines. But last week I got a pleasant surprise an email from Kingsley inviting me to a special meeting quote. During the meeting, PSD staff and experts will and and experts in serving students with disabilities will provide brief presentations on programing for students on the autism spectrum, supporting students with

037dyslexia and on equity for students served on IEPs in any future school closure or consolidation. These presentations will be followed by small group discussions, which will be opportunities to provide feedback directly to the board and district staff. We welcome your voice in these conversations, unquote. I'm already signed up to attend, but I wanted to take a moment tonight to say something ahead of time. Thank you for being better than your predecessors, for starting the work this district so desperately needs to do. Now, I need you all to do me a favor. Don't make me regret saying that after three years of standing here, I feel the need to say something that should be obvious. That meeting is not the solution. That meeting is to find the solutions. During the meeting, listen to what participants are

038saying. Take notes, ask clarifying questions, be honest about constraints, and collaborate within them. If nothing leaves that meeting or if only misunderstood changes, leave that meeting. You all wasted everyone's time for the sake of a congratulatory back. Pat, our kids aren't here to pat your backs. They're here for an education, and all of you stepped up to the responsibility of making that happen. Zanella actions are still impacting my family three years after he got fired. Your decisions in the coming months will do the same, for better or worse. Take that seriously and act accordingly. Thank you. Last up, we have Danny Lawrence. Welcome. Thank you for the graduation ceremony. Improvement of allowing young adults with disabilities to walk across the graduation stage with their peers. Two years ago, at my daughter's graduation, you had them

039waiting in the sidelines and not sitting with their class. This year is different, so thank you for the inclusion. Mr. Kingsley, in your speech comments at graduation, you mentioned that the district wanted kids to graduate with options, and I wanted to thank you personally because without you conveying those options to me and my husband, we have never known they were available for either of our kids. In 2023, I saw you speak at a community listening session where you talked about Futures Lab and some of the pathways offered for students, and none of that was being discussed at Rocky Mountain High School. Additionally, none of that was being discussed at the IEP table and the endless meetings we were having for my son, who was then a sophomore. None of that was being discussed at the

040transition IEP meeting at Blevins in eighth grade. And for my daughter, a year away from graduation, it was too late. And when I asked about future for my son, the IEP team laughed at me, stating that those options aren't typically extended to students with disabilities. I have the recording of that meeting, so don't make me prove it. Board directors, please write down these figures because it's important. I'm going to be referring to them a lot now in the future. For note, I am only referring to public schools and not charters in our system. 14% of students in the district start with an IEP in elementary school, which is close to the national average, but only 11% will retain an IEP in middle school, and only 8% will have IEPs in high school. And I am

041certain that there are logical situations where students don't need continued IEP support, but at the rate of nearly 50% of them. So as PSD now magically curing disability, I think the better explanation is that the district is dropping the ball in supporting older students with disabilities. And that is why you have so many staying for years five, six, and seven. At Rocky, you put the athletic director who demonstrated to the Office of Civil Rights that he violated students rights in charge of the whole school. Now, so do you see the concern here? You are either learning from our experience or you're not. But what they tell you is happening is not what's happening at Rocky. The message about the district's options isn't making it to those parents. Please investigate that feeder system because I thoroughly

042have an IEP is decreased substantially from middle school to high school. 18% of the students at Blevins have IEPs, 13% at Weber, and only 8% at their feeder high school. Changes like that occur due to adult strategy, not decreasing student needs. Fortunately, because of Bryan's comments and our demand, my son was able to go to Futures Lab. He graduated high school with an EMT certification and he passed his national exam this week, the week of graduation. And he did graduate with an option. And hopefully he won't be part of that 75% unemployment rate statistic that so many disabled students are. Public education is a place of preparedness, and I know that after a week of feel good graduation work, it's easy to forget that when I'm asking this board to continue to investigate the impact

043of the block schedule on the needs of these high school students, and why so many are being cured of their lifelong disabilities and your system miraculously, between middle school and high school, and left so unsupported because these numbers don't lie. And I suspect that there is something very unlawful happening here. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That concludes our community comment for the evening. Next up, we have board topics and committee reports. This agenda item is an opportunity for board members to provide an update on committee work or speak to board topics. Do any board members have something that they would like to share? Okay. Please. I think we all experienced some amazing times this past week with the graduates graduation ceremonies that we went to. Kudos to Brian and Jess for being at all

044of them, and Brian for speaking at almost all of them, which is pretty intense. I think. You know, this is the third graduation season that I've been a part of and really impressed with how our teams put put the events together in conjunction with our partners at CSU. One thing I would say is we need to take a look at Wellington. I love the Wellington community and the fact that they are able to. They like to do things in their own space. But man, that was cold. It was 40 degrees and really windy during the graduation ceremony, which I think honestly is a disservice to the kids and their families when they're more concerned about their hats flying off during their pictures. I think that just isn't isn't a good thing. So we need to

045find some way to, to cure that. That's the second year in a row. I think that wind has really been a big factor, and it's always going to be a problem with outdoor. So I think we need to talk to the Wellington team about maybe making an adjustment on, on that, find an indoor space that would work. I talked to a Wellington teacher this weekend about that exact thing, and that was the talk of all the staff was, we need to make a change. So I just would throw that out into the ether and see if that might be something we do next year. But other than that, it was a fantastic week and weekend of graduation. So kudos. Agreed. I feel like that's where all of our brain space went for the last week

046or so. So I'm not super, super surprised if we don't have a lot of other comments this time. All right, well then we will keep rolling with our agenda. Next up, we have our consent agenda with board. Any board members like to pull anything from our consent agenda. All right. Seeing none, can I get a motion? I move that the board approve and adopt the recommended actions for the items on the consent agenda. Thank you Connor. Thank you, Kevin, for the second. And Leah, can you please call the vote? Karla Bass I Conor Duffy I Kevin I Scott Bauer I doctor. Andrew Spain I Jessica zamora hi doctor ziegler I motion passes seven zero. Thank you. Okay. Next up we have our action items. First action item is our network access control. Can I get

047a motion. I move that the board approve and adopt the recommended actions for the correction expenditures in excess of $250,000. And authorize staff to execute an agreement with vendor A and M? Thank you. Can I get a second? Thank you. Kuranda. All right. I believe we have a presentation. Yes. Thank you. Joining us this evening to present information about this particular purchase is our Chief Technology Officer, Bud Hunt. Welcome, bud. Good evening, Board and Superintendent Kingsley. I'm here tonight to seek your approval to spend roughly $423,000 for the purchase of a network access control system. As you know, this is the end result of a IFP or excuse me, an RFP. We've been looking to further secure our network environment. This is an opportunity for us over the next five years to improve both access

048to that wireless network for the community, as well as for our staff and students on their personal and district issued devices, while upping our network security environment as well should create will create additional opportunities to dynamically respond to service needs, as well as mitigate potential risks as as the current state in our system, any active plug at any of our buildings, across all of our geography is fair game. We manage that through a variety of human oriented management techniques. It's time to level that up so this product will minimize unlimited access. It'll it'll if we don't move forward, we will and continue to. We'll see. Sorry. We will continue to see increased malware, ransomware, internal breaches, and we won't have the ability to respond in a dynamic way to the network. So that's this item.

049I'll pause and see if you have any questions. Any questions or comments at this time. All right. I'm not seeing any. So I'm ready for a vote. Can you please. Carla? Baz. Can I still make a comment? Sure. I sorry, I just feel like in in light of us talking about the budget and spending and, and those types of things, I think before we vote, I'd love to have Bud tell the community why this money is being spent. Just like kind of a brief overview and where the money is coming from. Sure. And I apologize that I failed to say this is money coming from our debt free mill levy. We have we have reprioritized several of our capital investments to ensure that we're bringing forward a security item at this time. It's going to

050delay some other projects, but it's the right thing for us to do from a security perspective. And I'm grateful to the voters for approving the debt free mill to allow us to spend money on the digital equivalent of a leaky roof. Really. So thank you. I appreciate you asking that question. Okay. Sorry. No. You're good. Sorry. I turn it on and off. Are we good now? Okay. Can we recall the vote, please? Carla Bass I Conor Duffy I Kevin Havelka I Scott Schoenbaum I doctor Andrew Spain I Jessica Zamora I doctor Ziegler I motion passes seven zero. Thank you. All right next we have our annual head start and early head start continual grant approval. Can I get a motion. Move that the board approve the annual Head start and early Head start continual grant

051approval. Can I get a second? Thank you. Karen. All right. Tonight we look forward to hearing from Becca Benedict, our director of early childhood programs, about the continual grant approval. Welcome, Becca. Thank you. Thank you for having me tonight. Unfortunately, it's not our annual report. I promise to bring that to you in the fall when you get lots of kid information. This is more of a financial report in terms of our grant approval. Head start is a federal program. It's a federal grant that accounts for nearly half of our early childhood budget. So the district contributes 20% of our Nonfederal share, which is a requirement of the federal grant. And the total amount for this year is $4,851,615. So every time I'm working on grant writing, I'm thinking this is $1 million document. It feels

052very powerful. We serve about 200 and not about. We serve 275 Head Start students and families in the preschool program, and we serve 108 prenatal to three year old and their families in the early Head Start program. The way that Head Start requires governance is kind of a three part or three group structure. We have our policy council, which is led by parents in the program, the board of Ed, which provides legal and fiscal oversight, and the early childhood leadership and management team. We will always bring information to you at least twice a year. So you'll get an annual report presentation in the fall, and then the grant submission approval in the spring. And we are also willing to come any time you'd like. We had additional presentations through Upk implementation and things like that.

053We also have the opportunity for the board to participate with our policy council each month, and they will dive a little bit deeper into each of the grant documents as we work on them with our parents. Each Head Start grant application is a five year grant, so we are going to be in grant year two of our five year grant. So the first time we come in at the five year baseline grant is for all five years. And then the continuation grant is for each following year. Throughout that five year cycle, we are not following any fiscal year that the rest of the district follows. So our grant year begins November 1st and ends October 31st just for fun. But that's our that's where we are in our grant cycle. I have this slide here

054for you so you can see how the requirements from our federal grant have changed over the last year. So the last year, when I came to present, all of the documents on this list were required for the board to approve this year. They have reduced the amount of the documents that we are turning in with the grant to the ones listed at the bottom in bold. So training and technical assistance, our transportation waiver, our application narrative and budget justification, the budget itself, and the cost allocation and indirect cost agreement. All of the rest of the documents were completed with our parent group and our policy council, but they are not required to be approved because they're not submitted with the grant. So we're going to focus on the ones that require your approval tonight. So

055the goals and measurable objectives and action plan grant narrative selection criteria, self assessment and self assessment summary are all available upon request. If you would like to see them. They're just not required to submit. So the first one that's required to submit is the training and technical assistance plan. So you can see the third line. The third line of this chart is our training and technical assistance. It's 33000 for Head Start and 24,000 approximately for early Head Start. Those that money cannot be spent in any other way besides training or technical assistance. So in your grant packet, you will have a document that details the the items that we pay for each year and the items that we do not pay for that are free or included with other services within the district. We are

056required to spend every dollar or send it back. So we spend every dollar. So you'll see that zeroed out in your grant packet. Our transportation waiver is something that is required. The Head Start performance standards require us to have a driver on every bus and a para on every bus with Head Start students. However, this is very cost prohibitive and difficult to staff. If we were to have students or if we were to have a driver and a para on every bus that has an early childhood student, we would have a difficult time staffing that we have had no safety incidents due to a lack of supervision on the bus. And so the transportation waiver is completed in conjunction with the Transportation Department, and the drivers have asked for the waiver so that we can

057have four students. That's the first row of each bus on the bus. Before we add a pair of support. This waiver has been in place for years and years and years, and it has been approved by transportation and us every year. The Gabby budget and indirect costs are. The Gabby budget is a fancy name for the budget required for federal grants and the categories that we detail. And then the indirect cost agreement talks about the calculations that we use when we're setting up our budget, the indirect cost rate agreement we are using is 6.02%, which is lower than the federal rate, and it's based on an average of of Colorado's rate over the last few years. And the Gabby budget separates costs into categories such as personnel, fringe benefits, equipment, supplies, contractual construction, and other.

058If you'll notice in our budget the overwhelming majority of our spending in early childhood is on personnel and people. 98% of our budget is spent on people. The other things that you might find in fringe benefits would be benefits to employees. The contractual would include our contract with La Familia, the family center, which is our early Head Start partner. But you can see those detailed in your grant packet as well. The cost allocation document and the budget justification narrative are both fancy words for how we plan to spend our money. So the cost allocation plan allows us to use multiple funding streams for the same employee. So an employee might be 14% funded out of Head Start, 37% funded out of state funds, 10% funded out of early childhood special education. And that cost allocation

059plan tells the federal reviewers how we plan to spend our money, and how we fairly divide it between the multiple funding sources and the budget. Justification narrative takes every category in the budget and writes it out in words. How we plan to spend the money, rather than just numbers in a chart. That's a lot of grant documents for you guys to review. Are there any lingering questions about our Head Start and Early Head Start? Year two continuation grant? Anyone have any questions or comments? Yeah. All right. I feel like I have the unfair advantage of having been on the Early Childhood Policy Council with you for so long that, like I, the work that goes into this is phenomenal. The parent involvement, the thoughtfulness of which you guys take in their input. I know that's

060not really necessary for this part. That's more the fall stuff, but you guys do an impeccable job of making sure it's a really community built grant. So I really appreciate the work you've done. Thank you. Okay. There's no other comments or questions. We can take the vote. Are you sure this time? I'm just kidding. All right. Can we please take the vote? Leah? Carla bass, I Conor Duffy I Kevin. Hi. Scott. Schopenhauer. Hi, doctor. Andrew. Spain. Hi. Jessica. Zamora. Hi, doctor. Ziegler. Hi. Motion passes seven zero. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you for being here. We got you out relatively early. Thank you Becca. All right. Next up, we have our comprehensive planning committee. So we will get a motion to get us started. But this will be both votes and more of

061a conversation. So can I get a motion for policy FCB to get us rolling? I move that the board approve and adopt policy FCB as presented. Thank you. Can I get a second? Thank you Kevin. All right. Thank you. Joining us this evening to provide an update on the Comprehensive Planning Committee. Second reading of Policy FCB. Our doctor, Tracy Kyle, lead assistant superintendent and committee co-chair Doctor Brett Hanson, welcome, both of you. Good evening, Superintendent Kingsley, President Zamora, board of directors and members of the community. Thank you for inviting us back again for the second reading of the policy. We appreciate having the opportunity to speak with you again. So tonight's objectives. So at the request of the board, we are bringing a proposed approach to building a recommendation using CBR. So the first part

062of this presentation at the board's request is. So then how do we actually go about the process of developing a recommendation using the criteria that potentially you all will adopt tonight? So that'll be the first part of the presentation, is to walk through a proposed approach to developing a recommendation. And then secondly, we'll ask the board to vote to approve policy F, C, B and F C, b, R will review the edits that you asked us to make. Coming back on the second reading related to those two policies. And then finally, we'll ask for some feedback from the board on launching phase three and your expectations for the committee. Before we get too much further into the presentation tonight, I just want to pause and thank the members of the Comprehensive Planning Committee who have

063been at work for a year, mostly volunteers. And so they're work to this point has really just been truly exceptional and very thoughtful. So a lot of appreciation for them. So as we talked about last time, we are ending our phase two work of criteria development. And so we're at the focus of really trying to codify in a policy what a recommendation would be required to have. And so that criteria that we've talked about and is outlined in policy F, c, R really says, like when we come back to you with a recommendation, we must include these things. We can include other things in addition to that. But that criteria really outlines what your expectations would be that the community would expect to see in a recommendation. So that's where we're at right now. And

064so then tonight, if the board asks us to move into phase three, that would be preparing a recommendation. And that's when we would go into more depth and detail about what the recommendation would look like. I'll talk tonight, first off, about some action teams that would start working on approaching a recommendation. So the the end in mind would be to be able to present a sort of complete package of all of the things that would need to be addressed, how they would be addressed in the pursuit of a recommendation. So the first part of the presentation is that approach to building a recommendation. And so we've begun in anticipation of potentially moving into phase three, we've begun talking about and setting up a framework for launching action teams to prepare for school consolidation. So these

065specialized action teams would come alongside the comprehensive planning committee and work alongside a recommendation that they would be building, and they would have a specific, more narrow focus in support of policy F, CBR, as well as some other factors and considerations that would need to be developed in the pursuit of closing and consolidating schools. Those action teams would be community inclusive teams of staff and parents, so we would open an application to invite people to participate in those, those teams, and we would need to start working on those teams on or around June 1st. Okay. So the first group of community action teams that would support building a recommendation, these small inclusive groups would work between May and September. So over the summer, most mostly those for community action teams would have members of our

066community that would be a part of them. And the first of the the Community Action Teams speaks to a lot of the feedback that we've received from our community is they really value having strong transition supports for students as well as staff. So the first action team is called Building Communities Together. So that's climate and culture and creating a plan and approach for providing social emotional supports for students and staff. How we would go about merging cultures academically, socially and emotionally, and then how we might best provide transition activities for students, family and staff. So as we bring two communities together, being thoughtful and have really intentional work around that, the second one would be supporting families. And so we want to ensure smooth and seamless transitions for families. So that involves examining school choice

067processes, really trying to condense and limit any paperwork. Think about like records having to be transferred between schools, like how do we make that as seamless as possible and ensure people know and have the information at their fingertips about what they can expect in a transition, and then start to build immediate connections, community and, and communication within that new network of schools that potentially would be combining. The third action team is continuity of programing. So one of the things that we know we must evaluate and understand is how we have continuity of programing, specifically center based programing for our students who are served with an IEP, early childhood programing, which is of high value for our littlest learners in our community, as well as extracurriculars, athletics, before and after school care. All of these programs

068are of high value, both for us as a staff as well as for members of our community, and they serve our students well. So we must have a transition plan and ensure that those programs continue. And then the final Community Action team is a utilization approaches for buildings. So we want to start studying what would be a PS D use for a particular building that may no longer be needed as a school. And do we have a particular school district use before that building than before we start to look at, do we need a community partner who might need to be part of that, or is there some combination of the two? And so that would be the first set of community action teams that would consist of both staff as well as community members.

069An additional five action teams would also need to come alongside the comprehensive planning committee. These really are mostly staff action teams that need to create some plans and approaches for bringing two school communities together. So the first one of these action teams are our HR and employee processes. We really need to identify and support staffing cohorts in alignment with law and policy. So making sure that we get all of our employees landed in their new spot in a place that they want to be in a position that they're qualified for, that also supports staffing plan for educational programing that's needed at that particular school, for that particular level of student with appropriate licensure and the necessary approaches within that building. The sixth action team, our records, finance, school codes. And so there's a lot of

070behind the scenes work that would need to be done to transfer student records, to build a student based budget plan, to change school codes and CD records about a school identity. The seventh Action Team is a facility needs team, and so that facility needs team would be looking at what our necessary enhancements to buildings, including renovations, maintenance and furniture that would need to be made, as well as accessibility to local resources and ensuring that things like fire, police and those local services are maintained. The eighth Action Team is safety, traffic and transportation, and so that's going in depth on bus routes, walkability, traffic and safety mitigation, availability of parking, bus loops, routes, all of that has to be studied in conjunction with any recommendation. And then finally communication and events. So how do we help

071keep our community informed and engaged throughout this process? What events would we sponsor to bring people together as that ninth action team? The final action team is one that will be developed within the Comprehensive Planning Committee, and that's the scenario development team. So the scenario development team, our proposal will go through the Comprehensive Planning Committee at our next meeting on June 8th, where we will talk about what's the best approach to creating a recommendation of which schools would be presented to the board at some point in the fall. And so that is essentially the 10th action team, but that one consists of comprehensive planning committee members. Okay. So does the board have questions or comments about the action teams that will support a recommendation for school closures or consolidations? Okay. And I have a question,

072but if anyone else wants to start us. Okay, I'm just curious where you see our involvement in some of these committees, because I'm imagining, at least for utilization of buildings, for example, we're probably going to have to take a vote. So do you how do you envision that potentially happening? Yes. So we have an action team lead. So the action team leads will be starting the facilitation of building the committee. Who's going to look at the internal usage models. And so right now we've got a communication structure that's set up to have at least monthly updates from each action team. And so as far as board involvement, we would love for your feedback about of these nine teams. Is there particular team that board members want to be a part of? Do you want to

073receive regular updates from the team? Are these things that you want to like as teams create things that you want to be a feedback loop on some of those things. So right now, I would say we're open to whatever involvement feels appropriate for all of you. I would love to know what your thoughts are on involvement in any of these committees, whether that's a memo kind of getting us an update, if there are any, that we should be more actively involved in. Please. I like the idea of being able to be involved in the committees, at least attending the meetings, but I, I think this is me personally. I think others might agree. We got to attend some of the some of your committee meetings and the one area that I feel like it got

074a little disjointed when we started mixing up. Who was going to those. It's good to get everybody exposure, but I think a report out, whether it's monthly or quarterly or whatever, probably monthly, I guess would need to be so that everybody can see what's going on in all the different committees would be good. And if there's anything, any areas of passion or, you know, interest for certain board members, they could attend this meetings as well. I think that would be that would be good. But I do I do have an interest in making sure everybody's up to speed on what's going on. Not only thought, and I have remarks about policy stuff. We'll table that for a moment. But just on this one, I had a lot of questions about composition, the challenge, I think

075Director Spain brought this up last time, is that we had a very open and candid discussion amongst the seven of us at the last board meeting, and I think people sometimes forget that that's the only opportunity that we get to discuss amongst ourselves. And so I think the challenge as I'm working through this is that not only with the comprehensive planning committee, but these subcommittees, they're doing the work to present to the board, more or less for a decision in October. Correct. Meaning that if you don't have input from the decision makers throughout that process, I am concerned that there is a such a disconnect that that the board can say, this is not what I thought. This is not what I wanted. Start over, try again. So I don't think we'll be there personally,

076but I am mindful of the feedback loops. And because I don't think they're for you guys to be flying blind either without inputs, that would be helpful. So I'm curious as to what measures we could undertake as a board in order for the seven of us to provide input on the off chance that director Sean Bauer, myself may see things differently with some of these these committees, and neither one of us speaks for the board. So I don't know if anyone else had that concern, but that's something that I was trying to be mindful of is not to encroach and not to overstep and not to micromanage by any means, but also to give you feedback loops, which would be more important. So I guess the question goes back to you guys is, how do

077you see the board being involved in these these committee groups? So one, I don't want to commit any of you to working throughout the summer. So I just want to be clear about that. Like you, you volunteered tons of time. As it is, a lot of this work is going to take place between May and September, which the bulk of it will be over the summer. We have committed for every action team to provide a monthly update, and sometimes, depending on where the action team is working over the summer, the update might be we didn't meet because it's summer, and so some of these things are going to be more timely than others and would have a more urgent update that maybe we need the board to be aware of, be informed about, be engaged

078in, weigh in on in particular, for example, a great one that you brought up is utilization approaches for buildings, right? So what's the level of involvement that the board would need to, to be in on that? For example, if the district comes up with an identified, like we really need a building for this educational programing that we've been wanting to have for many years in the district, and we just haven't had the facility space for that feels like something that we would need to have the board weigh in on as an important consideration as a facility usage change, right? So the buildings not currently being used as this, we think it should be used as this. That's something that you all will need to be a part of sooner rather than later. Because what I

079wouldn't want to do is to bring that to you on in October and say, oh, by the way, this is the whole package of everything that we're asking you to sign off on. That should be something that we bring you along before we get to that final recommendation. A lot of these action teams were really built from feedback we've received from our community over time about how they really want answers to these questions before a recommendation is provided, or very soon thereafter. So as soon as a recommendation is presented, people want to know, am I going to have a bus? Do I have to go register my kids at this new school? Are we going to have an event so I can get to know people? Are you going to provide counseling and social emotional

080support for my student to to navigate this change? So they want to be able to know what the plan is for these things. So a lot of these action teams are working to address those that would come alongside a recommendation wouldn't necessarily be part of the recommendation you'd be asked to vote on, but would be part of the communication that we would want to provide to our community. I feel like, yeah. I guess I just agree with folks saying, and I like I was sitting here thinking of what's the pros and cons of board participation. So hearing what everyone's saying, I think it would be good if across these action teams we could have some consistency. So instead of one action team operating from these five things and one action team operating from these five

081things, to me, like we're talking about consistency, how the board makes sense of stuff to me. If there was shared language and understanding across that teams, it would make sense. And so just a couple things like, you know, does each team have clear criteria? Is it possible for us to see the decision making logic within each team? What was the inclusion or exclusion criteria? What might be the scope of the work? So some of those clear pieces to clarify that, because we won't be in the room as that's going to be developed, but maybe it's sharing the outcomes even if we're not part of that process. That's just something I was thinking about. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, please. I, I'm going to probably go out on a limb here. And I think the board

082should not be involved in any of these groups directly. That seems, in my mind, to fall in opposition to policy governance. And I think what we should have instead is rather an iterative approach to giving you guidance, identifying mutual challenges that you need support with, getting output from your various groups, and having an established, essentially cyclical, be it monthly, whatever it is, type of engagement. So you're getting from us what you need to fall within that policy governance framework. And if we were to have any questions or directives, obviously to put those in at appropriate times, for instance, I look at number four. I and I noticed missing is there's no statement about possible external usage. For example, that would be one of our at least my feedback, not not saying the rest of the

083board may have that, but it's those types of things. But to get those in the right time, in the right sequence for you all, so you're not getting it every 37 hours or whatever ridiculous cycle of input you would get, that wouldn't work. But to be able to give those sorts of things and then picking on number four again, you come and say, oh, I've got a list of uses. Can you help us prioritize? From the board perspective, that would seem like an appropriate checkpoint, for example, highly presumptive, but just giving a tangible example. So it feels to me like this is saying, here's your structure, go forth and do it. And let's just have a nice established, how do we make sure we're communicating well appropriately, right time, right information, etc. Thank you. Other

084comments or concerns? Wonderings. Yeah, please. So I think you touched on this a bit, but how would the members be selected for these action teams? So we would launch an application as soon as tomorrow. And in that application, it would ask the applicant to determine which of these committees they would want to be a part of. And so we're looking for a representative group of both staff, as well as parents or community members to join each of these action teams. And so each of the team leads would determine the necessary makeup of both staff and community members to be part of each, each committee, to represent specific perspectives to that particular topic so that they could create the makeup of the committee that best suits the purpose of that, that particular action team. Thank you.

085How big do you think these action groups will be? I think they could range anywhere from from 4 to 15 members of each team. One more just picked up on Doctor Ziegler's point. I was curious with with all this going on, will there be opportunities for them to coordinate with one another with their work? So there are opportunities for the action team leads to come together for regular updates and check ins. We'll calibrate through shared agendas, through shared templates as common products that each team will come together on. So there are opportunities for at least the team leads to collaborate and coordinate. I have a follow up on that one, if that's okay. As you were talking, I was wondering if for some of these if any students might be involved. I'm just thinking about

086like building community and rebuilding that space of if you know, middle or high school students would be, they'd be most aware of how this would impact them and how it would feel. And I'm wondering if that's being considered. It's not right now in the application, but there's nothing that says a high school, middle school or elementary student couldn't apply with the support of their parent. I again, for me, representation is important. So what are the plans for these groups? Like when I hear you say 4 to 15, 4 to 15 people do not represent the entire district. So how are we including additional voices within these teams? So like I'm looking at the timeline. So I'm like, they work through September. We're supposed to be taking a vote in October. Like where are we including

087other voices? And I'm, and I'm the only reason I'm asking that question because again, I keep thinking about the trust that we're trying to build with the community, the process, and what does that look like? And I feel that we've done a good job throughout this process. And how do we make certain that we keep that same energy through the end? So how have you all considered that in the composition and makeup of these groups and, and or how might you include that? So it's, it's more of an approach that if you think about these action teams, they're going to start something and they're going to, to provide a framework that's maybe about two thirds of the way there. And so for many of these things, like if we look at this list of particularly

088the first one and the second one, like building communities together and supporting families, that two thirds built framework is going to be then provided to schools who would then need to add on to it for their particular community. So as far as the voices that then broaden and enhance and enrich, then what a team might put together needs to be probably localized to those school communities who would be most centered and affected by needing to bring their communities together, needing to think about their supporting families. And so what these action teams are doing is they're building really the framework and district supports and a bank of ideas and resources. That's about two thirds of the way done, so that the people most impacted by the decision could then be a part of finishing it out.

089Thank you. That makes sense to me. I just want to make sure this is not the final right as we move forward in that process. And then, you know, I think what I would love to as, as you mentioned, that, like, how are we, how does, I guess how detail is our process? And so making sure these action teams are considering that too, because again, we may have action teams with a few voices and then we're like, oh, let's go to the schools and we know the schools. Everybody's going to participate, right? So what is that process to to engage folks voices within that process as well? So just want to just want to name that. I just feel like people keep naming, like keep doing this process. And then you got your moments. And

090there's so much sentiment. I've heard from so many community members that decisions are already made and that our engagement in the process is not genuine and true. I really want to make certain that we dispel that and really make certain that we're intentional in trying to include people's voices and processes and show them how that's been done. And I can give you a great example. I really loved your presentation where you all talked about the number of people who gave feedback and what that was and stuff. At least to me, I felt like that was evidence of a level of effort. I just want to ensure that we're continuing to do that. And also, I don't want to neglect any of the work that you currently done. I just want to make sure that we

091continue to do good work. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah. My feedback on the teams is I think it's pretty good, pretty comprehensive building, you know, as deep as, as you need them as far as for, for time, we will, as always, juggle our schedules to make ourselves available. My only concern about the amount of teams and how many people are on it is the overall timeline. And I'm not sure if this is when you want me to address it or later. There's going to be a final deliverable at some point with schools named on it, I think. And I asked my fellow directors, I envision us needing at least a minimum of six weeks, maybe even two months for us to do continued community engagements. Once schools have been listed, I think the feedback

092will be different then. And if we have that, then timeline for these teams, it kind of seems to me that they're going to be able to have to wrap up mid August. Is that is that possible? They'll probably need to wrap up actually the first part of September, most likely. That would probably be the extent for, for example, something to the extent of safety, traffic and transportation. We're going to need to provide that level of detail to you in a recommendation, because that is one of the criteria that's established in the policy. So they're going to need to have done most of their evaluation prior to, I would say, on around the first part of September. Can we make certain that the teams are meeting like I'm hearing you talk about summer and like, I

093would hate for it to like, oh, they met one time September 2nd, and now we're presenting it on September 10th. I feel like that would be an injustice and it'd be an ineffectual process. And so what Connor just says, make me think about what is our timeline. And I'm kind of like, well, why October? So however that plays out for you all. Like, can we just think about that? And where is the accountability to make certain that this process is taking place over the summer? Because I also think what has been heard in many of our community meetings is, you know, what is that looking like over the summer and what is taking place? And so, yeah, I kind of like to think about, well, just encourage you all to think about timeline, think about

094meetings. How long are they meeting? You know, one hour for the next three months is not an awful lot of time to make these decisions around that. I think we that would be due diligence if we were to do that for our community. And then I have one more thing for the PSC staff action teams. Can we be certain that throughout this. First of all, one, throughout this process, obviously, we are going to have staff and people related to this, but I also would love to see school folks, people who are within the schools, whether it be our classified staff and our teachers each each team having representatives from that across the board. You know, I think, you know, educators can speak to HR and employee process with that lens. And classified staff can speak

095to HR and employment process, but to making sure that the different groups are representative because they're going to view each of these categories differently than just a subset of people who do this work every day. Sometimes we can have our we can have gaps in our knowledge and understanding. And I would want to include the voices of the people who live the every day. Very similar to what Jess said about students. Absolutely. Some of our. Number two supporting families, some of our best staff at supporting families can be our front office staff. So they're going to be instrumental in weighing in on some of the supports. And that second action team. I appreciate that, Carla. I don't want to call you out, but I think you're the only one I haven't heard from. So if

096you had comments at this point, I wanted to invite you in. I just would like to thank you. It feels really thorough to me and it feels like it came from what our community has been asking for. So I'm really grateful that you've created this very. It feels very succinct and like it works as a whole plan and individually. I'm just really grateful for that. I don't have any questions right now. Yeah, I think the time. Yeah, I think the timing is really the only thing that's really concerning me. It seems like a pretty heavy push, a pretty heavy lift to have everything done by September. But. I'm here for it. I'm here to listen as we go. Yeah, I guess I'm just wondering, like, what is so significant about the October date? Is there

097something that's whether it be like contracts or schedules or whatever that sets that date so solid? It's a great question. One of the milestone markers of October 1st week of November, kind of deadline that we're trying to meet is when our School of Choice window opens the application process. And we would really like knowing that these. This proposed process would, if board approved, would go into effect for the 2728 school year. And so we want to really make sure that our families, as they're making choices and we know our families value that choice, that they know exactly what they are. And we're not having any last minute changes to those choices where they may have made a different choice, if they knew what actually was going to be available or not available. I just want

098to piggyback on that, that in speaking with Becca, that our families with young children to and Head Start are making choices. And they're hopeful that when things change for school year 2728, they can make decisions around where their children will be at that time. So that was the October date also weighed in there. Two things on the choice window. I know that the choice window happens. And then if we back that up, budgeting gets backed up, so on and so forth. But is it not possible to extend the choice window into a later date if we need more time? I know we try to keep it pretty tight. The other thing on that is, and correct me if I'm wrong, it's about 30% of our kids utilize choice. Well, we're going to be closing neighborhood

099schools. Okay. And I don't think that pushing a decision and putting a hard deadline of the end of October for choice is compatible with closing neighborhood schools, where 70% of our kids are going to. Not all of our choice, though, like the choice rates for each school varies widely. And we're not talking about just our choice only schools. All of our schools have choice, I know, but it's only 30% sure. So that's the quintessential tyranny of the minority, right? We're talking about making decision that are going to affect disproportionately the 70% just because we want to have the 30%, have the access to the choice window. And I agree with the choice window, I like it. I mean, hey, cars on the table, my kids in the school of choice. And it'd be it'd be

100tougher decision. I understand that, but I think we owe it to the students that are going to their neighborhood schools that we're really talking about here, right? To maybe reconsider that. And I think I'm concerned that that's the driving force for our date. Right. So what is the integrity of our consolidation process ideally, to do this? What does that look like? If we were to remove the school of choice date, what date would we choose instead? Right. So it feels like there's an outside factor that's influencing this process. And this process should have integrity by itself. And so I'd like for us to think about that because I agree with Connor. That's a little like we're impacting the whole district and we're saying, well, because of this deadline, we are going to inconvenience everyone and

101rush this process so we can meet this October deadline. Right. And I guess I'm just kind of confused on like, and you all can, you know, fill in the gaps. But right now, in this moment, where is our agency and our choice in terms of shifting deadlines? I understand there are certain like laws and policies and things like that, but there's often that and there's often district policy and practice. And so where we have agency around district policy and practice, I think we should consider that, as I say that I recognize that that has impact on staff and folks who have to facilitate that process and everything, but it also feels like it's already going to be messy anyway, because we're going to be having choice. School consolidation, reassignment of educators and things like that.

102So the mess is already going to be there. It's just a matter of how we want to manage that mess. And to me, I would want to hear more. So on the side of caution, of having a process of integrity versus an arbitrary deadline that may not feel that, but that's just an opinion I have. I'd love to hear from others on what their thoughts are. I, I just wanted to clarify a couple things. Just thinking about the effect of this, I. The 30% that are using choice would 100% be affected by any dates? The 70% that don't use choice, not all 70% of those are going to be affected by changes in these dates, right? So it's just those few neighborhood schools that were closed. Those kids are now in going to be affected

103by these dates and things like that. So I think we need to I think there is a bigger piece of the pie for the choice families, because if the choices are limited by the number of schools that are now going to be open, all 30% of those are going to be thinking about that and need to think about that. I think the deadline that Carla brought up, too, is an important one with the the early childhood side of things. That is a locked in date from the federal government that she needs to be be thinking about. And so those two factors make it make more sense to me. And I think we both were at that meeting where that was brought up. And so that's, that's where I'm thinking it's like it is a bigger

104it's not just 30% of the community that's going to be affected by this, this date. So I, I like Connor's idea of potentially extending the choice window. I think that's a, that makes some sense to me to give people a little more time in this unique circumstance to, to make their decisions. Can I maybe address some of the questions that have come up or comments. So each local district sets their choice window. So we have as a district have identified the first period of choice opening November 1st. And the first round closes on around December 15th. So that's a local decision that we have control over. One of the reasons why there's multiple reasons why we choose that window. Families are starting to want to make decisions and have their children land at some place

105on or around that time. So it's kind of the opportune time where people are wanting to make plans for next school year, childcare and, and transportation, all sorts of things. So they're wanting to land. So that's the first round school choice actually runs from that first round all the way until the first day of the following school year. So then that window is, is significant. And so families can choose whatever school they want for that basically almost nine month period. And so it doesn't technically close. It's just how choice gets handled, changes, changes between that first round and that second round. And so that's just one thing to be mindful of. And it's a window that we have control over. Like you said head start, not a window we've got control over. So those students

106need to land by our obligated timelines with every. What we try and do is we try as close as we can to count students where they're going to land in our modeling for budget for the next year. So one of the additional reasons why we have the choice window so early is so we can more accurately provide student based budgeting to each of those schools based on those preliminary choice numbers that are showing up at each of our particular schools. So there's a budgeting component to it as well. And then the third component, mostly at our secondary schools, it's the scheduling. It's the choices of electives so that schools can build their staffing plans. And so then the next event that happens is then we've got basically a projection that schools get at the end

107of January for their upcoming school year. Of these many this many students in each of the grades so that they can then build a staffing plan. So they've got ample opportunity to hire the right credentialed employees for the different positions that they need based on the courses that students are identifying that they want to register for, as well as starting to do a significant number of transition meetings for students who are served with an IEP, making sure that they're getting into the right programing. So everything kind of backs up from that choice date. So just kind of be mindful that all of those dominoes then go in sequence. I just want to say a couple quick points. And then with board's permission, what I would propose we do is there is a discussion point for

108timeline. So I would like to get us back on the schedule of discussion, if only for the reason that we are very dialed into this conversation, and not that I'm not interested in Everything you have to say, but the people watching or the people that may be watching segments of this discussion later, I'd like to give our audience some sort of continuity and some organization of our thoughts, as well as the CPC. So if that's okay, I'd like to go back to the next part of the presentation and make sure we reserve enough time to talk about timelines, because I think there's a lot more to be said. My only thoughts on the choice, which I'll add in, we've talked about this a lot before. I echo a lot of what was said as far

109as potentially pushing it back a bit. So I had two thoughts. One was related to the first round of consolidation closures. We we discussed two years ago is that I like the idea as well in the choice window of having the impacted students and families of those communities that are going to be faced with a potential closure, consolidation, that preference in that choice, or, in other words, to give them a longer runway to make an informed decision. That's a radical idea, and we can talk more about that later. And the other thing is, I do think pushing it back briefly so people can make an informed decision in that choice window. I think that we are potentially disrupting our community in a significant way. And so to give folks the respect of giving them time

110so that they can make a decision that's right for their family after they understand where the dust is going to settle. So those are my two points. Other than that, I would like to get back to our main presentation because I know there's some more discussion about policy language, the tweaks that were made and what comes next, and that if that's okay, if everyone doesn't want to do that route, then that's fine. But I'd like to keep us somewhat organized for folks. I think it is okay, Kevin, but I also think that we're asking for these action teams, and we're suggesting that these action teams are going to meet this summer, come back with an amazing decision in September, and then we're going to vote in October. That timeline just seems I'll just name it.

111I am not comfortable with that. That feels uncomfortable. So I hear you're trying to get us back, but like, we keep talking about this. And so I guess I'm just figuring what's next. So like, are we going to reconsider a date? Are we like what? Like what comes from this? Because we've talked about it and just feels like it just landed and we're moving on to the next thing. And I think this is a significant piece and it's not fair to the community to have teams meet for a short period of time. And then those teams make the decision that shapes and impacts thousands of lives, and we're okay with that. That's what I'm asking. So what do we do and where do we go next from here? I'm just asking. I'm not okay with

112it. If we're okay with that, then we can move forward. But I am struggling with a small group of people meeting for like a couple of weeks, impacting thousands. That does not feel like we are being a responsible group of individuals throughout this consolidation process. I'll just name it. That's how I'm feeling. If everyone feels like we need to move forward, then I suggest we do. Thank you for hearing me out. I, I, I think I actually have a question that might help because I would say I'm on the same boat as Karen. If, if, if this work had to be done by September. And that's it seems very, very fast. However, when I look at this list, it appears that by September they will have just started their work. And a lot of this

113work actually continues once we've made a final decision, and that it will really gear up in many ways after that decision. I'm just looking at number eight safety, traffic and transportation. They're going to have some initial work, but until we've actually said this is what's happening, the bulk of their work doesn't seem to come into play yet. That that's a supposition. And I'm just asking, is there an expected timeline for all these groups to continue the work all the way up through the beginning of the August, the 27, 28 school year? And just what what are you envisioning? So each of the action teams have a different depth of detail that they'll have to come up with. So one of the common templates that each group will have is a project plan. So essentially they

114will project plan what is needed to accomplish what's on their plate. So for example, the records, finance, school code project plan, they're probably going to map out processes and procedures that have to happen in September, October. November. December. January. February. March. April. May. June. July. August. So their their project. Work. While the May to September window is to make the plan and list out all of the things that must be tended to throughout the process. So that's just kind of one example as far as what the, the work happens. And, and like I said, the intention is like these teams are coming up with like the two thirds map of this is what has to get accomplished. We believe at this point in time, as they move through the process and as we work with

115the scenario development team, they're going to also elevate other things that have to be added to that project plan for people to be considering, to think about, and then to turn over to those schools or groups that would have to manage some of these processes. So if you I'm just going to take a look at that. Records, finance, school codes. So there's some work over the summer that has to be done by a central team. Like we have to identify with CDE, what it what kind of coding we're going to need to do to transfer records and to transfer and close a school. And so they're going to build out that project plan so that we know, like in April, we must do this to close out that school and transfer the codes. And so

116that that intention is they're going to predict and plan for what must be decided, not necessarily be the group that executes on all of the things, but be able to essentially create a project plan and the inclusive teams similarly. So their work isn't going to stop in September. They're going to again be able to provide a project plan to those folks who really need to execute on building communities together, because a group over here that makes a project plan, they're not going to be the best ones to facilitate building communities together. You really need to do that with the school communities who are most impacted by the change. And so they're going to be a support of helping that group think about all of the things that should be considered and thought about, and then

117that group is going to improve upon it once, once it's handed over. And so while this timeline says May through September, it's really not going to stop in September. It really will be work that has to be carried forward. And the there's varying degrees of intensity depending on which action team we're talking about. Do you perceive any action teams of these nine are immediately at higher risk for. I'm going to call it rushing. Just just I mean, that's what we're talking about, is having to work too fast with too little time to reasonably execute a quality outcome. The one that I would be right now most paying attention to would be safety, traffic and transportation, because they're going to have to build the bus routes for whatever new combinations. And this is their most intensive

118time period from about June through the middle of July to route for next year. And so we would be asking them to start routing for the following year. And, you know, then there's the conversation about bell times. That's probably the one group that would be the most time constrained. Tracy. What's the two thirds map that you mentioned? Two thirds math. That's that's. Tracy. Math. That's just you take you get something to at least a vetted idea, and then you invite people to improve upon it. That's the one one third part of it. And then my other question is, I think that what we're not what's not being said is the plan is to be able to name schools by October. That's true. Yes. That's the current timeline we're working off of. I think that's what's

119giving us all concern. Because that will be a heavy burden for the community to bear. We just want to make sure that we're doing it correctly, I. And it feels like a time contingency at this point. I don't know how the committee could dissuade our fears or make us feel like this is more robust than it seems, or that people are meeting more. Yeah. May I say something? So one, I wanted to just say thank you for this human centered dialog. I think we're running up against the realization that this is going to ultimately impact people, and we're trying to figure out how to be as thoughtful as possible. I through this conversation, it seems to me that integrity of the process and he said proposal that may come in the fall in speed is

120being seen as a either or. And to me it has to be a both and and staff and myself and the Comprehensive Planning Committee. And I'll go back to what Doctor Ziegler said earlier about what she really appreciated about the last meeting was evidence that when we come with scenarios, we have to show that how it's aligned to the said criterion that we're hoping that you pass tonight, right? That we're showing that there's evidence within each of these action committees that it wasn't done hastily, because at that point, I will not bring anything to your attention if we I feel like it doesn't have integrity and alignment behind it. So yes, we have a timeline and markers that we are striving to meet, but it's not going to be at the expense of not doing

121it well or not doing it right. And we have to have checkpoints along the way and conversations along the way around how we're progressing or not progressing. So this is the first of many conversations around how these action teams would function. But I think what is essential is that we think we have a really solid plan of how to design it, who needs to be involved. We're going to be soliciting membership here, like right away and then getting started, but we'll have conversations throughout the course of the summer around things that are going well and where we're dealing with barriers and how we're going to need to think through that together. So I don't want any of you or any of us to feel like this ultimate pressure that, yes, October is going to be

122October, but if we're not ready to do it well, we're going to have to make a shared decision around not sacrificing our community at the expense of doing something really fast. And I know that's not the intent of the comprehensive planning committee. So I just want to reassure all of you that there will be integrity as the primary driver throughout all of this process and doing it in an inclusive way, which is the reason why we are soliciting employees and soliciting members of our community to do this in conjunction with each other. And I would also say to like another neighboring school district across the Front Range is Boulder Valley School District. We have been on the very same timeline. They're actually intending, unless anything has changed, making their announcement in August of what's going

123to happen. So we're actually going a little bit slower in terms of coming up with scenarios and naming that. And we all have different contexts, different districts, but there's a lot of similarities there too. I just want to reassure you, though, that we're not going to compromise integrity just to go fast. Yeah, I just want to clarify a couple of things. I actually see it a little bit differently that the CPC is the group that's been doing this work for 18 plus months now, and that's what these subcommittees, I've seen these as subcommittees of the CPC, they're reporting back. So if you guys recall, two weeks ago at our last meeting, the concept was that the CPC with a smaller one subcommittee of just a few people was going to do the heavy lifting of

124exploring things, then go back to the main group of CPC and say, what do you guys think? Give us feedback and go from there. I see these committees, these nine committees, as giving those each of those areas the attention they deserve, because that's an impossible task, I think, for a small, you know, 5 or 7 people from the CPC to do. But if you have all these other committees doing that heavy lifting, I see this as delegation, more efficiency. So the integrity can be there, that they get their due. And then that's brought back to CPC, which then consolidates. That brings that to us. So I see this as actually making the process stronger and helping that timeline because of that. Chair some more. I, I have things to say, but I want to go

125back to Mr. Elder's point of keeping us on track, because I think I've got a lot to say on this, but, but I think that we, we should probably tighten a little here. We'll get to it. Yeah. Great. I think we're prepared for next is our policies. Okay. So moving into policy, this is a second reading of policy F, C, B and FCBR. We are asking the board to vote on the policy tonight. And so as we talked about last time, the CPC crafted this policy, after looking at other district policies, had lots of study, community engagement and revision across multiple groups. We believe that the policy tonight reflects the criterion values of PSG in the community, and it will be codified for current and future work as the district expands and contracts. Policies reflect

126both educational quality and fiscal stewardship values within our community. And I just want to spend a minute on that point that we talked a lot last time and have had, you know, community feedback around like, it would be great if we just had some quantitative measures. And so because we're looking at beyond fiscal stewardship, that's an important part of it. And we're really looking also at preserving educational quality. There's going to be some elements of qualitative as well as quantitative information that's brought into this to really do a process with integrity. The group felt like it needed both. And so that's, that's why maybe this sort of tension of it would really be great to just have schools named and we can move on. This is what we believe integrity in the process looks like

127is by looking at both things. And so the criteria reflect both of those fiscal stewardship and educational quality, and then also reflect a process for ongoing and annual review and reporting to the board and the community of facility utilization, enrollment and areas of further study as just a recurring theme on a regular basis. So the revisions, based on the board's feedback from the prior meeting on May 12th. So the revisions that were made to policy FCB, we removed conduct a comprehensive study and replaced with review relevant data. We removed adhere to the following minimum timeline and replaced with. Provide ample notice of any consideration of potential closures. We removed initiation of process by the end of January. We removed following the study and engagement period, and we changed funding to resources in policy FCBR we

128removed based on the study findings. So discussion does the board approve policies FCB and FCBR? And if not, what would you like from the committee and how would you like to proceed with the proposed timeline? So with these policies, I'd really like us to go down the line and speak to how we're thinking about them with their revisions, what our current thoughts are. So that kind of launches our conversation about the thing that we need to actually vote on tonight. So, Kevin, if you wouldn't mind launching us. Thanks. I had something prepared. This is going to get mixed in with one of the discussion points, but I'll do my best to try to segregate those two ideas. Okay, so in the last meeting's discussion, it occurred to me that what I didn't do adequately, at

129least, is and I believe critically important, is to say a couple of thank yous to some people who deserve my thanks and the thanks of this board, starting with the Comprehensive Planning Committee, I want to thank its volunteers. And to those who are taking a snapshot of our discussion, they may not understand all the work that's gone on and all the time and effort and energy that this group of volunteers has put forward to get us to where we are. These are folks who volunteered, even the folks that volunteered initially but didn't serve the full term. They still stepped up initially. So I want to thank them. But this group would be in this room at 7:30 a.m. and this was again, a volunteer position for them. At their request, they moved that back, I

130think, to 7 a.m. for the later meetings, per their requests, to donate their time, creativity, and passion for making this district better and to engage in the process that began almost a year and a half ago today. I especially want to thank Doctor Brett Hanson, Doctor Tracy Giles, specifically for your leadership. I know that we have disagreed throughout this process, but I want to let you know publicly how much I respect you and your leadership throughout the process, and it's been very evident. So I want to personally thank you for that. I also want to thank our principals throughout this process for their insights and their courage to be candid with the board. It's changed and evolved my own thinking considerably throughout this whole process, so I appreciate their bravery and service. I want to

131thank Staff Cabinet. I also want to thank Brian, President Zamora and the rest of the board, the undertaking that we've been doing for the last year and a half, at least from when the last process was halted, has been very significant. It showed a willingness for us to learn, to be transparent, to try to get it right. And I also want to thank our community for showing up and for being engaged, as well as to what I call the quiet majority that may not show up to engagement sessions, but I want to press for it. I hear from them as well. So here's my thoughts on the policy language and sort of the general process. This is not the first time this district has had to wrestle with or navigate these particular challenges. It is,

132in my estimation, though, the first time this district has had this amount of input, thought, process, engagement and deliberation and how we choose to resolve these challenges. This work and what we've attempted to achieve, is perhaps the most significant opportunity and challenge that will confront this district in recent history. And that's why I personally sense an acute anxiety from our community. And I'm sure the other board directors feel that as well. In conversations with friends, colleagues, staff and parents and even students, people keep asking me, so what's going on and when does it end? I think these are important questions, and I think they're fair ones, and I'm hopeful that we'll get some more clarity on some of these questions here tonight, especially around process and timeline. I also think that's important that we understand

133the moment that we're in as directors and as a governance team, and that we rise to the occasion and that this process will not be perfect. Make no mistake, this process will be far from perfect. I don't think perfection is a realistic goal. That doesn't mean that we don't strive for it. That doesn't mean that we're not frustrated when we don't see. It means we dust ourselves off, learn from our mistakes, and move forward, and that what is required is our best efforts. So in that, in that review, looking at the policy language and the tweaks that were made linguistically, you resolved all the issues that I had. And I want to say this again, vociferously, is that I think the policies that we've been handed, as well as the the equity administrative guide, are

134outstanding work product. I mean, that hats off. I think that understanding that we're trying to build a plane while flying it, this is an impeccable place to start, at least to have these discussions. That means it's not going to be perfect. And we need to talk through implementation and how we're going to layer in these criteria. But I'm actually encouraged that the criteria is not a here's an 80% zone. So we can just look at a. We can just look at enrollment map now and say, you're done. I think we have to have flexibility. Personally, I think these policies and the implementation particularly go to what you're talking about, Doctor Gayle, which is both quantitative and qualitative. That is resoundingly what we've been asked from our community. If I've been listening to these engagement sessions.

135And again it has to be both fair and equitable, which are two different concepts. And so as we talk about timeline and sort of where we are in the policies, I think we can tweak those, you know, in subsequent boards, etc. but it will give the boards, future boards the gift of flexibility so that on the off chance that in five years, the challenges are different, then they can modify what we've already started and tailor it to, to what the district's needs are at that time. But as far as the language and the policies of FCB and FCB are, I'm very comfortable with it. And personally, I think that the biggest challenge is what comes next. So I think that as a board member, my job is at times not to say no to everything.

136It's to try to say yes to something so that we can move forward as a district. And the last thing I'll say is that is also resoundingly what I've heard, which is different from last time. Understand, when we talk about timeline that it feels compressed. It felt compressed to me and personally, I was asking whether we could do this, make a decision in spring for various reasons. The feedback I've been getting to, especially from folks that I've trusted throughout the process in the last time, was that if we continue to drag this out, we are going to lose our community in the process as well. There has to be an element, once we've got it, as good as it can possibly be, that we are decisive, that we make a decision as a governance team,

137we stick by it and then we layer on the supports that we need. So that's my soapbox, at least for the policy language. I think we do need to have more deep dive as far as timeline, because I think that's a more specific conversation, but I'm all for now. Thanks. Would you mind? Kevin. Thanks for that. That's really well said. I also want to thank the, the CPC, the volunteers. A lot of these folks were even held over from the steering committee from a couple of years ago, and so have a lot of expertise. And I'm really happy that that they were willing to, to put their time into this and are willing to continue to put their time into it, because this will be an ongoing process. I've said this many times, but the

138the can stops here, like we are the ones we're the, we're the board that has to make these tough decisions. And we've done some tough things. I'm, I'm immensely proud that instead of dancing around issues constantly, we are pushing. And it's a slow process. That's. That's my one frustration. I run a very small business so I can make quick decisions and it happens the next day. Can't do that with a big organization like this. But we've made tremendous progress, you know, for years. The a C in the buildings discussion has been coming up. We took action. And through the hard work of of people in this district and the community on this board, we got four a past, and now we have a plan finally, for what to do about a C that's that was

139never done before. This board heat days. That's a short term way to solve that. That's that's Brian's leadership with. The different employee groups figuring that out in a really excellent collaborative way. We're addressing and or working on a plan to address dyslexia in our, in our school district that hadn't been done before. There are a lot of things we're giving people answers and progress and hope, and that's making tough decisions and doing this heavy lifting. But we're the can't stops. So that's why I'm proud of this, this policy, the proud of the work that you guys are doing. Kevin's right. It's not perfect. I am in favor of treading cautiously into this, but forward nonetheless. Thank you. Karen, would you mind would you like to pass at the moment? Okay, Andrew. In response to the

140question on the board, I think I was trying to write down all my thoughts and see if I can get them out in a reasonable way, but I think right off the bat, what I need from the committee is probably a list of what you might need from us over the summer to support the CPC and the nine subcommittees. So whether that means speaking back to my cyclical notion of check in points, feedback and things like that, what that might look like, for example, again, none of that probably is formulated if it's even setting up things that you believe. We should have board outreach sessions to the community as part of the process. I just want to say that's I think that's one of the things that I would like from you all to give

141us some insight into what you believe would best support your work through the summer, so that we can keep on this timeline and this volume of work. The second item, probably more for the board as an action item, and I don't know where that fits in. I think you've got it somewhere, is just for us to have our conversation about what we're going to do over the summer as well. So probably there's some sequencing and some of those things like that. So just a sort of a side note. Number three on my list need to ask you for honesty specific to things like the barriers you're seeing, the workload you're facing. If you start to feel like there's some can kicking going on. I'm same boat as Scott. We got to stop kicking the can

142down the road. We're here because so many cans were kicked down the road and that has to stop. Don't let us get away with it again this time. And I suppose that could even go to the full community as well. You're going to have needs come to come to us with those as you're as you're coming along, we've got to have that open communication in a very timely manner. And so I think that's very high on my list of things that I'm going to ask the committee to make sure they're giving it to us in terms of those sorts of things, so we can support, again the project. And then related to the proposed timeline, I believe my own stance is we have committed to trying to get this done, and I recognize the concerns

143that have been brought up, but I think we need to continue to try and say, this is what we're doing. We're going to try and target that. And until we hear feedback that says we just can't do that reasonably and with quality, integrity and so on, we need to keep targeting that because I also know that even if we just push it back to January or even a few weeks into December, that starts to crunch the workload for the remaining part of the year. And I know there was long discussions about why the end of October and beginning of November made the most sense, and could be actually adequately managed by both the community staff, administration, teachers, principals, all of those ripple effects that we go. And the further we push it back, the more

144difficult it makes it. It goes back to that honesty piece. What if it becomes just like we can't do it? But as Kevin alluded, the community wants us to take that action. And so I'm going to try and agree that for now, barring massive changes of information, the proposed timeline makes sense to me as a as a plan of action. Andrew. We'll talk more about the timeline. This is specific to the policies. Did you have any additional commentary just for the policies? Not at this time, because I'm happy with those. I was just making sure I answered what I perceive the questions on the board. So just making sure. Thank you. I, I just wanted to make sure because I didn't hear a ton of policy conversation and I felt like that was probably okay,

145but I also wanted to make sure I checked in just in case. Okay. Oh, good. Great. Thank you. Connor. Yeah. I think the revisions that you made. Placate my issue with being out of compliance, how it was written before was not sufficient. However, we still left one date in October, right? It's in the policy. So if we're going to strip out all the other things in there, I'm I'm struggling. And this is the proposed timeline portion of it. And just focusing on the policy, I don't understand why all the other dates would be removed. And then just October would be left in. Can I ask a follow up question? Connor, would you do you feel that you would approve of these if October was not in them? I'd be more inclined to. I'm not sure

146that that's being proposed tonight. If it is, I would assume that if that is removed, I would assume that we would have, I guess, a third reading or something, but I would be more inclined to. If it. If it was up. Adam, can I ask, is that a substantive change that would require a third reading, or is that something we could change tonight if it was desired by the rest of the board? The board could make a motion to amend the policy. And then if we have the the language available now, then we could wordsmith that here, and then the board could vote on the amendment and then vote on the policy as amended tonight. Or we could also bring it back for third reading. If it's too difficult to get the exact language right

147in any proposed change tonight. So either way would work. Thank you. Please. So if I'm reading this though, Connor, the October mention is the way it reads now with the red lines is towards the end. And this is the FCB. Still, the superintendent will present formal recommendations to the board no later than October for changes occurring the following school year. So I personally don't have an issue with the October language because it anchors at least a decision point for the following school year. So if we remove October, I don't I don't think it's got any protection for, let's say that a superintendent ten years from now wants to make a change for the 2020 728 school year in August of 2027 that I think, at least for me, there's a stop gap in there that

148requires a decision before. Does that make sense? It does. My my interpretation of it is different is that if the superintendent does not offer a recommendation recommendation by the end of October, if he yields it in November, then it's null and void by the policy because it's over the deadline. Yeah, I guess personally I'm fine with that reading as long as everyone understands that that's the anchor, because it I think from the previous iteration, they wanted time to implement that. We didn't want to delay the decision so that the the runway for. I believe that's the that was the intention there. So I hear you on that, but I'm actually I feel better with that understanding because it means that if a decision is not made, a recommendation is made by October, then they've missed

149the window to roll it into the next calendar year, unless they make an emergency amendment to the policy to adjust that. But I prefer having a decision and more time to roll it out. I mean, that's where I'm comfortable with the language, but I see your point. Thank you. Just curious, I appreciate it. Carla, do you have comments? I have a couple I, I, Mr. Reiling, who spoke earlier mentioned. That his hope was for us to be objective. In this decision making. And I don't know that objectivity really fits here. I think that we asked our community for a value statement, and they said that what's important to them is to bring our. Under-resourced community along in this decision matrix with every kid like our. Our statement remains that they're as big an influence as

150any other kid. And so I think that that's what's influenced this policy. And so for me, that I think that the CPC has done an amazing job. I second what, Kevin, I second Kevin's gratitude. I think, again, I would say that we've had the privilege of being in the room when a lot of this work has been done, and that separates us from the greater community. And I just want to say that. I feel like the process in that room was inclusive, structured, and resulted in thorough, actionable results. So I, I am I'm all in favor of the policy, if that's what you need to hear from me. As far as timeline goes, I think that it's important that we remember because I got off track, I think. I'm also hearing from our educators a

151lot of exasperation. I think we get away from the fact that our our educators and Ace and Pace employees are exasperated that they're not. They're not getting the resources that they need. And so that's why we're here. That's why we're doing this. I think that we forget that. And then we slide into, well, why can't we take more time? And I do it. I want more time, but it's unrealistic. I think. That. There's consensus among our community that work in the district, that this needs to happen and happen quickly. So I'd end there. Great. Are you ready, or would you like me to go first? Okay. So my view of the policies, I really appreciate the shifts that we've made. I think they allow us enough flexibility to be thoughtful without giving no direction for

152the community to anchor into. I think that the criteria actually does allow us to have a lot of accountability to the community, because it does show the things that we're looking at, even if they don't have numerical values or ranges next to them, they do showcase the values that our community has shared with us, and they also allow enough flexibility for us to really be thoughtful in any solution that's provided, rather than just a numerical solution. Let's see. I think the one thing I want to talk about for timeline, it's something we heard a lot when we did our listening sessions, and it was providing people with enough time to grieve. So I hesitate to push a timeline back because we have to have time to actually implement something, but we also have to give

153people time to both grieve if their school does close, and also find their hope and excitement for what comes next. And so shortening that process also shortens the opportunity we are giving people to really lean into what's happening. And that change, the change does take time, and I understand that October feels fast and some of the committees feel fast. But I also, as I look over some of these subcommittees, they are very process driven. They are things that our schools do or our staff do. We just are doing them sometimes on a larger scale. So having a process to be able to do that for an entire school rather than for a subset of students, I don't think all of these things are actually new things for our community, our school district, to be able

154to do. It's how do we scale it up to be able to do it effectively and do it as seamlessly as possible? So that's my $0.02. Let's see if there's anything else I wanted to share. Okay, I think I've answered your question and I think I've given some direction on the policies. Do we have any other questions or comments at this time? Yeah, please. I think there's some curiosity out there about the, the rewrite of the, you know, these edits. And my understanding is that's from the discussion last time. Did you guys go back to the committee members and talk to them? Did you feel like you needed to get their approval on those? No, we didn't go back to the committee and talk through those minor edits. Brett, as a representative of the committee,

155worked through those Red line edits with myself and Autumn. The the one edit that the committee felt strongly about is needing some sort of timeline. They feel like there is a need to name some sort of marker in there. And so that's why you saw the January and October dates. And so based on board feedback, we did eliminate that January, but we left in the October because that wasn't something that we heard substantive feedback on from the board last time. And that was something that the committee valued was time markers. I'll also add that per the the policy, this decision is ultimately up to the board and the language, isn't it? So, you know, we present our recommendation and you if you want to make edits, you make edits. And I'll add on the context

156on the on the October date in our initial draft, I think we had November on that. And it was, if I recall correctly, as representatives of your teachers that wanted that earlier time for some of the same reasons that have been brought forward. So that was kind of a spearheaded by them. And that was why we landed on the October date. Just to give the full context to the committee or the board on that. So yeah. Do you want to make a motion to change it? I don't want to speak over you. Speak out of it. I don't know what your comfort level is. We've done that before. We've made a motion to revise policy language on the fly. And if it passes, then I think we have to have a third read. I think

157it's right on. No. If you do a motion to amend and then the board approves that, then you would vote the same meeting on the the new policy as amended. Yeah. Give me a second to type something up. You guys can discuss amongst yourselves. Sure. Yeah. Please. Did you have I suppose without having his amendments, it's a little difficult to know what the potential outcome might be. I guess I'm concerned if we remove October, there's I suppose there's some benefits because as Kevin mentioned, we're building this as we're flying the plane. That gives us some flexibility. If we remove again, have to wait and see what what he's got as an alternative, I scratch that. Let's let's just vote on it. We. But let's have a discussion around the pros and cons of keeping it

158in because, Kevin, your point, your point just before about how it holds our feet to the fire on a decision is pertinent. I, I wasn't thinking of it that way. I was thinking more of it as a drop deadline where, you know, like if, if something happens, right, we have, you know, some committees come back and say, I mean, our last committee, the first time they came in front of us said, this problem is so immense, we can't fix it. Right? So we may need more time and flexibility in there. And if we trip over that October deadline, it's November 1st, it's November 2nd, then we're hitting the reset button for a whole nother year. And I think we I think we could potentially make a decision by the end of this calendar year or

159in January. I know it creates problems, but it it I understand how it backs up drain as well. So there, there are pros and cons to having having it in there. One thing to consider too, whether is that it just says that we would be presenting formal recommendations. It doesn't necessarily require the board to vote on them in October. So I still think there's some flexibility that some of you, many of you were seeking around trying to think about how do we elongate choice to allow a little bit more time? I know doctor Gale spoke to that, but at least having a formal recommendation put before the board in October, I feel comfortable that it sets a milestone for future boards and superintendents, but also can be changed if we need that. But the goal

160and the intent was to, again, try to stay in compliance with the suggested timeline that was in the slide deck. But your points are well taken. One more point on that, and my thought isn't to have some sort of arbitrary anchor. And I mean, this genuinely is that we've got to have some sort of continuity for our for our community so that they can make decisions about their lives. And so I think that, I mean, I was sold on we had a lot of conversations about why October because of choice deadline. Yes, we can push, but impact site based budgeting, I mean, to be brutally transparent, which is, I think what we're what we're paid to do up here. Having conversations with folks very recently about putting their lives on hold until we make a

161decision, not moving, not buying a house, not knowing if school is going to exist. And that's unacceptable to me for the indefinite future. And so I'm not saying we should rush into something, but all the points you've made, I think we have to respect our community and the anxiety that this process brings on. If we keep on elongating it. Yeah, we may get closer and closer to a better process overall, but at what cost? Right. And so I, I'm feeling fairly adamant. Not that because I feel like October, but I think that if we can't or future boards can't make a decision or get a recommendation by October of a certain year, then we really ought not to be able to pull out the rug from people that are walking into a choice window, or

162trying to move or start their lives somewhere in our community. That's what I think. To Perry on what you're saying. I am not comfortable with a recommendation being made public and us not following through. I feel like we lost the trust of the entire community the last time that this process came about, and I think that we need to inspire the trust of the community by showing the teams that have done the work, that we have faith in them, and that we entrusted them with the work and we believe in them. And in the last hour, we're not just going to go and no, not good enough. You know, I just I don't think we can do that. I don't I don't want to be a part of that. I would like us to be

163really consistent in our decision making and show that we support the work going in. I really appreciate you saying that in this conversation. I hope I didn't come across the wrong way of implying that that was my hope or something that was an option. I just think once the scenarios are public, there's going to need to be some engagement in the community with the most impacted communities prior to something formally moving forward. So we would need to kind of think through what that looks like, but having some time and space. So it's not you're learning about the scenarios for the very first time decisions made that same night. And then everybody's reading about it in the newspaper the next day. So we just need to kind of think through how to be thoughtful and having

164robust outreach around those who would be most impacted. Thank you. That speaks to the heart of my concern because I, I really like the and maybe we're getting off of the policy again. I really like the idea of the teams. I think it's good. I think it's well thought out. I think it stands up. A lot of people with really good fundamental knowledge of those specific areas. I don't want a policy and have our feet held to the fire. Without us as board directors, having to go to the public and take it from the fire hose from them, because the narrative is going to change. The second we list a school on a scenario. So clarifying question on that is the formal recommendation from the superintendent. To us, the scenario or the execution of a

165scenario that is released optimally two months before we make a vote on that. Right. Because the policy, how it reads now says he's going to present a formal recommendation. Well, is that formal recommendation envisioned as the first time that the public is going to see the scenarios, or we're going to roll those out six weeks before or so? Yeah. So what Bret and I have talked about, what we envision is that there is likely going to be need to be space for talking with the communities that would likely be named in a recommendation, give or take about a month's span of time, to talk with those communities, to be able to engage with them thoughtfully about like, here's, here's where we've landed, here's what we're thinking. What did we miss? What are we where, where

166are our blind spots? What transition supports? What mitigation might we need to do as well as providing information? So all of those subcommittees, those action teams, their work is to be able to provide a lot of those answers as much as we possibly can, up to a point where then we would ask the community, like, here's what here's what we're thinking. What do you think? What would be the best approach for you? And so that span of about about a month is what we're envisioning right now. Given the timeline to engage with those specific school communities and then come with a recommendation that that has as much of all of these decisions made in partnership with, with people who would be impacted. So that's right. Now what we're scoping. We need to meet with the

167Comprehensive Planning Committee on June 8th and really have them talk through that with us. So right now it's a proposal and we really want to to have their voice in it as well. The. Just to Connor's point, I just want to name we went to. I'll just I won't name person, but hearing a principal say they were involved in that last consolidation process and what was nice then it was a closed process where speaking to the conversation, just something to think about. Like, will we be able to have that closed space, right? And will there be a text message or a phone call or something like that? I'm just saying that the person named it of how significantly different it was 20 years ago versus how it might be now. So I just wanted to

168throw that in the space and take into account that open system that we're all living in. I just want to point out in the in the policy and does talk about the process for recommendation versus votes. If you I'll direct your attention to page three of four, and it is the second full paragraph on the bottom. Don't know if we can put this up so people can read it. This is the red line FCBR. I'm not sure who's driving in the PowerPoint. It's in my PowerPoint. Okay. Well it's okay. So let me just lay that out and see if I can do this. While we work on some accessibility, the superintendent will provide an initial recommendation to the board regarding school closure, consolidation, and or relocation at a scheduled board meeting. The initial recommendation will

169include an analysis of each of the criteria and considerations set out herein. The board will not vote on the recommendation at this meeting. The initial recommendation and analysis will be published no less than seven calendar days before the initial recommendation is presented to the board in a public meeting. The timing of this publication is designed to allow parents, caregivers, employees and the community reasonable time to review relevant information with adequate time and ability to ask questions and express concerns ahead of the initial recommendation to the board. So this is just the initial recommendation that you're talking about. So if we're talking decision point in October 20th, where I think that is the board meeting, then to Connor's point, it would be really nice to have an initial recommendation, at least at the beginning of that

170month, in order to hit this. It would it would need to be published seven days before that board meeting is set. So give us at least a month. Now, I know we have board meetings every other two weeks or so. So that might we might need a tweak when those times are. But that's my read of the policy is that the initial recommendation still is not a vote. That's the here's what's happening. And then we go hit the pavement and start doing some additional engagement. Are you saying that the recommendation for whatever schools are going to be consolidated or whatever will be shared, or the initial. Yeah, that's the initial sorry, that's what that's what I'm reading is the initial recommendation is they coalesce, they're doing all the work, and then we get an initial

171recommendation. It's published seven days before that public meeting so that people have time to absorb it and kind of react and then show up for community comment and, and get in touch with everyone, but that we're not voting on it when it's presented as initial recommendation. We're just hearing it kind of like a first read. So let's clarify. I just like, so it's like, oh, these six schools, it will be made public. People have an opportunity to comment on it. And then the vote, even even before vote, we're just we're going to go ahead. I just like, right, I'm just trying to clarify like, I feel like people want the process clarified. That's what I've been hearing is like, all right, well, y'all come back. What's going to happen? Yeah. So, and I can pass

172this down. This is a printed version of the policy draft policy that Kevin just articulated. But there would be no vote at that particular meeting. It would simply be a discussion on what was being presented to allow you to process the community to process and obviously plan for additional engagement opportunities in the community. So so it's not final, but it but we we would have come to a conclusion. Correct. Okay. So to further clarify, because now I'm a little confused if and I and I just kind of broadly looking at our calendar for this upcoming year, if we look into October, the October 20th meeting, barring a special meeting, right. I'm thinking scenarios, just the scenarios, not the seven days before anything. And we're going to need the board. And this is my opinion, but

173I from the last time the board is going to need at least six weeks to hear from the community and to have them digest it and let us hear, hear about it after that, then we can do the formal introduction and then the next meeting, the second read on it, and then take a vote. Because I think that if we release scenarios and two days later, Brian introduces the the meeting at that meeting, and then we vote on it two weeks later. I just don't think that there's enough time to hear the true impetus of the community, and especially the especially the ones that are closing. I was going to say, so I'm looking at the calendar. We've got a September 8th board meeting, which is Tuesday, September 22nd, to hit your six week window

174that you're driving at. I think we need we would need initial recommendation, realistically, September 8th. But based on the policy, that means that the recommendation is published no later than Tuesday, September 1st. So we're also sort of in the throes of back to school, etc. but that might make their timeline a more compressed. So let's I don't know if we can pause. Connor. Yeah, go ahead. Can I ask you though, what what kind of input are we looking for? Because I'm not interested in input. Once we make a decision with a recommendation to experience the kind of whiplash that we did last time, I feel like once there's a recommendation, it's there's forward momentum. Are you saying that people will have the opportunity to talk us out of it? Yes, yes, they're going to. That's

175most likely going to happen either way. Sure. And I think that in the process that that's a part of, of the whole, I, I can't imagine putting the CPC through all of this work without saying, in the end, I will get behind what your committee has proposed because you've done the work. I think that no matter what we end up with, there is going to be sorrow and pain and loss and grieving. Our effort is what is going to determine how much. And I think that you all are doing an incredible job of making sure that you're bringing everyone along with you. We had meetings all spring. I know that in October people are going to come and say, but wait, and we will have to say, we made all of these meetings in April.

176We invited you to the table. I'm not saying at this point that I don't want to hear from people. I think it's important that we keep this open line of communication, but I can't imagine going through the the activity of naming schools again and inviting our community to walk those decisions. That is that was so unhealthy last time. And I think that we have to take on the role of leadership. It's hard. I mean, I accepted that when I swore an oath to be on this board, I accepted that I would have to be involved in some really hard decisions. I agree, I don't think the decisions are going to be easy at all. I definitely don't think they're going to be easy once the names are of the schools are listed. However, you have

177to prepare yourself for the event that the recommendations from the CPC do not fit what you think school closure is. Last time three of our four title schools were on the list, right? That's not compatible. That was not compatible last time. I think they've done a very good job with the equity framework. I really like that. Hopefully that won't happen again, right. However, you're not going to get an easy decision when I think three of our title schools are within 5 or 6 miles of each other. Right? So it's not that it's a title school, and you've got to get comfortable with doing that. The recommendation can be wrong. We're going to have a conversation later on tonight about the size and scale of this. Right. Well, if the scale doesn't solve our problems, you

178as a director have to say I'm in a leadership position and this is not what I expected. I just wanted to clarify, I think and Kevin may disagree here, but I think or on the reading of it, the superintendent needs to give a recommendation by the end of October. And it says specifically, the board will not vote on the recommendation at this meeting. So that October 20th meeting is not when we're voting. I think it's important to note that we'll need to vote at the next meeting. Well, the Timing. It was going to be interesting because of choice and all that sort of thing. But as this reads you don't you give you a recommendation by the end of October, in seven days before at least it's announced. So I don't think we need to

179go way back into the beginning of September. I do like the idea of having more time. I think Tracy even mentioned we're going to try to give a month. It's four weeks. That's that's a decent heads up. But I just want to clarify on that timeline. We're not voting by the end of October. What I heard as a value statement from the board at the last meeting was we want flexibility, right? So where this gets really tight is it requires me to provide a initial recommendation by October. Could you vote at the next meeting? Yes. But you could also choose not to based upon the flexibility that's inherently now in the the language. So I we do have some room for community engagement and hearing from the comprehensive planning committee around like really looking to

180have a month of engagement. I think to me, I would hit caution if it goes beyond that. I think what we've all heard from stakeholders across the community and most importantly our employees, is to really ensure that we're not creating the conditions for an us versus them conversation in this boardroom. Now, is there going to be some element of that that just comes as a result of this conversation? Yes. But I do think we have a collective responsibility to mitigate that as much as possible. So it's not a ploy to like save an individual school. Again, we know people are going to have all sorts of different human reactions to to this scenario. But I think going beyond a month would give me a little bit of heartburn because we may be really well intended,

181be feeding into that scenario that the community has really asked us not to create. Please, recognizing that I brought up last meeting that I don't like dates and policies typically is. There consideration for the fact that hearing Carla talk about accountability, that we actually place a subsequent date to that presentation to, say two meetings or four weeks? Because recognizing for going to November, we shift a full week for the meeting schedule typically. But it seems from an accountability perspective that we should call out that the board subsequent to this will make a decision up or down for what is best for the district as a package for the recommendations, because that's really the feedback we need once they go out. Not every school that would end up on the list. No one is going to

182want that to close down who goes to that school. I understand that we have to make a decision. What's best for the district and understanding is this package the recommendations best for the district, what we really need to hear, speaking back even to what Carla was saying as well, that's the information that's important for us to hear at that point. I mean, we should be hearing about all the schools and all the wonderful things now as they're going through all the various criteria, looking at what is best for the district as a package. So that way when it comes out, that's the conversation we have with the community. But having that marker for the board now has to say within that reasonable time frame, four weeks, again, we have to write something that's we put

183those time frames in. We it may or may not work out. And it could be that it's only a three week from, you know, two subsequent meetings, which feels tighter, but it's still okay. I mean, we have to be very engaged with the community for that period of time. So I don't know what the board feels about that. That might be an appropriate one to put the date in, or at least that time frame of two meetings subsequent to when the presentation is made. We're going to commit to a vote because we're going to be accountable to the community to say yes or no. Can I ask a question? Just a clarifying question. So I'm hearing this conversation and ultimately I'm wondering, correct me if I'm wrong conferences, one of my top values, I'm about

184to sound incompetent, but I don't even want to ask the question. No, but for real, wouldn't it ultimately just depend like, wouldn't that situation just be resolved by the vote? Right? So like, like, so it sounds like there's recommendations. It's not a vote goes out to the community whatnot, right? They comment and do all these different things. It comes to us. I feel like if the board was not in support of recommendations based on community feedback or whatever, couldn't it just end with our vote versus having to extend it? Does that make sense? Like I'm trying I don't know if my question is making sense. I'm just like, do we have to add dates and extend it? Because it could just end if every single person, if it was a no and it failed, right.

185And then we could recalibrate. So I just feel like there's already a built in mechanism in terms of timing that allows for that decision to be made based on community feedback. AM I wrong? Or like, can I ask a clarifying? I think I'm with you. Can I ask a question? Okay, so this is actually very helpful that we're having this conversation because as I'm reading it now, I'm doubting my own reading a little bit. So let's, let's start with the board policy first, which is FCB. The red line was changed. This is how we got kicked off on this corner. The superintendent will present formal recommendations to the board no later than October for changes occurring the following school year. Okay. Any changes approved by the board would take effect no sooner than the following

186school year. So presuming we wanted to recommendation from Brian on something to take place in 2627, my read of this is that he has to present formal recommendations, plural to the board no later than October. It doesn't say which meeting. So then I think that where I'm getting confused in this, I think you've helped me out tremendously is I kind of see this through two lenses, but it basically says in the, in the FCB are the implementation policy. The superintendent will provide an initial recommendation to the board regarding school closure, consolidation as scheduled board meeting. The initial recommendation will include analysis of each. ET cetera. Then it says the board will not vote on the recommendation at this meeting. So to me, if we have to do both, we're marrying both these policies. You have

187to give us an initial recommendation at the first board meeting in October. And if we're going to vote on it, we have to do that on the 2nd October because this this policy very clearly says that we will not take a voting on the initial recommendation unless you. Initial recommendation ready to go at the end of September. So if that's the intent, then I think that's what we're all wrestling with. But is your. So here's my question back to you. Are you suggesting. I think I heard Carla say some of this too, that we should use that initial recommendation as like the vote? Or do we think there should be like a two reads? Because the way this policy is, we can't vote, at least on the first initial recommendation read. May I say something

188briefly? One of the things you said earlier in the meeting, in a different context, is how it's sometimes really surprising to members of the community that we as a group, don't always have time to talk about things as a group, because we can't. Right. In terms of like having quorum and all that sort of thing. So I think it's really important, in my opinion, to not have a vote on the same night that the initial proposal or recommendation is being put in front of you to allow you to react as a group and individually, because that feedback will be really important to the comprehensive planning committee as well as staff, I think, as well as the community, as they're going to want to know what your insights and your feedback are to what you're hearing.

189I think that dialog will matter a lot. Technically, we could do that. I just would strongly advise that that might not be in the best interest of anybody. Are you responding to what I asked, just in the sorry, all of the above. I think this has been an ongoing dialog. Can we talk in steps like, I think we keep reading it and let's just talk. So the steps is one you. The recommendation is made. What was it say seven days before our board meeting? Before the board meeting. So step one recommendation. Step two publish. Step three board meeting. No vote. Correct. Step four engagement. Engagement. And then eventually there's a vote. Yes. Right. So there's so the reason I'm trying to pull this together because we're like, do we have this day, this day or

190this day? We kind of solve all that, at least in my mind, that's what I'm asking you all, all that takes place before we ever make a vote. And so. So to me, the. I think, sorry, y'all. It sounds like we're trying to decide, do things change based on community input. And I guess my question I'm wondering is ultimately, doesn't the board's vote decide that? Right. So all this like what date and what time and stuff to me doesn't feel necessary. Because if the engagement sessions and all that other stuff comes and as a board, we're like, yeah, ultimately, yeah, we heard stuff from people and blah, blah, blah, blah based on recommendation, that's the end of it. Or we hear all this different information and it comes for a vote and we vote. Yay,

191right. So it feels like to me that that vote solves the timeline issue by still allowing the inclusion of everything. So I'm just trying to clarify, when do we start start playing backwards. What I'm saying is like we need to figure out the last date. We can have that vote for this policy, which I think is October 20th, and then work our way back from there. As I read it, it's exactly what you started off with. The recommendation comes from the superintendent for the up to the last meeting in October with a seven day pre publish, and from there from that from when we formally get it presented in our board meeting with that seven day lead, after that is when we were going to have community engagement and get somewhere to a board vote,

192which presumably would be in November, presumably. I mean, I suppose it could it could go to December, but I, I like the idea that, again, I'm speaking to the accountability notion that Carla brought up. I think it makes sense to say we should state either two meetings or within four weeks or something like that to say this, it has a terminus. Otherwise it could just go on and on and on. And that doesn't seem right either. And so that's why. Sorry, I got to jump in again. That's why I think we have to start with the end vote in mind. Because if he's giving us an initial recommendation based on these policies, October 20th, we can't vote in October, which means that we can't make a change for the next school year, which means we're

193waiting until 2829. Right? The policy doesn't. It says only the recommendations come in November, not the vote. You you made that point very clear to start off with. That's correct. Or somebody did. That's correct. You have flexibility on the back end. When the decision gets made, it just says that the recommend the initial recommendation has to come in the month of October. If I could invite Doctor Hansen and Doctor Gail back into the conversation briefly, knowing that you had suggested that it's the will of the Comprehensive Planning Committee to allow approximately a month or four weeks of engagement with the scenario. Are you scheduling your action teams to have the initial recommendation be made in the first board meeting of October or the second? Just I'm wondering if that information might be helpful to the

194group. We're working from the October 20th date to be. The board would have the recommendation. So we haven't. As a committee, we're going to talk about it on June 8th. Brett and I have mapped out a proposal that gets us to the. The right approach is to tell the schools in the mid mid September, you're going to be part of a recommendation. Give that community an opportunity to engage with us to help refine the recommendation so that October 20th would be the formal right here. Here's what we're proposing. So you the mid September is our work plan. So as a as a CPC, we've drafted our work plan to have the capacity to give that those those schools and tell those schools first we were going to be recommending you and then be able to

195engage with them, come to you with that formal recommendation on October 20th. That's the date that we're working off of. Okay. So clarity, our school community will collectively know what the recommendation is essentially in a September based on our work plan. And if the committee, you know, agrees with our approach in that work plan on in our June meeting, then yes. So mid September or some at some point in September, there'll be a fair amount of time before we get the formal in October 20th. And the community gets the action plan. October 13th ish or before. I mean, they'll have an idea before, but that would be like the formal. Here it is. And then we would realistically take a vote in November is the ideal. Yeah. So kind of maybe a little too far

196into the weeds, but let's just say September 8th, right? We have a board meeting and the quote unquote scenarios are out, right? You've spoken with the schools that potentially are up for closure. Is the CPC envisioning just one scenario or are they envisioning two? I because last time we went through a couple of iterations. That's an excellent question, and I'll, I'll try to be playing with what I think our intent is and why we're doing it. Our intent is to bring a one scenario to the board. We want to avoid a situation where it turns into schools A, B and C versus D, E and F have a cage match or whatever, and see who can bring the most political resources to bear. And so throughout this process, we're trying to involve the community in

197the decision making process, not we make it and then ask for them to tell us what we need to change. And we're trying to keep that same philosophy as much as we can. We're not going to put a vote up to the community on, should it be schools A, B, C and D, but the execution and the implementation, what are the gaps in the in the details of this recommendation that we need to know, you know, boundaries and transportation, things of that nature, that that is the approach. But yes, it'll be one scenario that we intend to bring to the board. May I ask who was involved in the red line of the policy? Myself, autumn and Brett. Okay. Thank you. You would like five minutes right now, I think now we're in five minutes.

198That's fair. Are we going to be ready to vote after, or is there more discussion that people are feeling they're going to need? We can take a break. I'm fine with the break. I just want we're going to have we're going to move off of the policies, right? Because there are some other things that you want to go to, but we have to vote on the policies before we get to the next part. So if we take a five minute break now, we'll be be ready to vote when we come back is more my point on the policies right now. Well, yes, but I also am trying to anticipate how much more because I don't want us to lose sight of the conversation we're having either. So I'm torn. I just want to offer perhaps

199sometimes people take a break and they clear their mind and can think about what's been said. And the conversation could look different when we come back from the break. Fair enough. All right, let's take a break for five ish minutes. Can we please make sure that we're back no later than 850? Absolutely. To start. Scott Koranda, we adore you. We need you back. Thank you for bringing your beautiful faces back to the dais. It's fair. You're right. You were. All right. We were super. What? What? Lead with the energy. Yeah. All right, it is. 851. We're super close to our target time. How are we feeling? Are we thinking we may be ready to vote at this time? Do we have any objections to voting at this time? Clarification. Do we get through the discussion?

200There was a final discussion point about scale. Do we want to punt? Yeah that's next. We do the vote for the policies, and then we have the conversation about the scale. Okay. All right. All right. Then I think we are ready for the vote. Karla Bayes, I Conor Duffy no. Kevin Havelka I Scott Bauer I doctor. Andrew Spain I Jessica Zamora I doctor. Karen ziegler I motion passes six one. Thank you. So that was for FCB can I get a motion for FCB dash r. I move that the board approve and adopt regulation FCB r as presented. Thank you. Can I get a second. Thank you Kevin. And do we have any discussion specific to FCB? Are we also ready to take a vote on this one? Call the question. Thank you. All right then

201please take the vote. Karla Bayes I Conor Duffy no Kevin I Scott Bauer I doctor. Andrew Spain I Jessica Zamora I doctor. Ziegler I motion passes six one. Thank you. All right now I believe we are ready for the next part of this conversation. All right I'm getting tagged in here. So first off we we appreciate the collaborative work that we've with the board here. I also want to acknowledge the collaborative nature of this this policy. I'm sure if any of us had written it individually, there'd be some things would be different. Same is true with the members of the committee, but I am confident that what has been approved tonight as the official board policy represents the United voice of the of the community. So I appreciate that. And now we move into the

202questions of what now, in terms of implementation of this policy. So the Comprehensive Planning Committee is going to begin working through the action teams, getting organized and working towards preparing a recommendation for a board vote for this fall, unless we receive direction otherwise. We've actually touched on a lot of discussion points already. We were kind of we were going to discuss how we were going to bring out a single scenario and some of the engagement with the community and some of the specifically, the schools that were going to be involved in this discussion. So I won't repeat or reiterate that here. I think it just leads us right into the next discussion. Question of. Do you want us to go ahead and proceed with trying to have a recommendation for this fall, this October, or

203are you wanting to push this back as one, as a couple points of feedback, you know, as the as the community member, I'm allowed a little more liberty than than, you know, your staff members is some of the things I hear from the community is they do just want some decisions made. They want some stability. They want they want things to move forward. They don't want things dragged out for for no other reason other than we're nervous. And, you know, we've done outreach with the principles that we have discussed at our last board meeting back in January about how they were unanimously behind both the need to move forward with this and the need to, once criteria was named, that you needed to move forward with purpose to to actually executing and implementing a plan.

204And it wasn't just the principles. We've heard that from all of your employees, the people that are responsible for, for our kids. So with that, I, I've said my piece and I'll toss it to the board for your discussion. Thank you. Does anyone want to kick us off, please? Yes. I'll piggyback. Yes is where I'm at as well, but I don't I would love to hear from others. I'm a yes as well with moving forward. I'm a yes as well. As I said at the last meeting, I think that the criteria that was not presented is going to make developing this scenario a lot harder. That flexibility. Regrettably, leaves a lot of space for multiple interpretations. I think the narrative in the community, just based on the two times we did this before, changes drastically.

205When you put any school on the list. That narrative on from schools that were on the list last time, from my recent experience within the last two weeks of being in those neighborhoods is still there. I am still willing to say, go forward and make this recommendation. I'll take a genuine look at it. I think the timeline is real tight. I think, you know, if we can get a scenario out by September 15th to the communities and have it be in the paper, that's going to be that's kind of like my drop dead date. You know, that September 15th time for the community to understand what's coming up in October. But with all that said, I'm looking forward to seeing what the recommendation is, and I'm still want to provide some comments later when we

206get to the subsequent questions on what I think it should look like. Charanda or Carla, do you have comments? I do, I just want to say that I'm really grateful for your courage for doing this differently. I think that you could have taken the same tack as some of the districts around us, and instead you stopped and listened and used the input of our community in your decision making matrix. And I think that I have a lot of faith in this committee and the smaller committees that you're creating to make sure that you're doing really careful, intentional, intuitive work. And so I'm, I'm a solid. Yes. Thank you. So I'm sorry, I'm just going to come back to you because it's a question presented to all of us. If you have thoughts on the timeline.

207I said my thoughts earlier, so I don't have thoughts at this time about that. So are you comfortable with that? I just want to confirm. Sorry, I've said it before. I'm not comfortable with these questions. It feels like an informal vote to me. And if I'm misunderstanding the process, then I would like for the leadership to explain the process to me because this feels like saying yes. Right? So like, I'm just kind of confused. This does not feel like a discussion. It's a question. It's a yes or no answer, right? Everyone's saying yes or no. So to me, a vote is yes or no. And so I'm uncomfortable. This feels like I'm informally saying yes to something. So I want it to be official. And if that's not how it works, then I need an

208explanation for that. So I'm kind of not understanding right now. Yeah. So the question we're just looking for direction about what you would want to see the I guess I'm just not understanding. Like wasn't that direction provided when we just voted on the last two policies or not? The policies don't we've removed most of the timeline from those policies. So they don't formally say that they that the comprehensive planning committee should continue. Those policies are setting in some level of stone the criteria to the board, because the Me just feels like unofficially providing a vote. I think I said at the last meeting, you know, we did that the first time and it didn't feel good. And now we're kind of doing it again. And I think I wrote when we were reviewing the policies,

209that maybe these should have been separated all so that they are more formal because you can have a different combination of what you want. You may agree with the policies, but you may not agree with going forward or vice versa. So I think that's probably a little late. But in the future, let's stop doing that. And I'll also say the reason why I feel that way is to the community. People are starting to talk about that and people are starting to say, hold on, you guys are just sitting there agreeing and giving these tacit agreements with the CPC to go forward, right, without voting on it. I think if we want to to keep going to Charondas point, like a vote is yes or no, right? And it also speaks to the community saying, we

210already had our mind made up like this. This what this question says is essentially like, yeah, go ahead and go forward. So again, it's about process. And to me, I'm uncomfortable with the process. You're asking me to say, yes, I was okay with the policies, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm okay with this. So yeah, I agree. We're kind of lumping everything in and then it forces your hand to say yes to something. And that's just my perception. So and you're asking, you're like, well, what, what about what do you think, Karen? What do you think? And I said, I passed and I rather not comment, but it's like an expectation for me to speak. So if each of us is going down a line and providing an answer, we are essentially might as well

211just take a vote. It's an informal vote. And if it's not, then I encourage the board leadership, whether it be president or vice president or Superintendent Kingsley, to sit down and explain the process to me as a new board member. Anyway. But I actually share parts of this concern with the next discussion item, which I'll save for a moment. What I'll say, though, is that I think that's a that's an appropriate concern. I'm not speaking on behalf of board leadership. These are my own thoughts for now. But as board leadership, I'll give you this any number of times in the last three years I've been on this dais, I've been asked for my input to give him direction as to do something. Now, my input may be valuable as an individual, and I think I

212can be somewhat persuasive to people in certain circumstances, but oftentimes I'm not. Oftentimes I'm the dissenting voice on something. And that's okay. I think that that what I understand this to be is we need to give them as much direction in the opportunities. When the seven of us are together, we don't speak individually, we speak as a board. So if four of us from the board said, move forward and three of us dissented, they're going to move forward. From my understanding, under Brian's direction. But, you know, the concerns and, you know, the criticisms and that may shape how you how you how you go through that process. So I'm not as concerned with something like this because I think it's kind of baked into us passing the policies is that, yes, I personally want a

213recommendation by October. I want to know so that our community can stop being in this unknown state of this purgatory or Hotel California. We need to start acting. And so for me personally, I feel very strongly that the committee is well equipped to handle applying the criteria that we've set forth. We're going to be involved in the process from what we've understood, but the seven of us have to talk about what we want that process to look like, and I think that gets to the next question, too. So I don't want to get out in front of my skis, but at least my understanding is that I don't believe this is not everything needs to be micromanaged, formal vote for them to do their job, but they do need some direction input from us as

214far as moving forward or not. And so I don't know if that assuages those concerns, but that's my my thinking is that not everything that we give to Brian needs to be a formal vote recommendation. He's trying to synthesize if he's got a majority of the board that's behind something so that he can do his job, well, then explain this to me. How come on our agenda, it says action. And whenever it's an action item, we vote, right. We're action forward. Right. And I read this. And is this not an action going forward? So to me, right, like, I guess I'm confused. Like, and we can talk about this off, but it's like I read that agenda as action. We're making a vote for whoever is bringing something to us to move forward with action.

215This question is asking us if we are in alignment with something moving forward with action. So help me understand how this action and guidance is different from other action and guidance that we provide. When we do a formal vote. I'm not concerned about moving forward. I'm the process. Like I said, I pass that. So now I'm explaining because. So how's that different than the other action items? We're asking them to act and we vote. We're asking them to act and then we're giving guidance. I don't see the distinction. Please clarify. I'll go and offer a comment if that's okay. You know, as a as a layman here, you know, my, my understanding is when you're voting on these items, it's when you have an official vote, it's on things like a policy thing that is

216setting the rules, setting the it's a legislative action. In effect. What we're asking for essentially here is, do you want us to meet during the summer so we can have a recommendation for you in the fall? And if you don't even want to see one in the fall, then that adjusts our meeting schedule. So there's no there's no weight of legislative action there. It's just, do you want to see something in the fall, or do you not want to see something in the fall? That's kind of the question. I think I'm just going to okay, I have no further. I'm just I'm just going to step in here. And I move that the comprehensive planning committee proceed with the proposed timeline and begin preparing a school closure slash consolidation recommendation. I'll second. Autumn. Can I

217request input? On. We have a point of order. So I think what we've got we've got a live oral motion to proceed and to add an action item on which we've not published on our packet. And so in full transparency and for the community's benefit, if there is going to be something that's a formal vote, it needs to be published ahead of the meeting, etc. So I'm not sure if we're in if we can do this on an ad hoc basis. If that is correct, I withdraw that. The board could choose to move to change the agenda midway through a meeting, as long as there's a motion to do that and a vote. So you could choose to add something to the agenda. At this point, I move that the board add an agenda item

218and consider a full vote on the Comprehensive Planning Committee proceeding with proposed timeline in beginning preparing, so to speak. Clear. This is a motion just to add that to our agenda, not the formal vote of that agenda item. Andrew. Seconded. All right. Can we take a vote on adding this action to our agenda? Carla, Baz I, Conor Duffy I, Kevin. Hi, Scott. I doctor Andrew Spain. Hi Jessica Zamora hi doctor Ziegler hi. Motion passes seven zero. All right. At this point do we want to take the vote so that. No you want to discuss. Okay. We have more discussion ahead of us at this point. Also could you then make a motion under this new agenda item? Can you make it? Oh, you want me just to repeat my previous motion? Okay. I move that

219the Comprehensive Planning Committee proceed with the proposed timeline to begin preparing a school closure slash consolidation recommendation. Second, I'll second. Thank you. Connor. The discussion that all I want to say on this is. Do director Ziegler's point, we had this same kind of guidance provided, and that guidance was used for us to go from phase one to phase two and increase the cadence of the meetings. That happened January, I believe, 27th meeting. Right. And I'll just say publicly, that didn't feel correct because I thought it was supposed to be a vote, right? Are we the vote would be are we going to say to the CPC that they should move to phase two? That's something to me that's kind of formal. They could have stayed in phase one, right? This to me, where the motion

220that's just put forward is actually for them to move to phase three, which means criteria, right, is done, set in stone. What we get is what you get. Do we want them to move forward and do the recommendation as stated up there, or do we want to stop the process and have them go back into criteria in phase two? And that's how I see this vote that's coming up. Other comments. What do you see? Yeah, I'm just my understanding is this is this is moving us into phase three, which is when criteria will be formulated. And I'm assuming there will be a mechanism for us to see that. The like the actual, the criteria are in the policy now, like that's not those criteria. Sorry. Okay. The actual scoring, that was the whole thing about

221phase three. That's when the formal. Yeah. Implementing the criteria. Yep, yep. So please clarify voting on this allows you guys to move into that phase. But we're going to get to see that. Yeah at some point. That's correct. So it's a vote that we begin to actually use the criteria that's in the policy. Start doing the the adjudication based on the criteria that's in the policy, and share that along the way. Okay. Are we going to see scoring rubric? We have ideas. We don't have a formal process. We've worked through with the CPC. You know, as an example, my own personal work, I've I've done averages of the three main criteria and rank schools just to kind of get an idea, an initial look, but think something like that will be, might be how we

222start the conversation and we'll go from there. Well, it'll, it'll evolve. Yeah. I would say there needs to be a report back to us on that. That would be my thing. I, I'm totally fine with you guys moving forward with doing the work this summer. But yeah, I don't, I don't know if what Connor is saying is that it's set in stone is necessarily a true thing. Well, to clarify, going back to our conversation last time and the consternation that I had with the phase two deliverables was that there were not hard metrics in there. Right? That is a phase two exercise, in my opinion. That's what it says here on the slide, right. And that's what they came up with. And that was what I had consternation with right now moving forward into phase

223three. If we vote on on here and we move forward in phase three, continue your work. Those metrics, you know, the scoring now is in phase three, not when it should have been done in phase two. And the reason why that gives me consternation is because a simple standard needs to be applied, and a simple standard needs to be detailed in phase two before applying it to the schools that you're looking at. That's my interpretation of it. That's how I thought we were going to do this. I may be wrong. I'm open to amendment on it, but that's how I see it. The way we talked about this last time, as far as criteria goes, and wanting to have hard lines or not wanting to was because, at least in part to ensure an equitable

224process, to ensure that we're abiding by those equity guidelines, we needed enough room so that we could ideate on this could be a solution. It could go through an equity committee and assess the criteria. Both the quantitative pieces like enrollment, transportation costs, as well as the impact, which is not as numerical and is not, is not something you can put into a policy of like, I want to have the impact be this number. That's not a realistic piece. And so we will have information about these processes. We will have information about any scenario that comes up, but that will not just be numeric. It'll be the impact the students, how we're mitigating that impact, whether that whether or not the impact is able to be mitigated. Because we think of some of our schools, I

225think mountain schools come up frequently in my mind as far as being small. But to close one, the mitigation process would be substantial, right? So we the ability to like put hard numbers on these options is to exclusively put hard numbers is part of the challenge. I just want to say that I feel like if it were simple, we would have done it already. So, I mean, I just I think that it's so complex. There are so many layers to the people that are involved, the buildings, the whole I mean. I've learned more in the last five months than I've learned in a really long time. I think that this whole process is. Is there's so much depth to it. And so that's my comment about the criteria that's been created. I don't think there's

226one size fits all. I think that that's why the criteria that we've created has been created. So there is that flexibility so that we can, we can we can make people led evaluations. And my second comment that I'd like to kind of leave on the table is that I do agree with Doctor Ziegler. I, I those soft sort of recommendations in the meetings. I just feel like if if someone didn't want to answer they wouldn't. I mean you couldn't I mean you could twist your arm. But I mean, so I think that if you wanted the seven of us to respond and, and I do think that it needs to be a formalized vote. I would just like to say that. Can you go back to slide three in the presentation, please? We've gotten I've

227gotten a lot of questions about timeline. And so I think we need to just be very clear what we're talking about. I think we've been fairly clear, but just hit it on the head too. So we're taking a vote to authorize the CPC to go into phase three, which is preparing a recommendation that would take place from May to October. We talked about the action teams talking about, and Brett has talked about identifying possible school combinations based on the policy FC, based on layering in these both quantitative and qualitative analyzes. The one lingering question that I've got that I keep getting is when the review and evaluate the impacts, which is that third, not really bullet, but the third main point there, I guess my, my wondering is this is lessons learned from the last

228time being on this board and having scenarios presented on these screens at different board meetings, and then having the spasm of reaction from our community, myself included. It was jarring. And then by the time we got that sort of absorbed and then processed, and then there was another list of scenarios, etc. it felt a little bit arbitrary and capricious. So I'd like to avoid that. And I think we've made incredible strides not to name it. And one of the questions I keep getting just I want to say this because it is a public record, is that I have not made any decisions about what schools are going to be affected or impacted if we're going to have fidelity to this process, which is, I think, what we're endeavoring to do here, then we really need

229to have fidelity to the process. And by that, I mean we need to have the comprehensive planning committee wrestle with these criteria that we've just authorized. They need to go through those ideations. The challenge, of course, becomes if we're also taking a commitment to our community, to being violently or aggressively transparent or brutally transparent, whatever we said, then how are we going to accomplish that while allowing you the space to be able to, to overlay these, these criteria in a way that's not a formal recommendation yet in order to get some impact from us. Because if there is oh, to Connor's point, no, if your recommendations are all the title one schools, then you're not going to have my vote, right? Because that does not have fidelity to the equity administrative guidelines. So I guess

230my big wondering is that for stage three, and I want to be very clear, and if we don't have an answer to that, that's fine right now. But we need to we need to come up with one is what level of transparency is, is a comprehensive planning committee and then by extension, the board going to offer into that those review and evaluate the impacts process, or is that going to be a closed door meeting? So there's two parts to the review and evaluate impact. From my perspective, we need the perspective of the CPC to fully develop the phase three approach. So that's work that needs to happen on June 8th. If the board the spirit of this question is, do you want us to marshal the resources of this volunteer group and the staff time

231to start doing this. That's that's really the spirit of the question. And so, and, and like I hear that you're asking for like, well, what does it mean to like the resource, you know, and make this recommendation happen? So those three things are outlined is what we're asking the board to give us permission basically to go and do. Do you want us to marshal the resources to create these action teams, which has a cost? So we're going to to pay people to come in over the summer, right? We're going to ask them to use their time and their expertise. And so that's part of it. That's part of what's in the question is to do that action team's work. Part of it is to then have that smaller group start to apply the criteria that

232was just approved in the policy and to thoroughly analyze it both quantitative and qualitative, in order to prepare that phase for board recommendation, and then the review and evaluate impacts, really the people who need to review and evaluate the impacts are the people who are most affected by it. So we're going to do our best in that second part to identify possible school combinations based on policy, to try and address all the potential impacts that we as a group see. But we're not going to see everything. We're going to have blind spots, right? Because we we're not in these communities. So the review and evaluate impacts is that period of time that I talked about of, we think we're going to be able to go to those schools and say, we think you're going to

233be in our recommendation, or you are going to be in our recommendation. How can you help us assess the impacts and what can we do to mitigate the impacts so that by the time we come to you all in October with that recommendation, we have hopefully found a way to address those impacts and mitigate them. Clarified, if I've heard you correctly and I appreciate that answer. And after this, unless anyone else has any other comments about moving on, I think we can call the question. So if I understood you correctly, it means that the seven of us will not know what those recommendations are going to be until there is a formal recommendation. Is that accurate? It is possible. So I think that is something we talked about earlier. To what degree would you want

234to be involved? It is possible that you would know at the same time that those schools who would be identified would know on or around mid September. I feel it's important that they should know, be one of the first to know. No, I appreciate it. It's not going to change my vote as far as moving forward. I'm a yay vote. But I do think it's important for us as we're delineating between these phases, that we can articulate what comes next, because that's the question we keep. Okay, so what are we doing now? What does that look like? And if I don't have all the answers, then I think then we're not probably ready to move on to that phase. So I'm satisfied with that answer. For now, I do think we need to have some

235more input with the seven of us to. And Brian, as far as the level of involvement that we're going to be in this process, and I don't have any process thoughts for that yet. I just think that's an important discussion. Anyone else? Well, first, thanks for putting this motion in because this was a concern that I had earlier. With that, I'll call the question. All right. Can we call the vote, please? Karla Bayes I Conor Duffy no. Kevin I Scott Bauer, a doctor Andrew Spain I Jessica Zamora I doctor. Ziegler nay motion passes 5 to 2. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you for the clear direction from the board there. So moving on as as Doctor Gail discussed, we are going to move forward with trying to form our action teams align as

236a committee on some of the specifics and work to bring you a recommendation for this fall. And again, I want to emphasize that, you know, the scenario we're going to. The recommendation we're going to bring in needs to be data driven and community led. If the criteria is listed very plainly in the in the policy. And that's what's going to be the metrics that we apply. But we're also going to have community driven values, the community led values that have been discussed about equity, and making sure we are balancing the various data factors that have to come into play. For example, you can't if all the your three primary criteria come in and say, all schools in one region have to be the ones to close, that'd be in contradiction of other criteria about transportation.

237So there is a balance there, and we're going to be working through that to to go forward. And that brings us to what I'm sure will be a very brief discussion. Essentially, how measured do you want the committee to be in this proposal? I want to make sure that we have clear direction from the board on the philosophy, on the strategy, on how we need to move forward. And I think it's important that this also is put out there for the public. We've outlined here a few possible approaches. And in these approaches, you know, we give some specific numbers of schools. But what I want to emphasize with that is we are not asking for any commitment on a number of schools today. We're giving that as context for what this could look like under

238this strategy, under this approach, all of these approaches are meant to be meaningful to addressing the district's needs with with Underutilization, as we discussed in January, I think in a few years, you're looking at 20 ish of your 28 elementary schools in the Fort Collins area being considered underutilized. If you use a 70% metric, which is kind of a national standard, and what some of our our peer districts are using. So we have a significant general issue. And all these approaches are meant to. Work towards that. But there are some different ways to do it. Number one, and this isn't a you know, I you know, this isn't a yes or no vote. I'm not sure how to present this as a yes no vote. So, you know, you can I would say we just

239need some direction on what type of strategy that you would feel more comfortable with. And if you fit in between a couple like that, that's fine too. This, this is this is a fuzzy question. There is no up or down yay or nay on this that that I can tell the first approach would be essentially get the ball rolling. And the main point here is we are committing to a multi-phase approach. You're looking at maybe you're closing 2 to 3 schools now, which if your average elementary school is about 500 kids, you're talking about 1 to 2000 seats that you're that you're removing from the capacity of the district with the intent of a second phase, potentially. You know, the first phase would be implemented by fall of 27, your second phase, maybe by fall

240of 2030. Just putting out some hypothetical thoughts that I've not vetted past staff. So hopefully they're okay with me doing that. But but that's the that's the intent there is that you, you are giving yourself runway to see how the closure of a school impacts the development of a neighborhood around it. How it impacts the turnover in the neighborhood, and how choice patterns evolve. It does draw out the process longer. So that's that's part of the balance. The second strategy we've outlined here is essentially that the target is to avoid a second phase. You are looking at, you know, possibly 4 to 7 schools. So we're talking 2000 to 3500 seats that you'd be looking at closing out of SDS capacity. It's a significant number, given that we have enrollment projections the way they are,

241they are already low and projected to go lower. This does accept this. This type of approach accepts that you would have some schools with lower than that, that standard utilization number. Maybe you don't have 20 of your 28 schools, but maybe you end up with a much more manageable number. And if the district feels they can absorb that, if you have a need for some schools that might have a little bit lower number for for whatever reason, the third approach, the third strategy on here is to is to be more aggressive, accept a significant short term disruption. I think we heard a gentleman in here earlier today talking about needing to redo all the boundaries in the district. You know, this is that that kind of kind of effort. The target of this type of

242proposal would be to achieve long term stability. And we would accept that short term disruption, as well as having very high utilization numbers in some of our schools. Now, you know, I put this on here and trying to respond to all the board members. You know, Director Duffy, last last meeting suggested we maybe need to be really aggressive with how we approach this. I think there's been suggestions and I and I bring this up just to make sure we can all have clarity on the expectation that there were suggestions that maybe some schools need to be pushed to the point of fire code limits with the number of kids that are in the school. And I bring that up because the committee is not going to come up with something like that on their own.

243We would need to be directed to do something on that level. So again, we're looking at that aggressive but long term projections, long term stability, assuming long term enrollment projections play out like. Like we assume and you're looking at, you know, 8 to 10 schools. So you're talking 5000 plus seats looking at needing to be removed from the district. So, you know, there's there's a balance here. There isn't one perfect answer. It's just a matter of how, how we think we need to play it. And we don't want to we don't want to bring a multi-phase approach if you're looking for an aggressive approach or vice versa. So there's a very different type of work and conversation in the committee depending on what type of scale the board is is expecting. If you want some

244guidance that I've heard from from a number of parents on the committee, there is a hope that we don't drag this out, that we can move forward and that it accepts some, some balance and some some disruption and doesn't have us constantly guessing for the next 3 to 5 years of what might be happening with our schools. So you have to balance some of the, the, the tolerance for disruption with the district versus what helps to address the issue. So with that, it's it's your discussion, I think, from there. Thank you. Does anyone have some initial thoughts that they would like to share? If you've been thinking about it, as I'm sure we all have. I, I think we're good. We need to address the voting process for it. Given our previous discussions, I don't

245think this is something that should just be a consensus either. So I recognize that we have a triad here. So that muddies it quite significantly. I'm a little worried if we take a vote and let's say we vote on 4 to 7 schools and the committee just determines, you know what, actually eight is the right number or three is the right number. That now, like we've pigeonholed them with a vote is a concern of mine. Whether or not that's entirely accurate is may not be true. I feel we have to give them some direction. I, I think we would be failing our duty as a board to not give them some kind of guardrail to, to function. Recognizing that we could start with something and they could come back and say, we tried that and

246it didn't work. But that should be part of the ongoing conversation. I do believe we need to give them a starting point. Can I ask a question? I'm just really curious, like what Andrew just said. Why do we have to provide this? Wouldn't it make sense for CPC to provide that for us? Like we're not in front of the data every day. We're not. We haven't been working on this for 18 months. Like, I just feel like based on what's in front of you, you would be able to determine like, based on what we see, it makes the most sense budget wise. Seats, butts and seats. Excuse me. That's a higher ed term. Number of students within a classroom. And all of that would be the determination of CPC. Then they would bring that forward

247and say, based on all the information we have, the ideal spot would be ten schools. But to get by based on budget and everything else we could make do at this time with four schools, and then we could make that decision. I just don't I just I guess I'm like, what's the pros and cons? So that's just a thought. Again, just trying to clarify, like, I don't understand why we would do that versus CPC. I would say if, if your direction is that you want us to make the call, and then we're comfortable with that. But if there is a preference, we want to make sure we can present something in the fall that is will minimize your stomach turning. As I think some of the terminology I heard, I'll jump in. I actually disagree

248with you, Andrew. This is one I don't I wouldn't feel comfortable voting on for the same reasons Doctor Ziegler just articulated. And I think this is because, in full candor, I don't this doesn't feel to me like an entirely fair question for me to give you informed input at this point. And here's the reason it's not because I'm balking or I'm passing the buck. It's because of the process matters. And our vote on criteria carries any weight. And I think it's inappropriate for me to weigh in on the number until I've seen how that criteria is overlaid by the folks that are doing the work every day. So I echo exactly what you said. That said, if you want thoughts since you've asked for them, here are my unfiltered thoughts. I don't like the word

249aggressive. Quite frankly. I take some issue with that. I think we've done a not an excellent job as a governance team, articulating to our community, not just the problem as to why we're doing this, but what the end result we're trying to achieve. And so let me at least expound on what I what I believe to be the case, wrestling with the numbers and doing a deep dive and having all the conversations that I've had in the last year, I am led to the conclusion that we do not have an equitable or fair school system for all of our kids. And if we're if we are meant to do that, then I think we've had some conversation in dinner and I'll. I'm not going to take the claim these as my own thoughts, but if

250we're driving towards something, it ought to be where the choice window is less significant in our daily lives. And what I mean by that is that it shouldn't matter where I live in this community, I'm going to get the exact same resources and quality of education, regardless of my zip code. And until we have that, this process is what I believe we're trying to do to right to right size that so that we've got the values from the programing that we've heard from our community with an AIS program that is robust at every single school, with specials that are robust at every single school, regardless of where you happen to live. So until we're there, the why and the approach and how many schools, I don't know. But here's what I do know. I don't

251want to do this again. I don't want to do this next year. I don't want to do this the year after that. I don't want to continually have this be consumed. Every single board meeting that we have, when there are honest to God other things in our agenda that we we need to get through as well that also matter to our kids lives. So as far as a phased approach, I'm not for that. If it means we're going to be back here in two years or three years, and we're going to do the exact same thing all over again, I'm not for half measures equally, though I am not. I am not for the what I call the audacious or lack of hubris approach of aggressively saying that we're going to close as many schools

252as humanly possible. Because I for one, I think another big part of this conversation is we need to be talking about what it costs our district in order to do the implementation, because it will cost it's going to cost transportation needs, it's going to cost renovation repairs. And we don't have those numbers on our fingertips. So I can't give you, well, if it's going to be a 12 to $15 million hit, then we'll do, you know, the medium approach, etc. So that's, that's a big part of this conversation that I can't give you informed input on. The other cost, as I see it is if we Overcorrect, then we are going to exacerbate enrollment decline that we're already in in this district, because people are going to look at this process and say, PTSD is

253in a state of crisis. Get out now while you can. Here's charter schools that you could go to, here's private schools. So I'm not in favor of any of those. So what I would propose, and the way I'd sort of been doing this without naming any specific schools, is to look at the geographic quadrants that we've been talking about of our community and saying, what makes sense over here? That's a slight disruption. What makes sense over here and here and here. They may not be the same thing, which is also why I've been a big proponent of the criteria, being flexible and allowing some of this qualitative analysis to, to go through for each of the quadrants. So with that being said, I think off my soapbox, I would say that I'm much more of

254the what I call the Goldilocks zone. If there are 1 or 2 disruptions per quadrant that would make sense, that would also achieve that end result of what we're striving for, so that every quadrant has robust neighborhood schools that you could go to. Then let's do that. Right. But I don't think I can sit here and tell you it's going to be four. It's going to be seven because I just don't have the complete data set. I do want to put in the room. I don't I, I appreciate the sentiment. If we're going to give them number ranges that evoke feels like it may be needed. But on the flip side of that, I'm hearing that we want to trust the committee, but we've also put this committee through an incredible amount of work over

255a very long period of time. And if they don't have some sense of what we're willing to accomplish in October, I don't want that all to be for naught, because we said, go forth. And you were like, you know what? We want to be really cautious because we're not sure how the board is. Maybe they come with a small and then we're like, why didn't you like, we can't set them up for that, that failure, that uncertainty. Now, with that said, I'll throw in my $0.02. I also am not a fan of a phased approach. I think that our community has been incredibly clear in wanting us to get this done. Just let us know what the next reality looks like. Let us get comfortable with it. Let us settle in so that we can

256move forward. And we're not they're not having to be disrupted again. So doing something where we start and then we're just going to keep on this process. I do not think it's healthy for the community. It's not healthy for our staff. Now, I as far as the two and three in here, I'm not sure what the right spot is. I don't know exactly what our community can tolerate, not just our community, but like our staff community. What can get done and get done? Well, I think that's where I would want the subcommittees that you're proposing to weigh in and say, can they actually get all of these pieces done effectively? Is it for schools that they can do it? Is it eight schools? I'm not sure what will make us reasonably healthy. I'm not I'm

257not a fan of stuffing as many students into our buildings as possible so that we're on the slow track back down and we're all super full, because I don't think that's healthy either. I don't think that's been an ask. But I would like us to be healthy enough so that when we're done with this, our families can see this is what they got out of it. They got full time special teachers. They got a teacher in art that their child gets to see all six years, right? I think that level of commitment is something that our community has asked for. They're ready for us to have, and they're they're asking to know what they're going to get out of this process. And I think in order to do that, that phased approach isn't going to

258get us there. But I, I also don't think going I'm going to use word aggressive, like overly aggressive to the point where we never have to look at these ever again. I don't know that they'll feel like they're getting something. I feel like they may feel like they're losing something. So I want to mitigate, get that sweet spot or the Goldilocks zone to Kevin's point, please go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. No, this is a this is a tough question. And I don't want to be naming numbers of schools, but I think it's a good exercise to get the the general philosophy of where people are at, which I. So I think that's the motivation in asking this question. So so I actually, I'm fine with it not being a vote. Here's my my thoughts on

259it. This is our first foray into this. I think we've seen just in this conversation how incredibly complex this is. Mistakes are going to happen. And I would hate for us to, in the interest of ripping the Band-Aid off and just ending this and ending the headaches and the nightmares. To make some major mistakes that were will be regretting in future boards will be regretting in the, you know, down the road. So I actually am in favor of the phased approach, but phased not so that we're dealing with this every couple of years. The whole point of putting together the CPC and these policies is to have structure to handle this in the future. It's not to just do it once and not have to worry about it down the road. It's to deal with

260it as we need to. So if we can do a phased approach where, you know, five years down the road, which I think it even says here, where it says every few years initiated a few years as demographics and choice patterns evolve. But but I would say like, if it's like five years, we start with the CPC is a standing committee, let them do their work. And if it if it, if problems arise because we, we need to really remember. And Kurando was very articulate at the last meeting talking about that. These are people that we're dealing with. These schools are people. And. So to me, I want to keep schools open as long as possible. I'm not saying keep a failing school or or not failing, but a dying school withering on the vine.

261But I think we can there's ways that we can prop, prop them up. Let the marketing team's efforts bear fruit. We're only a year into this new campaign. We don't have the website that we were talking about, two that can can help with things as well the recruiting, not recruiting, but the attraction of those students that are leaving our district, going to alternative schools. That's a big number that can really help a lot of these schools. I think I think we need to look at that side of the ledger way more than we currently are. Our community has a ton of ideas that can be cultivated. And there's there's so many people who are passionate about this in, in this community that want to help and find ways. Let's give them time to do that.

262There's outside factors that need to be addressed. I say this all the time. Who knew in 2016 that as early as 2023, just seven years later, we would be talking about closing schools when we were voting to add schools, three huge buildings, spending all that money. And then now going into 2026, we're talking about it again, major changes happened in those years. Let's have that phased approach so that we're ready for that. Do it right. Use the systems with with tweaks. After we do the the initial consolidation for 2027, if that's how it works out, we're going to learn a lot what happens with those cohorts of, of students. Does everybody decide, well, we're going to just move to the this one school and then it leaves the school that we thought they'd go to

263hanging. Like, how does that get managed? There's a lot of those kind of things that I worry about. So I want to have that flexibility of learning from the first time. Kristen Draper used to always say it go slow. So we. Before we go fast. It's it's hard. This sucks. Nobody wants to deal with this, but our professional comfort, whether it's on the board or the staff that has to deal with it, should not take precedence over doing the right thing by our students, our staff and, and the schools. And so I think, you know, again, taking that measured approach, other districts who've done this, we saw emails about this just in the last couple of weeks. They didn't see dramatic improvements in their results. Isn't that what we're here for? Is, is the actual

264results of our kids. We're top notch. And these other schools that maybe financially they're doing a little better than they were, are not seeing any better results with these robust schools. But that's not to say I don't support having more robust programs and things like that. But I think we just again, qualitative and quantitative. Last thing I say for a the for a money, the for a vote showed that our community values and supports small schools. I think we need to reassess how much of the for a money is being spent and used for the purpose of the small schools. Maybe shift our approach on that front. Yeah buddy, maybe shift our approach on that front, delay some other priorities to make this help with that more phased approach. So to clarify on that, does

265that mean increasing the subsidization of lower enrolled schools? We're at roughly original sanction was around $4 million. You're thinking keeping more schools open that are small and subsidizing them more. Is that is that your I would say the 4 million that's being used, which is only it's less than 10%. Might be used differently. It's using to staff a few positions right now, maybe one position at some of these schools. I'm saying we could potentially use that in other ways than we decided. That was a debate last year about how that was decided to make it go towards assistant principals. I'm just saying that's that's an idea that is that is worth looking at. If we take a more measured approach. I don't want to start a whole debate about that. Again. I'm just saying these

266are things that we need to factor in. We have levers to pull and buttons to push. We should make sure we're doing the right combination to to get there. Are any others ready to comment? Sure. Just you. You started to say it. I heard the William Ury in there. I think we have to write our victory speech. I think that we have to talk about what this district is going to look like for every kid in it. That's our overarching goal, right? That's our North Star for all of this work. So I have sat with this. Matthew Liberati sent this to us earlier, and he sort of broke it down in his Matthew way. And it was great. I really appreciated it a lot, but I still can't land on a number because I don't

267know what's going to fulfill that victory speech. I think that we need the people in the room that you're crafting to create direction for us before we can come up with a number. I think that, you know, this is a a horse before the cart conversation. So that's where that's where I'm coming in. Oh, and also that also lends to the marketing question. We can't market our schools until they're the best, until they, until we're offering the very best product that we can. I think that we have all of the resources to make them the very best. Our resources are just spread too thin right now. So once we start, you know, getting all of those resources together for our students, then then the marketing gets strong. I appreciate that, please, I'll be quick because

268considering my last two votes now, I'm not going to start giving you some grand marching orders. I'd go back to the original kind of problem statement when Scott and I were on the committee. You know, you know, we've got too many seats in our buildings. That's kind of what we're solving. So use that as your metric, right? If we're going to go forward with this process, let's make sure that the challenges that we're trying to tackle, we tackle them and how the city wants to come up with that. I'll entertain whatever it is. Last but not least, in that same value statement, Scott and I pushed very, very hard to get that portion in there about what we're going to do with our facilities. Are they going to be, you know, used for other educational

269purposes? We had the K-12 discussion tonight. Take a little bit of time prior to a vote to at least give us some inspiration about what the community can transform into instead of just saying, all right, school A is going to close. We're going to move the kids to school B, right? We need to have some kind of semblance of what's going to happen in there, because we're doing more than just moving kids out of there. We're really impacting the whole community that is around that physical piece of infrastructure. I see minds at work. Can you define standard utilization, utilization slash enrollment? When I use that term, I mean a couple of different things I could. In some situations it might mean less than 70%, or it might mean a little bit of an outlier compared

270to the average of the school district. So you might have you might have a desire to have a school sit at 60%, 55% for whatever reason. I'll give you an example of the mountain schools. Those are sitting very low utilization numbers. You might have a reason for wanting to keep that as it is. I'm not suggesting any specific schools. I'll be clear on that. But that's just an example for what I intend. What I mean by that. I'm. I'm going to be. Building off of where we were two years ago. And I was in your seat ish, wasn't the chair. To put the decisions into the committee's lap, I think is an abrogation of our responsibility as a board that that puts you in the position of taking the responsibility for that. It puts you

271being the target for people to come after the committee, and I think that is absolutely the last place we should be. We should. I I'm going to stand by it, that we should be giving them some direction. And whether we want to call it the Goldilocks principle, we don't have to put a number to it. I think I'm I'm personally feel like the community has said phased doesn't feel right on a collective basis, for example, because they feel like that's just change after change after change after change. I think that's a responsibility that we should make sure that the committee is hearing, for instance, and some may disagree. I understand that regardless of whether we call it this phased approach, technically speaking, our enrollment numbers are something we're going to evaluate long term. So if

272you want to call it long term phasing every five years, every ten years, every when we actually hit some metrics after we define them, recognizing we don't have those metrics defined, we don't have a standard that we can say between these two percentages is our target range. We don't have that yet. We've never we never put that together as a district. I feel very strongly that we should give them at least a starting point, because if we don't give them a starting point and we don't have some checks for course correction, because we don't know what that looks like either, right now, they could be bringing us a recommendation that we can't tolerate. For what reason, whatever that looks like. Too few, too many wrong geographic sectors could be part of that as well. That

273sets us up for failure. We need to be the ones that say, here's the basic roadmap. Follow the basic roadmap. It's got some flexibility. It doesn't have to be prescriptive, but at least the basic outline. I think if we don't do that, I'm not sure that that's right. As a board, we shouldn't be leaving them to just come up with it on their own. I'm I'm in in the two area, I think, and I actually appreciate your geographic approach for saying there has to be some fairness that helps distribute the impact. I think, again, lessons from two years ago. I know there were groups in the community that felt like all it did was pummel one area, accurate or not, that was the feeling at times. I totally get that. I think we have to

274look at that because we need to we need to be able to navigate these things. Karen, did you have I was just going to go back. I really I kind of agree with Carla said I actually was going to say that was like the horse before the cart. Like, I think what I appreciate about this process is the use of data. And I will just name like when it was brought to us, the first presentation, you all talked about all the reasons and rationales as to why we need to arrive here. We use data as we've communicated to the community in terms of cost and all that. And this right here doesn't feel like the use of data. So to me, we have like we've talked about utilization rates, we've talked about enrollment, we've talked

275about deferred maintenance, we've talked about, you know, replacements costs. We have all this data. And to me, that shapes and informs the number of schools that makes the decision. Right. And so I just would love to see some data analysis that shapes and informed this decision versus just why don't I think ten would be good, right? And then you all get to dig in in the data. And what if it's not even ten? What if it's 13? Right. And so that would be what I would suggest. And then ultimately, I also just want to support what Kevin said. I do like this. I don't want to create any school deserts where there's no schools anywhere. And many of our spaces, we have multiple schools in one location. I don't want it to be a situation

276where all those schools don't exist. There should at least be one school within a neighborhood distance from people. And I kind of like that different area approach associated with that. And speaking to what Andrew said, to whether or not people believe it's true or not, there's a perception that it landed in one place and one place only, because we're attending to different factors that shape and influence those decisions. And I just think we should consider that. So that's what I would say. I support the data. We've been using a data informed approach thus far, and I would like to continue to use the data informed approach. The reason for that is then we can begin to explain to the community our wise versus now. It's almost like we're making a decision before we actually analyzed

277the data. And so that's just my opinion and my point right now. Thank you. Appreciate. Do we feel that there are some data points we should ask them to emphasize? Because we could just say 25 kids per classroom. That's a data point. Very little behind it. Totally understand it. That's why I struggle with that part that feels like where it is better to throw it back to them. But what is the starting point for which data to analyze? I think we should at least give them some priorities for data. If we're not. I believe that the data has been described. Do we have a data dashboard? We have said that these are all the things that we are considering in terms of schools. We have. We just voted on something with criterion in it, right?

278So we already have the information. What comes down is the analysis of that information. I think we had a conversation at the last board meeting. I can't remember the school, but where it's fully enrolled, but the building quality is not up to par. Right. And so to me, that's so it's like we have the criteria and we have the data. And now it's looking at what makes sense for that. If we are saying a guiding force is enrollment and utilization is that primary? And then we do secondary and tertiary and so on and so forth. And we also have equity criteria. And so then even if we do do utilization enrollment as a primary criteria, how will we apply that lens to it? Does that hold true? And I'm saying that none of that work

279is taking place here with the board. All that work is taking place in the comprehensive planning committee. So it makes sense in my viewpoint of one that that analysis and that understanding and that sense making continue to take place in there. And from that understanding, we shall arrive at a potential number of schools and locations. I echo that wholeheartedly because what I again, if it were me in the room, what I would be doing with this criteria and with all the feedback that I've been receiving that we've been receiving is, okay, let's, let's start, let's look at a map of where all our schools are situated and let's, let's apply a red category. If the utilization is under X and we've made these thresholds based on the national, the NSC, not the RIC, but looking

280at the the NSC, we've got okay, so now we've got a cluster of red. That's just one. That's one layer. Then I want to overlay the building condition onto those. And maybe there's an outlier. Maybe there's one to your point, high enrollment, low building. Okay. That's interesting. And then we start looking at the clusters and we start saying, okay, we've just heard from community comment tonight. And throughout that, walkability and access and bikeability are important. So we don't want to have school deserts. So I think some patterns will start emerging from there, which will say, okay, well, we've got a sampling here of 3 to 4 or we've got, you know, 4 to 7 or whatever. And then when you do the numbers and you look at the three track model and say 20 to

28125 kids per class feeding into a certain high school, that's going to have this robust nature in, you know, X years. That's the data, right? And I, again, I'm not privy to that at this moment, so I can't do that work. But if I'm in the room, that's, that's kind of how I'm conceptualizing. I'm thinking about it, which to me, if you're doing argue that data has to have some benchmark, I can say, let's go for 100, 100, what is it, percent? Is it out of a thousand? All those are very different things. You have to have a framework against which to benchmark the data you're looking at. You can't just sit there and say, we're going to look at class enrollment. If you don't have this is acceptable. This is not acceptable. They to

282not give them some kind of framework. How are they, as a CPC, able to assess this is an appropriate whatever chunk of data they're looking at, whether it's an equity framework, whether it's a numerical framework, they have to have something to benchmark. And that would actually go back to what what Connor was saying about not having it listed in the policy. So what I just have one thought. So what we were talking about, right, is quantitative and qualitative. We said we would have both quantitative and qualitative within this framework. Qualitative is that association of layering and patterning and sense making and quality. Qualitative data itself has quality criteria, right. And reliability and validity measures, whether it's, you know, I don't want to get into the whole things, but I'm just saying that there's a qualitative

283aspect to that. If you look at descriptive statistics, that is simply just percentages and numbers versus inferential. So we still are having quantitative by sense making by doing that through qualitative process, right? So it's so you get to the robustness of the criteria through the practice and the action of application. And so when I'm hearing you say is what's the quantitative benchmark? But we but we are engaging in a qualitative process because we are in a social process that involves individuals and people, which requires us to engage in cyst making and pattern making. Then when I even came to us as people coming or saying stuff, if someone's like, well, I see this or this, and we're able to look at the document and the patterns, then it's like, oh, okay, well, that makes sense.

284And so I'm saying like, how can we explain it? And so it is robust. It is a quality criteria. You're just using qualitative methods in order to get to descriptive explanations is what I would suggest. So there's a difference. So because if no one's noticed qualitative is my jam. But and I probably said it like five times, but like, it's just it's still possible to get there. And it's whether it's an inductive process where we are sense making and building the case or a deductive process where we start with the case, the criterion, and then we apply that criterion. And it seems as what we've been doing throughout this process is actually an inductive and qualitative approach, right? As we've been gathering comments from the community to arrive at the action teams, as we've asked

285people to vote on different things, that qualitative piece has landed us to those final pieces where we can start application. So that's just a perspective. And so it's really about that process. It's a it's a it's a process oriented to get to the end. I don't know if that answers the question. Yeah, real quick, respond to that real quick and then I'll be done. Okay. So I think it's a both. And I think what you're saying, what you're suggesting is we have to give them some benchmarks so they can start. If we just did that, we don't need them. I can look at the numbers right now, the projections to 2030 and say these five schools. See you later. So the layering is we can rank, we can rank by from 1 to 49, how

286populated our schools are projected to be. That's one layer. The next layer of that, I think, is what we're talking about is this qualitative overlaying and saying, all right, where are the geographic geographic clusters? If we do this to these three schools that all happen to be on the same side of town, that all happen to be under 60% utilization by the RSC, then is that acceptable? And I think we're all going to say or I would say no, because that's what happened last time. So I think you have to layer it in ways. And I think they've got the baselines because you start from the bottom and you work your way up. And I would do a separate consideration for building quality, right? So if you have the poorest building quality reports that have

287not had any investments from for A Or, etc. etc. those are also those might be the same schools that may be completely different schools, but that's another layer of analysis that then you overlay and we say, all right, well, based on this, if we can remove or change 4 to 7 schools, this is what it's going to do to these geographic quadrants. And also it accommodates the walkability, accessibility, and it gives us robust programing. And here's the tracks and here's what it's going to do in 2030 2033. I think that analysis they can do and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you can do that with the tools you've already got. We can we can we invite our superintendent. He's been waiting patiently. Did you still have comments or have we covered them

288now? I think we have what we need. I think this has been a very data driven process around. It's our original problem statement that we have too many empty seats. So the question that was posed here tonight, which was a robust one and a complex one to answer for a lot of different levels, is really a question about change management. Each of you are representatives of the people. And so what we're trying to understand is none of those options, even number three, fully eradicate 10,000 empty seats. But as representatives of the people, we were actually seeking qualitative kind of feedback from you around, what do you believe is the community appetite around how much change we can handle? And so I think we kind of got a little bit of feedback on that. And we'll

289have to have continued dialog with each other in different ways, both publicly and privately, just to kind of make sure that we're on target. But I feel like I don't want to speak on behalf of the two of you, but I think it's probably best that we bring this particular question to a close, in my opinion. I guess for our for our part, listening to the conversation is helpful. Hearing the thoughts, hearing the concerns, hearing the. The objectives. I there's certainly some some clear points that from some of the board members and others that that have expressed confidence and trust in the committee is kind of what I've heard. I guess one thing I'll at least throw out with that is, you know, with, with the direction of the board, you're asking a significant workload

290of the volunteers on this committee, along with the staff who are voluntold to be there. There's also a conversation that is ongoing with the community on this. And so we're we're fine taking on some of that delegation and being the ones to do the point of analysis, but we're going to ask for support and collaboration and help from everybody that this can be a successful outcome. I think that's a fair ask, given the workload that the that the board is asking of the committee. So but I do I do think we have a level of feedback and direction to go off of. I don't know if you feel differently. Okay. So I think I think we're good. Thank you. Thanks for sticking with us. Sufficiently. Muddy. Clear. That's great. Thank you very much for being

291here. Thank you very much for the effort that's gone in so far. I doubt any of these conversations will ever be quick or easy, but I also think it's incredibly important for us to have a very thorough conversation as early as possible. So thank you for being here. Next up, we have some revisions to student policies. Brian, do you want to watch us? Yes. Thank you. Joining us tonight to provide the first reading of 20 student policies is our general counsel autumn. Aspen. Welcome, autumn. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Superintendent Kingsley just mentioned we've got 20 policies up for first reading tonight, and they'll be brought back to the June 9th meeting for a second reading. And then just for awareness, all 20 of the policies, the red lines of those proposed changes are in

292the packet for anyone to take a look at, if they'd like. So just want to show this slide. And then the next slide as well shows the policies just for awareness, a reminder of which policies are up for first reading. These are a lot of the policies, which is a student facing policies and includes policies like the ones on attendance, student conduct, student discipline, as well as policies relating to administration and medication for students and students. Use of technology. When I presented to the board in January, I discussed the the new process that we have implemented this year for Policy Review and just wanted to give a few of those highlights again, just to kind of reorient the board and remind the board and the public of how we're going through the policy revisions this

293year moving forward. So now we're doing it more systemically to where every four years we'll review all of our district policies. So this year we're focusing on all of the policies, which are those student policies. And as far as the process goes, the legal department starts with the process and presents those proposed changes to the policy review committee, who then takes a look at those policies and provides feedback, additional edits to the legal department. And after that, the policies are reviewed by other groups within the district. So, for example, we had looked at some of the discipline policies, and we've had some like the A, P s and deans look at the policy on drugs and alcohol. So we provide some of the policies to other groups to solicit even more feedback. After that. Those

294policies are posted on the district's website for feedback from the community. And then the final step is to present the policies to the board for two readings. And just for awareness, the 20 policies that are up for first reading tonight. We had all of those on our district website throughout the the spring, and we received 14 total responses on the 20 policies, and seven of those responses were on policy J s, which is the policy on student use of district technology. So because there's 20 policies and it's after 10:00 at night, the plan was not to go through each one of them individually, but I've selected a few of the policies to highlight some of the proposed changes. But I do have slides for all of the policies. So if you do have any question

295or feedback on any specific policies or would like to discuss it, then I can pull that slide up and we can discuss any of the policies that you'd like tonight at the first reading. But the first one I wanted to draw the board's attention to is policy. JK this is the policy on school attendance areas. This policy addresses how a student's attendance area is designated, which determines a student's neighborhood school. So as far as a few of the proposed changes in this policy, we revised the section detailing how the attendance areas are determined, clarifying that the designated attendance area determines the student's neighborhood school. Just to make sure that it was clear within the policy. And then the policy was also reorganized for clarity on the process for changing boundaries. I wanted to bring this

296one up because there was some feedback from at least one board member to highlight for discussion. And one of the the questions that was raised is the frequency of review. So in the policy, as it's currently phrased, there's a section that states that boundaries would be reviewed as needed. There's a question of whether that language is clear enough and if it's fine, whether we should define what as needed means, or if there should be a more specific timeline included within the policy. So I just like to highlight that. And if there's any feedback from the board on that, then we can incorporate that into the second reading. The next policy to highlight is JFABDR. This is sorry, do you want us to discuss that now, or would you like us to let you finish all

297of them? I'm fine either way. So it's the board's preference. I can go to the end and then there can be feedback if that works. Are you sure? If we have feedback, it might be nice to just kind of get it done, if you will, because there are 20 of them and I hesitate to have us have to think back and then reorient us again. So does anyone have suggestions or comments on changing the wording for a cadence around boundaries? Yeah, please. Yeah, I think, I think the somehow tying in the CPCs. Duties with this would be an interesting way to. You know, maybe put some accountability on it. The as needed is very vague. And so if if CPC. You know, in their efforts to analyze where things were at. Was able to look

298at attendance areas, I think that would be that'd be a nice way to put it together that, you know, that's my input. I don't know if Andrew has anything. So is your recommendation for the CPC to look at their ongoing. Change the as needed to as the CPC requested? Yeah. As they request. Yeah. Or recommend. So it's still not a firm timeline because who knows when it's necessary, but puts some another layer of oversight besides us. It's just an idea. I agree the CPC should be having it as part of their annual work when they're looking at enrollment figures and such things like that. And long term, I think we should be developing some. Marker points for when boundaries start to become a concern. Based on the residence within that district. Obviously not the choice

299in because that's, you know, a different factor. But I think we can inform the process over time to say at percentage, this is when the boundary looks like it's starting to beget, you know, there's a need coming. And then at some point, the second flag, for now, it's time to change. Andrew, are you then are you agreeing, as it were, with Scott, annual annual review with the CPC or annual review by us, like, what's your annual review by the CPC in coordination with their work? Other thoughts? I was just going to name for me the as needed is not much of a piece as much as the regular basis, maybe the regular basis that we we. Yeah, I think I'm in agreement with other people. I was just going to say maybe every five years,

3003 to 5 years or so, we look at it because that gives kind of what Scott was saying earlier, time for things to shake out to see what would be good. That's my $0.02. Yeah. Quick question. Do we have a specific policy regarding how we change boundaries? Do you know just this policy which is more of the high level. But this is policy that goes through how boundary is changed. Okay. I would only press back respectfully and the directors and say that given the conversation we've had about disrupting our community, if we're going to change boundaries, it we need to bake in a long lead time because people are buying houses in our community. People are figuring out where they're going to live in our community based on the understanding that boundaries are more or

301less fixed for a period of time. And so I know this was a big issue when we did our consolidation process last time, when we were changing feeder paths just among elementary schools, it was very disruptive. So I just want to be mindful of that. I think we need to change the policy language, but if this is the only place where it lives, we should be mindful of how that's implemented. I think for me personally, adding in something about CPC would at least give some credence to how it would come about, so I would be comfortable with adding that language because since they will be ongoing, they will be looking at this regularly. The community can have some assurance of if they haven't made a recommendation for us to look at it, then it's steadfast.

302You don't know. Okay, I think we're ready to move on. Sounds good. I will make that change for the second reading. The next policy is JFABDR. It's currently titled Homeless Students. I wanted to raise the board's attention on this one because we have taken we currently have a policy and JBDR regulation, which are both called homeless students currently. And the proposed changes would combine both of those into one policy. So we took language from J, F, A, B, D and moved it into the regulation and made the regulation. The new policy. Also, the policy name has been revised to students experiencing housing instability, with Mckinney-vento listed as a reference, because people also may recognize that name more than some of the other parts of the title. With this policy, we also added definition of student

303experiencing housing instability and drew from both the state and federal definitions to make sure that we were including everything that was needed for that definition, and also added a section on confidentiality and discrimination for students that are experiencing housing instability. And I think that's it for that one. Unless there's any feedback or questions, move right along this policy. JICH on student conduct involving drugs and alcohol. The purpose of this policy explains the district's measures and procedures the district must follow when a student is found in possession or using unauthorized drugs, or is also distributing drugs. So wanted to bring this one up for the discussion because there were some more substantial revisions to this policy. So some of those were currently, as our policy is drafted, there's three different categories that have different tiered disciplinary

304responses depending on how many offenses a student has within one calendar year. And as we looked across the Front Range and other school districts, there were ours was a little bit of an outlier. So the proposed change would minimize it to two categories instead of three. And the first category is possession or use of drugs, including purchasing of drugs would also be in that first category. And the second category is distribution. So we got rid of the two categories that basically split the different types of drugs or alcohol that a student could be found in possession or using, and just combine it all into one. So it's a little bit more streamlined. And in addition to that, we also, with the proposed revisions, increase the number of offenses before recommendation for expulsion. When it comes

305to the possession or use of drugs, the distribution is still a recommendation for expulsion on the first offense. And with that, instead of it being every calendar year, the where the offenses would basically reset, now it's shifted to levels. So basically a student could have disciplinary infractions, and that would then start tracking whether it's the first offense, second offense, third offense, and then that would reset in sixth grade and ninth grade for students instead of every calendar year. Any questions or proposed changes on this policy? Was the sixth grade and ninth grade standard across other districts. That one, there was a little bit of variations where some of them did have offenses where it was a county or a school year all the way up to no, like reset to where it was just one

306for a second or third throughout the entire course. So that one was a little bit more varied across other districts. All right, I'll move along to the next one. This policy J L c, D is on administering medicine to students asthma, food allergy and anaphylaxis health management. This policy we revised some language based on Colorado law changes that were made recently to allow for a stock supply of synthetic opiate detection tests and non-laboratory additive detection tests, and also added language regarding furnishing opioid antagonists on school grounds and training requirements. So that included now the ability to furnish those to students. If the students have been trained, it doesn't require a mandate. It, but it does allow for that under this policy, if we have that stock supply and we have that training and all the

307procedures in place, and there's also a question on this one regarding ensuring that anyone who is delegated the administration to administer medicine to a student to ensure that that person is appropriately trained. So that is something that we can add in there. They are currently, if anyone is delegated by one of our nurses to administer medicine, they are trained in that. So I think it's, it's a good idea to make sure that that's clear in the policy. So we will add that for the second reading. Unless there's any objection from the board on that. All right. And then moving along to the last one that I have planned to highlight, and then we can get into any other policies. The board has questions. This policy is J s on student use of district information technology.

308This policy covers the rights and obligations for students using district information technology. We also have another policy which is JICJ. I believe on student use of their own personal devices. This is the one that involves district devices in their use. This policy was revised to add definitions for district technology device and personal technology device, and also make sure that those definitions are consistent throughout our multiple policies. We also added a statement that students would not be required to use a personal technology device to complete school assignments, and that was based on some feedback we received from community members. And then we also added a section on artificial intelligence that included language about the students use of it and put parameters on it, including, you know, when a student may use AI or when it may

309not be permitted information on. I guess more like guidance for students as to not provide any confidential information to an AI source or tools, and then also some other information with AI that we, we had in there. So there's a whole new section on it that's completely new. And then that's the policies that I have highlighted. However, I've got slides for any of the other ones. So if there's any questions that the board had on any of the other policies, I'm happy to bring those up and we can talk about that. And if not, then I will bring all these policies with the changes we noted to the next board meeting. I just had that question about. J, C, D, C and recognizing it's more focused on private health care providers. It doesn't have an

310exclusion for if there's a it's a 911 entity, which could, in theory, be private and it isn't currently in Larimer County that I'm aware of. But in theory, that's a possibility as one of the methods. And whether we just have a 911 exclusionary statement in there that it doesn't apply to that particular situation unless there's a different policy that addresses that. I don't believe there's another policy that addresses that. Specifically. We could add a statement here just to make sure it's clear. The intent of this policy is based off of state law. That would allow for a private health care provider to come in on a more routine basis to work with the student if there's a need. But I could see also that there could be some confusion as to if if somebody does

311need to respond right away to make sure that this policy wouldn't be a barrier to that. So I don't see a concern with making sure that that's clear in this policy. If I'm to work some language in, if there's no objection from anyone else on the board, then I can work something in there for the second reading. Thank you. Are there any other policies that would like to review? Yes, please. Scott. Predictable, but I'll be asking about the policy. I'd be curious. A couple things. Obviously, that drew 50% of the community comments. That particular policy. We heard a community commenter tonight talking about about that as well. Do you would you categorize or characterize the changes as more or less, or are they stricter or giving more flexibility on on the current cell phone policy?

312Just to clarify, you're talking about the one for the students own cell phones or the district technology students own cell phones. Yeah. There were, I believe, three comments from the community on this one. There were seven on the district technology one. Still a few comments on this one, though. I don't believe that the policy is any more or less strict than it currently is. We've made some changes to it, but it maintains the same type of practice that we have currently. This school year. The revisions were more for clarity, as well as just making sure that the other parts in there aligned with other parts of our policy. I'd also invite Bud into the conversation if you had anything to add. He worked on this policy and reviewed it with his team as well. Yeah,

313I would add that forgive me, the I don't know about more or less strict, but throughout both of the technology policies, more consistent in terms of an understanding of where the authority in, in the classroom lies, where the expectations are. So I think it's, I think it's a kind consistency more than a more or less strict. Any other comments or wondering, Scott, you're good. Okay. Sorry, I can't see you past Kevin. No you're good. I'm sorry. I could have moved more. Are there any other policies that anyone has questions on or would like to discuss? Okay. Seeing none, I think we're good. Thank you very much, autumn. Thank you. Autumn. All right. Next we have our proposed budget for 2026 and 27. Yeah. Here to here to present the proposed budget for fiscal year 2026

3142027 is our budget director, Brian Gustafson. Welcome, Brian. Good evening everybody. You've had a lot to contemplate tonight. The good news is what the proposed budget is that what's in your packet is not tremendously different than what we talked about a few weeks ago with the preliminary budget. So I'm going to hit some highlights. I'll certainly summarize the changes and then point out some of the supplemental items in the budget that we didn't really talk about last time, and then discuss next steps and of course, offer up the opportunity to ask questions. So please be thinking of those as we go. Tonight is our our second review of the fiscal year 27 budget. Last time we covered the preliminary. And remember, that preliminary budget left us a gap. And we talked about that gap between

315revenue and expenditures. And in the time since we last talked here and tonight, well, the negotiations cycle has concluded and helped us fill that gap in the budget. So I'll talk about how that how that came out and how that we have a balanced budget for your submission that is proposed. Curiously, Some. Just a side note, I heard this from our lobbyist that day. One of the legislative session, the School Finance Act was introduced and the last day of the legislative session, the School Finance Act was finalized. That is a large span of time and a little bit unusual. And all of that time, there was a lot of conversation. There were things that changed, especially even in the last week. There were things that changed drastically in the funding formula that would have us

316talking about a bigger change in this proposed budget, but then those changes change back. And so a lot happened late. And where we came to was really about the same place that we went into the legislative session. After those many months of going through the process. I'll hit on a quick review of the revenue drivers that were behind program funding that we're looking at for fiscal year 27. That first bullet on the slide, the hold harmless funding. We've talked about that previously and where that is settled out in. The formula for next year is just under $6 million. And I'll show you that number a little later on as we have set that or assigned that in our reserves as funding for future uncertainty. So that amount is something that was fluctuating greatly there right

317at the end. But this is where it came out when considering all the enrollment projections for our schools, for charter schools, for charter school, institute schools, that that's where we feel good about that number coming in the per pupil revenue amount of just over $11,600 is consistent with what we've been talking about. And the funded pupil count is the same number that we've been discussing and forecasting on for some time now. The interesting note there on the bottom of this slide, the last bullet program funding total increase. And this shows you this intersection of the two school finance acts in a program of, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. We're talking about a $38,000 difference year over year. That's ultimately the flat funding that that we're seeing in this in this environment and this

318unique funding situation. So all that to say, we're at about where we expected to be heading into the expenditure side of things. So revenue pretty much the same as fiscal year 26. Jumping into expenditures, the gap was we talked about at the preliminary budget time, about a 5.4 mid $5 million gap between revenue and expenditures negotiations. The that whole cycle worked out a compensation package that was adopted or approved that is listed there on the screen for you for classified staff members, an allocation of about $1.3 million in additional recurring funding for compensation increases for fiscal year 27. Okay. Of the five, just under $5.4 million that's in this compensation package. Okay, that classified portion is just under 25%. And this is pretty consistent with the distribution historically of our our different employee groups, whereas

319classifies about that 24.5% license will be about 66% of the total and administrative just under 10% of that. The totals licensed staff are looking to benefit from an additional $3.5 million distributed towards compensation increases, and administrative and professional staff. Just about $500,000 across that classification towards compensation increases. And the logical next question would be, well, Brian, what is that percent equate to for raises, salary or wage increases? And my answer would be it depends. It depends where a certain staff member would fall within the the schedule, right. So if you just contextualize that a little bit, we're talking about $5.4 million of additional compensation. And our current compensation budget is about $335 million. So we're talking two, 2%, less than 2% of the current compensation. Is this new amount added in. So you can start

320to to see that we're we're less than 2% in most of those those spots as far as salary and wage increase. Now that's just salaries and wages does not include the. The other benefits we've talked about previously. So that's the big change in the proposed budget that then fills the the differential that we've been talking about. And there were some other mechanics we had to clean up and look at. Let's make sure we have those estimated actuals a little more dialed in and get closer on some things. And after all, it's still a plan, still a budget. But that's what got us to a balanced situation here going into fiscal year 27. So some of these slides now are going to be quick review. We talked about this last time before we even had identified

321what's available for ongoing recurring expenditures. We knew that there was going to be an increase in health premiums at about a 5% for employer and employee increase, no changes to our other premiums. And we had discussed previously that we were ahead of ahead of things, setting aside additional budget to address increased spending on leaves of absence. Okay. All of those things remain in the proposed budget. And if I go too quickly, please feel free to interrupt with questions and we can do those as we go along. Additionally, we talked about what were the things being addressed at school sites and at departmental sites to address budget challenges, to make reductions, to make adjustments. The those items stand the SBB and base budgets still a reduction of about $8.2 million year over year. Central department reductions

322coming in at about $3.6 million of changes going into next year. And we still have that placeholder in for fuel, utilities, insurance cost increases of about $725,000 of additional budget being added in. Okay. So last time we did a little tour of the budget document, and I'm going to give you another. I know it's kind of like you're on vacation with your parents, like, well, let's go back to that museum. Oh my gosh. Okay, a little bit dull. Well, I'll give you just the, the brief tour of other parts of the budget document a bit. Really. What's on your screen right now is the table of contents. Okay. It's a pretty simple document for such a big budget and a big district. And we highlight a lot because it's the most significant quantity of the

323budget is the general fund. Those details would be found on pages four through seven in your document, starting with revenue, going through expenditures, and then getting into reserves. And I'll talk a little bit more about reserves shortly. The other funds are then identified, and they each have a page there that illustrate a really high level of of how each of those are budgeted. Of note the supplemental capital budget that's on page eight. That's the debt free mill levy override. And we restructured that particular report to more accurately or I guess more clearly align with the purposes that have been outlined for the use of that of those dollars. Okay. So kind of getting away from more of the technical language and allocations and a little more towards the how we understand them sort of on

324the ground floor level of here's what that that fund was used for. Okay. So that's just something you'll see is a little different in the proposed budget versus the preliminary budget. So you can, of course, go through each of those funds, review those, ask questions. Most of them have revenues, expenditures and reserves. And you can see those identified on each page there. And really there are not many other modifications to any of the other other fund pages, with the exception of updated estimated actuals. Okay, so let's get back to talking a little bit about the general fund more on page two. Okay. Followed by page through page three. These are your budget resolutions. These were not in the preliminary budget document, and they are draft documents in this version. What you'll see in June are

325these documents available to be signed. And then that's where the board takes action. Page two. This budget resolution, this is the appropriation resolution that really adopts the budget and what's on your screen and what's on your packet. On page two, you've got a couple columns there. That appropriation column, this is the totality of each fund in the budget. Okay. And this, this page quantifies all of them in the same place at the same time. So you can see, you look at all of our funds and all of that encompassed in each one. We're looking at a total budget of $840 million dollars primarily, of course, that's the general fund at just over 520. But you can see the portion that each other fund represents. And when you adopt the budget, okay, that makes all of

326that adopted, right? That's all available then to be to be utilized if necessary. There's another little mechanism there to we'll talk about with reserves, but we also illustrate on this, this slide, what is currently budgeted or planned for out of each of those funds in expenditures. So for example, that general fund, the total appropriation is $521 million. With that planned expenditure of $440.7 million. The remaining portion then would be reserves. So that's the difference between these two columns. So overall, as I pointed out, total appropriation of all funds is $840.4 million. And total budgeted expenditures is expected to be about $652.6 million. Then before I jump ahead the next page, I don't have a slide for this one. Page three. Okay, that. That resolution is an authorization to use reserves. So in the situation where

327we are pre-planning to use reserves in any of these funds, hey, we'll go ahead and itemize those on this authorization. So that's where you then have the opportunity to see like, okay, the plan already includes a as part of some of these expenditures, using some of those appropriated reserves, for example, what you'll see there on page three is our child nutrition or food service fund. There's a plan there that the expenditures would exceed revenues by about $75,000. So we're going to right up front, say we're going to ask for that permission to use $75,000 of reserves in this year's budget. Okay. The public school activity fund is also in there. That's at about $375,000. The big one, the Capital Projects Fund, $21.8 million a. We allocate or we budget really all of what remains in

328there every year. Those those are remaining bond proceeds. There's no more revenue coming into that fund. So every time we budget expenditures, it exceeds revenue. And so that's why that number is so large. And once that fund is expended, it it will be gone. It's not being replenished right now. So that that's what you'll see on page three. So coming back to in June, those two resolutions will be what adopts the budget. As we continue through the budget document. We've talked a lot about revenues, expenditures. I'll just jump right to that reserves page on page seven and just refresh on a little bit what we talked about last time. And that is the the plan to start sort of a systematic re re implementation or rebuilding of some reserves. And in line 60 you'll find

329that reserve for funding uncertainty. This is an assigned reserve where next year fiscal year 27 we are assigning that hold harmless amount of revenue in the state. Formula $5.9 million is that reserve for funding uncertainty? Okay. That makes that there. It's available for the interesting or potentially challenging things that may come mid-year. And we've discussed some of those previously, whether that's a media rescission or whether that's a significant drop in enrollment, things that could impact operations significantly mid-year would be hopefully mitigated by that particular assignment of reserves. Below that, in the unassigned reserves category. Okay. That's where we've we've talked before about really two categories within that unassigned. Section, one being the Board of Education, contingency unassigned category, which this year was at about a half percent part of our our plan to restore reserves

330is to get that built back up. And the hope is that this year, in fiscal year 26, we don't have to dig in to that reserve for funding uncertainty and then can move that into this unassigned board contingency, building that up as planning to build that up to about 1.5% next year. Target, we would really love that to be at 2%, and it's going to take a little time to get there. The other and last line there, line 62, I believe the appropriated reserve a. We're usually wanting to get that up to about a 5% of recurring expenditures. This budget would bump that to about 3.2. And we'll keep working on rebuilding these as time goes on. Okay. So we've I've touched briefly on other funds, the general fund. What I would like to do

331is show you a little bit of some of the different ways we slice the budget, still sticking with general fund, but looking in the supplemental section of the budget document. And that's jumping ahead to page 18 and talk different ways. We like to slice it up different ways. We report the budget in various ways by location, by compensation. Focus this report on page 18 and then followed on page 19, is really an illustration of the the C, D, e, pretty much standardized programing object reporting functionality. Okay. This illustrates that programs, which are the categories that are listed there in the first column, like construction and support services, business operations, food service operations, those are programs in the budget. And then we report those out. We divide those up by objects, things like salaries, benefits, purchase

332services, other. So this really just illustrates a different way of looking at our budget. If you've ever taken a few minutes to hop on the fiscal transparency website and look at our uniform budget summary, this is how we report out our budget in that document, but in greater detail, but it's by the C, D, e standardized program and object reporting. So that's just a different way that to illustrate the same data, same information, same numbers. And then on page 19 is just a more visual look at, okay, if we're reporting those or budgeting those programs and objects, what does that look like visually? And what's interesting here is if we take the whole general fund expenditure budget, divide it over the expected funded pupil count, we're expecting to spend just under $16,000 a student next

333year. And if you remember back to one of the first slides, that program funding was like $11,600 per student. Okay. So this this is where all those other sources that we've discussed previously, like mill levy overrides and other local sources of funding help us out. Right? That's where the formula is. It's not meeting the needs if we're going to spend 16,000. But if we spend this $16,000 per student, this illustration shows where it would go. About 61% would go to direct instruction. That makes sense. That's just under $10,000 of student. And that's the primary business we're in. And then you can go by each category and get an idea of how much goes to other parts or addresses, other programs in our spending. So just a little different way to take a look at that,

334that planning from the budget perspective, jumping ahead to a couple budget slices we've already discussed. So I won't spend a lot of time here. On page 22, we talk about our compensation focused budget format, where we focus in on how much of that budget will be going to address licensed staffing needs versus classified or administrative staffing needs. And then at the bottom of that page is just a reiteration of what we have early on in our budget. And that's this location type budget expenditures where we get away from the the standardized program object talk and get into kind of more real talk of where are we spending it at elementary schools? What are we doing at high schools? Those, those kind of layers. So. It's going really quickly. And again, I hope you have some

335questions, but what's next? June 9th will bring three resolutions as part of the budget adoption process. One would be that page two, that resolution to adopt the appropriation and budgeted expenditures. Two would be identifying any preliminary use of fund balances to be approved. And then three, and this is not necessarily in this budget document, but comes with the process each year. And that's just a certification of our individuals with disabilities education eligibility. And that's federal funding. And we bring that at the same time for you to approve annually. Hey, we feel like the proposed budget as you have it, is where we'll end up. I don't anticipate there being really dramatic changes between now and a couple of weeks from now. Now, you never say never, right? But if something material would occur, of course

336we would change those. We'd submit a different document and and then talk about those, those things. But really, we feel like what you have is the proposed budget for fiscal year 27. Note that if we get this adopted by June 30th, we start the new fiscal year July 1st. A the good part about our budget process is that we have until January 31st to amend or revise that budget. So as things change and you know, you've been living it, things will change and they change quickly. Hey, we can amend that and come to you with changes anytime up to January 31st. So with that, I'll open it up to questions. What questions do you have? Yes, please. I really appreciate the thorough big picture overview. I'm going to drill down and be granular for a

337moment, if that's okay. Sure. As I was reviewing this, I had some I'm sure there's explanations. They just don't jump out at me as they help educate me. I'd appreciate it. I'm going to go to I think I think it's the same slide. So it's on on mine. I've got it's page eight of the budget. And I think that's the same PDF page, although I think the PDF pages were slightly off, so bear with me. It's actually page six, but PDF in our packet, it's PDF page eight. So six, but it's it's those location. This is proposed budget general fund. So there's a couple lines that I just I didn't understand why the actual budget and estimated were divergent. And they were, they were big ones. So I'll start at the top on line 18

338for our elementary schools and let me know if you're there. I can also okay, it says that the actual elementary was 121.7 million. The budget was about 2.6 million less estimated being 120. And then the budget 118. Do you know why those were differences? And if we know the actuals were higher, why we're budgeting for less and what what that means, right? So if you look at fiscal year 25, right, it came in actuals came in higher than budget. And so that that's quantified right there as we analyze this year. And we're still, of course, fulfilling the completion of the year, when we look at how expenditures are trending, we looked at, we look at like, well, geez, it's it's coming in hot. However, we do know that we're reducing $8.2 million out of, of

339the budget in student based budgets. So what we did is we try and model this out and compare our estimated actuals. So we kind of even get away from the budget number a little bit. We're looking at the estimated actuals as a baseline. And then we try and take that $8.2 million and strip that out. And where does that leave us? And then we add back in the benefits and these other drivers. And so we're really trying to drive the new budget off of the estimates. Okay. And so I'm I'm hoping that addresses the question we should see. Right. Overall, it's going to be a pretty level expenditure budget, but we should see some reductions in some places with all of those changes in staffing. And okay, that actually does help. I forgot about that

3408 million. Okay. Same page. I got two more lines. 31 the curriculum and instruction actual from 2425 was 4 million. The budget was 3 million over that. Our estimate is actually lower or the estimated for 25, 26 was lower 3.7. But then the budget is five. So those seem to be big differences. I don't know if there's any. This is a confusing one. This is I'm fine spending a lot of money on curriculum instruction. I just want to make sure that we're giving ourselves enough runway. Yeah. When the the estimates or the actuals get into the budget here, they're assigned to these location types. Okay. Now in curriculum and instruction, we have, gosh, it's been going for a few years now, a big implementation of curriculum implementation that's been identified. It started a number of

341years ago with about $10 million. And what happens when that doesn't get spent each year? It rolls into carryover down in reserves. Okay. Hey, when it gets spent, it'll come up here. And that's where we see some of these fluctuations. So we may put in a big budget, but it doesn't get spent. Well, those dollars are down in the carryover reserve section. Okay. But when they get spent, they move up into this expenditures and it starts to distort things. So when, for instance, you see that, well, I guess only $4 million, we had budgeted seven, but only 4 million were spent. Well, that just means that there there's a delay, probably a planned delay of implementation of spending some of those remaining dollars. So they're down in the reserves right now. They may move back

342up here, but that's where we're one of those areas where we're going to see fluctuations that can be kind of challenging to follow. I appreciate that. And then the very last one I had is next line 32 District Admin. Okay, so I want to be clear to when we say district admin, first question is, what do we mean by district admin? Because I think that's somewhat of a misnomer. Yeah, that's a very broad category. So that could be all of course central administration type activities. That's also going to include like communications. It's going to include various other administrative functions that aren't at schools all kind of lumped together. Okay. And, and when we have it in this sort of a slice, it can look like a, a big chunk. Whereas if I go back, I'll

343just to a slice like this, more of that program. Look, if you look at the general administration line and these aren't numbered, unfortunately, but if we peel out administration and sort them in more of that standardized reporting, then we're looking at a number that's like $4.4 million. So it's just some of that challenge that comes with the location type reporting. So there are a lot of locations that get lumped in there. Additionally, one note I'll make with with district admin is that a year or so ago, there were some changes made with, I guess, job types. So adding some professionals, adding some administrative titles that maybe were different titles previously. So then they get coded or labeled differently and moved out of a different part of those locations. I get that, but I mean, but

344that trend based on my understanding was that it should go down, but it looks like our actual spend was 6.6. The budget was 5.3. So that's a 1.3. Delta estimated for 2526 again was 6.7. And the the new budget would be 6.8. So it looks like we're reconciling that. But that trend looked like it went up, not down. Can I interject out of curiosity because I think it may answer this question. Is this when some of the classified members moved over to our pace. So they they switched employee groups. That's what I thought. I just want to make sure because I think it's important to tee that up. So there's no misleading anything. Thank you. We didn't just get bigger better. Okay. So I was right. Thanks. I know it's late and that's that's where

345I was hoping you would go, but I don't want to force that answer. Thank you. Okay. I'm done. Great. Yeah. Please. Two quick ones. Going back to some of the budgeting presentations before and how the state was coming up with funding, there were these large ticket items that were uncertain of the actual value in the state budget. We those have not been resolved. Hopefully they will be if we fall into a situation where there is a mid-cycle rescission, do we have. Sustainable reserves to plug that rescission, or would we have to be looking at program cuts mid-cycle. Well, the answer that I would give you honestly, is I don't know, because I don't know what the rescission a potential rescission would be. So there's there's no projection right now as far as here's a rescission

346number to prepare for. Right. So so that's where it's we don't know. I mean, what what gets factored in there? Is it just potential of changing or sweeping. So tax or is it. Gosh we didn't quite at the state level collect enough for the healthy meals for all or you know what, what goes in there. So there could be lots of drivers. And so it's hard to say we have enough. We feel pretty confident by setting aside that hold harmless of 6 million that that would really help. Okay. That's sufficient. Second one, in this kind of gets to our consolidation stuff earlier. Do we have any bonds rolling off this year? Don't believe so. And. Okay. No. If you look at the the bond page, which would be. Page 12. And look at like a

347year over year comparison of the current bond principal and interest. For instance, look at 2425. If you happen to be on that page. Our principal and interest that year were about $47.7 million. And then going into 2526, and then the 26, 27, 33.9 million. There's where you see bonds rolling off, you know, a year or so ago. But we don't see that here going into next year. That's sufficient. Thanks. Other questions. Okay. I'll just take the moment and say thank you very much for giving us a presentation at 1030 at night and being so thorough. It was it started at 1024. Okay. I wouldn't want to be estimating. We should be exact, right? Yeah. It feels home. It feels like home. Yeah. I hope you're a late night human. Thank you very much. If there's

348no other comments or questions, we can move on. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks, Mark. All right. Next up, we have the board's budgets. Yes, Brian, thank you for that presentation. Joining us tonight to provide the Board of Education's budget update is our CFO, Dave Montoya. Dave, welcome. Good evening. Tonight, we are going to be reviewing the board's budget. So this is not the district level budget. This is the board's budget. And this is required by GP3 point seven investment and governance, where each year the board would review its expenditures and also at the same time establish a budget for the next fiscal year. So that's what we're going to accomplish here in a few moments. What you see on the screen here is a depiction of the expenditures and the, the, the,

349the, the draft budget. Over on the right hand side. I'm going to go through some of these categories briefly, just so you can kind of understand what's coming out of the budget and, and what these things go to. So, so the first one is software. And you can see that we are budgeting around $30,000 next year for software. And really what comes out of software is the diligent software that your board packet information. That's what we all look at, what we load board packets. You're reviewing them right now on diligent. So that is that is one of the things that's in there, as well as the transcription stuff that we have going on behind us here. So I believe we use a subscription for that. And so those are the two items that are really

350coming out of the software. The second item on this sheet is negotiations. And this one has changed a little bit as you look at the expenditures. This is the one that did go negative a little bit. And that's because we actually changed facilitators from year to year. And so the new facilitation is costing a little bit more. We believe we're getting good value out of that. So so that is something that was important. The the, the negotiations. There was a question around why is this coming from the board's budget? And historically, I can play the historian sometimes. There was a point where it didn't come from the board's budget, and it was actually split up amongst the employee groups that got contentious. This was a long time ago, and it was decided at that time,

351with the board seated, that they would take on the cost of the facilitation to make sure that that was happening. Obviously, we can change that if the board decides that they want, like us to budget for that in a different location or something like that. But that was that's why it's there. We also have in here the legislative or coalition, I say coalition. It hasn't been the coalition for a long time, the legislative this is our lobbyist. And so our lobbyist works for us on our behalf, taking our issues down to the state. And this contract has been something we've been using for a while. Again, historically, the board, a board a long time ago had decided that they felt the board should decide whether we want to lobby or not at the state Capitol.

352And that's another reason why that's been in the board's budget for some time now. Also in there are casb dues. So Colorado Association of School Boards, there's dues to be part of that membership. So that's that's captured here. We also have travel and conferences. And when we think about travel and conferences, that's a lot of things. Part of it is the right above it, the casb dues. There's a Casb conference that happens. And so that's a big part of what that conference cost is, is for the board to be able to go to the Casb convention. And then at times we also have a national conference that will pop up at times. And there's there's budget there to do that we can't do can't send the board members to all of all of it. So

353we have to decide exactly how much we want to do. But there is budget to support that activity. And then kind of working our way down here, there is an item for board room technology. You'll see that I have revised that budget slightly downward. We haven't used it greatly. Typically what we're using this budget for is if you need new laptops, if the microphones burn out, if the cameras aren't working in the boardroom, if we need displays, that's that's something we would be using that budget for. Obviously, this year we came in a little bit under so that that excess will go up and help cover the negotiations costs that went over. The last line item that we have on the sheet is supplies, meals, copies, and others. There's a whole bunch of small items

354in there. I won't go through all the gory detail. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. So all in all, what we are recommending after looking at the expenditures and how they're taking shape this year, is a slightly revised discussion draft for our for the board, for the budget. Really no changes to software. The change to negotiations that I had mentioned, and then a slight change to the board room technology just to make everything balanced out. This is an increase of about $10,000, and it really is related to the negotiations facilitation. So pretty straightforward. But I will take any questions that you might have at this point. Any comments? Okay. I have one. The community comment, Mike, this evening sounded a little off. I don't know if someone needs a budget for that. So okay. But no,

355otherwise I think we're good. Unless anyone has any comments, I can't talk now. It's past 11. All right. I think we're good. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Okay. Last piece of our board meeting is board forecasting. This agenda item is an opportunity for board members to discuss topics of interest for future board meetings. Do any board members have a topic they would like to suggest? Please? Sorry, I know you all want to kill me. In discussing policy, I had some questions about oversight. I'm curious as to how discipline disciplinary actions are overseen by the district when like our our individual schools audited, do we know how they're. How many students have been disciplined in a year? And are we making sure that parents are notified? Are we. I've. Curiosities about how all

356of that is handled. Thanks. Yes. Thank you. Did you have. I just would like to add. I don't know what it's called. Is it mill levy override oversight committee? I feel like that just keeps coming up. And I'd love to hear an update or information from them if I'm clarification. Sorry. I think they have an update coming June June 9th. Thank you. Yes. So it's coming. Sorry, I'm trying to collect your thoughts while running. Is there anything else anyone has? All right then we will call our meeting. Still. Thankfully, on May 26th at 11:03 p.m. Thank you very much.