001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> I should turn my mic on. You think I hadn't done it before? All right, we'll call our meeting to order. Thank you for joining the Board of Education this evening. Please mute your cell phones as we begin this meeting. Today is Tuesday, April 28th, 2026, and this meeting is now called to order at 5:41 p.m. For those attending this meeting in person, live captions are available on a TV in the boardroom and in the lobby. To 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
002streams, please visit the Board of Education page of the PSD website or PSD TV on demand on YouTube. All right. Next, we have approval of agenda. Would any board members like to make any changes to the agenda? Yes, Connor. I move that the board amend the agenda to include a second executive session regarding specialized details on security arrangements. Thank you, Connor. Do I have a second? Thank you, Kevin. And Jill, please call the vote. Carla Baez. Aye. Connor Duffy. Aye. Kevin Havelda. Scott Schoenbauer. >> Aye. Jessica Zamora. Aye. Dr. Caranda Zigler. Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Thank you. All right, next we have our resolutions and action items. So, we have a resolution in support of Mental Health Awareness Month. Can I get a motion? Thank you, Caranda. I move that the board approve the resolution
003in support of Mental Health Awareness Month 2026. I don't know if your mic is on. >> It is? Yeah, I feel like these are a little late. Maybe can you do it one more time? Uh I move that the board approve the resolution in support of Mental Health Awareness Month for May 2026. Thank you very much. Can I have a second? Thank you, Carla. All right, Brian. Yeah, good evening, everyone. Tonight, we are honored to be joined by Mental Health and Prevention Coordinator, Sarah Mauer Wilkins, who will present the resolution. Welcome, Sarah. Thank you. Tonight, we are asking you to recognize Mental Health Awareness Month for the month of May in Poudre School District. NAMI is a national organization supporting mental health, and the following is some information from NAMI about Mental Health Awareness Month.
004Mental Health Awareness Month provides a chance to stand with your community and show that no one struggles alone. NAMI's 2026 Mental Health Awareness Month theme invites everyone to join in speaking up against mental health stigma by turning silence into connection. By sharing our lived experiences, learning from each others' experiences, and building stronger connections, we can challenge stigma and create spaces where people are supported, understood, and find healing. Every story shared turns silence into connection and connection into healing. Together, we can strengthen communities and create opportunities for empathy, understanding, and meaningful change. At PSD, we are proud to center mental health and belonging as a key pillar of our strategic plan. Our staff are deeply committed to supporting the wellbeing and sense of belonging for every student every day. Strong family, school, and community partnerships are
005essential to help the health of our PSD community, and we are truly grateful for the opportunity to work together in support of our students. Tonight, I have the honor of introducing you to Annalisa, a parent at PSD, to share her story and help create connection towards breaking stigma. Thank you so much, Annalisa, for sharing your story, which in turn can spark healing. Hi. Thank you, Sarah and the board for letting me speak tonight. I'd like to focus on resolution number seven. Whereas staff in school are often among the first to recognize changes in mental and physical health among students, staff need to feel empowered to recognize and take appropriate action when needed, including partnering with families to support student well-being. My son is an eighth grader at Timnath Middle High School. I was contacted in
006early September by Ms. Virginia, the mental health counselor there, that Cooper had been reported to Safe2Tell regarding some concerning comments. At that point, she said we needed to keep a close eye on him. I'm a family nurse practitioner, and I'm trained in watching for the signs and symptoms of depression, but I thought he was just an irritable 13-year-old. He was playing football for the first time in his life, starting varsity, and playing both sides of the ball. Over the next several weeks, he was able to touch base frequently with his school counselor, Mrs. Wells and Ms. Virginia, and they got to know him and his personality. I offered to get a counselor outside of that, and he declined. On October 31st, I got a call from Ms. Virginia that they were worried about a change
007in his demeanor and comments he was making. When he got home, I found out he'd been cutting since August, and in the 2 weeks prior to Halloween, it had escalated to the point that I fear we were within days of losing him. There is no doubt in my mind that those two women saved my son's life. There are several things that came into play here. Number one, the student who reported my son was educated in what to watch for, and when to contact Safe to Tell, and also my son had gotten the education to call 988, which he had done 2 days prior to Halloween. Number two, Ms. Virginia being on-site a couple of days a week made it possible for her and Mrs. Wells to get to know my son better and be able
008to identify when he was in crisis. Number three, the staff had the support to reach out to me as a parent early on to result in the best outcome. He just had his 14th birthday. Thank you for sharing your story, um with a 14-year-old and an eighth grader myself, and having not gone through that level by any means, but definitely observing the changes and the struggles that middle school can provide is very real. And like you, I appreciate that our educators are exceptionally good, and our students are exceptionally good at watching out for each other and being supportive. So, thank you so much for sharing your story though, because I think it reminds us how important these services are. We all know it, but having the story articulated to us really helps. So, thank you
009for being here. Are there any other comments at this time? I think we're getting teary-eyed, to be honest. All right. Do you have any comments? No, okay. Jill, can you please call the vote? Carla Base. I. Connor Duffy. I. Kevin Havalda. I. Scott Schonbauer. I. Jessica Zamora. I. Dr. Karanda Ziegler. I. Motion passes 6-0. Thank you. All right. Next, we have our resolution support of Military Appreciation Month. Can I get a motion? Thank you, Scott. I move that the board approve a resolution in support of Military Appreciation Month, May 2026. Thank you. Can I get a second? Thank you, Kevin. Brian. Joining us this evening to speak to the resolution in support of Military Appreciation Month are Captain Roby and student Garrison Ware. Welcome, both. >> [applause] >> Good evening, Superintendent, board members, and special
010guests. My name is Garrison Ware, and I am the Cadet Battalion Commander of the JROTC program housed at Poudre High School. I'd like to begin by thanking you for inviting me back to this board meeting to discuss the topic I'm so passionate about. I'm honored to stand before you this evening to deliver a resolution on the importance of Military Appreciation Month. When reflecting on the lasting impact and legacy of our country's extensive history of military service, it becomes clear that our nation is nothing short of indebted to the men and women who have answered the call of duty. These service members, who so valiantly stepped up in our country's time of need, were just like you and I. They had families, aspirations, personal objectives, and bright futures. These people, regardless of their different cultural backgrounds
011or lifestyles, were all unified in their ability to recognize the importance of service and standing in defense of our nation and its principles. And they chose to prioritize that defense above their own interests. Every one of these noble and courageous individuals sacrificed. They sacrificed their time. They sacrificed their futures. And some even sacrificed their lives upon the altar of freedom. That freedom, born of their sacrifice, means that we do not go to bed each night afraid of foreign attacks. We feel safe and secure in our country. That freedom, born of their sacrifice, means our nation has been able to flourish. That we as individuals have the privilege to pursue our dreams, to create, and innovate, to strive to solve the world's problems, rather than struggle to survive day to day. That freedom, born of their
012sacrifice, means that we get to see the world as a place of plenty, and seek to expand that abundance to others, rather than live in a place of fear, selfishness, and scarcity. The sacrifices of yesterday and continued service of the military today ensures we we may enjoy the freedoms we so easily take for granted. Because for so many of us, we've never known another reality. But we can never forget that freedom that this freedom was not easily won, or has been effortlessly retained, or isn't vulnerable to future threat. Regardless of how vehemently we wish to honor the gifts these many brave individuals have bestowed upon us, we must acknowledge that as a nation, we can never fully repay the debt we owe to those who gave to us so much without asking for anything in
013return. It appears then the only way to honor their sacrifice is first to remember our service members and recognize the connection between their service and the freedoms we enjoy today. The second, and I believe one of the most meaningful and powerful ways we can honor the lasting sacrifice of our service members, is by ensuring that we use the gift of freedom we have been given to pay forward the selfless service they dedicated their lives to demonstrate. We should all seek to uphold the tradition of service and contribution these individuals have set into motion. It does not have to be in uniform. It does not have to be in combat. And it does not have to be a career commitment. We have the freedom to decide what is important to us, what causes we champion, what
014wrongs we can right. We have the freedom to decide if we decide to exercise it. As John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of our nation, famously stated during his inaugural address, "My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." It is through observing this call to action that we can honor the sacrifices of our service members by using the gift of freedom to live meaningful, impactful, and useful lives. This May, regardless of whether or not we've ever spent a day in uniform, we can all choose to serve something greater than ourselves, just as the noble service members of our country have. This May, we should endeavor to give back to our communities, our country, and our fellow citizens. By making a deliberate effort to
015practice selfless service, we are keeping alive the tenets and principles of military service, and we fully utilize the freedoms these service members gave their lives to uphold. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Thank you so much for being here. Are there any comments the board members would like to make? Okay. I Oh, please. I was writing down some of the things you said, cuz it spurred some thoughts of my own. Um indebted to answer the call to duty, sacrifice, freedom, and our obligation [clears throat] to repay the sacrifices that you mentioned is to ensure that the gift of freedom is more or less not squandered. That really resonated with me. Um I gave remarks recently to a school on what it means to pursue justice, and there was a quote that I used that I thought
016was appropriate based on what you said. Um >> [clears throat] >> This comes from Benjamin Franklin who said, "Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are." I thought that was poignant based on what you said. I want to thank you for that reminder and for that charge for all of us to serve our community, serve our schools, and serve our nation and honor that in the month of May. Thank you so much. Okay, I just want to I had my own notes as well and I will not say it as nicely and as eloquently as Kevin just did, but I appreciated that you talked a lot about the sacrifice, but that sacrifice in my own family and my own friends, it's often so quiet without any
017expectation of appreciation. And I think the very least we can do, and I appreciated most of all like your invitation for us to serve our communities while many of us either can't or haven't had the opportunity or have made the choice not to be in our military, still inviting us to be part of an act of service as a as a way of honoring the service that's been so generously given to us. So, thank you so much for being here and I really appreciate you. Um with that, I think Joe can call the vote. Carla Base I. Conor Duffy I. Kevin Hovelda I. Scott Schoenbauer I. Jessica Zamora I. Dr. Carinda Ziegler I. Motion passes 6-0. Right. >> [applause] >> Yep. All right, we'll take a picture with our resolution guests. >> [applause] >> All
018right, so next on our agenda we have our superintendent report. I do not envy your follow-up to this, but please. >> Yeah, no, that is an impossible act to follow, so I'm not even going to try. I'll just be myself and hope for the best here. I don't know if it was intentional or by accident that mental health awareness and military appreciation month fall in the same month. I'm going to just hope that it was by design cuz it's hard not to see the intersectionality between the two. We all know and recognize that mental health is much bigger than the military, but we also realize that the military is much bigger than oneself. Um so, I'm just super proud uh to represent a school system that prioritizes mental health and belonging and continues to show
019the honor and dignity for those who are brave and courageous to choose a life commitment and dedication to service through the military. For those of you that are in the community or on our board that are interested, we uh on an annual basis have a military celebration and a formal national signing day for those high school seniors who are committing their life to one of the branches of the armed forces and that is tomorrow night from 6:00 to 7:15 at our Future Ready Center and I look forward to celebrating not just with our uh leadership from the JROTC, but many students and many staff members and community members. It is a very proud moment for all of those families, especially those young adults. Um and so, if anybody has an opportunity, I certainly will relay
020gratitude on behalf of all of us, but just a special invitation to all involved. Since I've last been at a board meeting for the last 2 weeks, I've had the honor of being in seven of our schools. I want to thank President Zamora for joining me at Cache la Poudre Elementary School yesterday. Uh as the superintendent of the school system, I continue to be impressed by our school leadership in partnership with their entire faculty and community on their dedication and hard work to committing to a strong finish of this school year and they are straddling the thoughts around how to make sure that next school year has a very, very good and solid start. Um and that's no easy task in the midst of the changes that we are all grappling, but they continue to
021show up and show out and I'm very, very proud of that. Uh another uh week of celebrations on May 4th just a recognition. I think this might be the third annual PSD Celebrates uh function that will be happening at the Lincoln Center on Monday night to celebrate the achievements and dedication of all of our colleagues across the school system. There are more and more people that get recognized and more and more people that attend each and every year. Uh so, for members of the board who are having an opportunity to attend and celebrate with our labor groups and our respective other employees across the system who will be honored, thank you uh for just elevating our our best and brightest uh each and every year. It just continues to be an event that I'm very,
022very proud to be a part of. Uh this evening's meeting uh has a very important finance team update that will share the preliminary budget for the 26-27 school year. Please note this is the first of a three-step formal process to adopt to adopt a budget for next school year that will conclude in June. What the community will see this evening is simply a draft and it will continue to evolve as the state legislature continues its work to set a budget for the next school year. Uh I want to close uh with a special video, but before I do that, I just had the opportunity earlier today to be in Denver. I was allowed three principal attendees to join me and Amy Smith from McGraw Elementary School, James Garcia, the principal at Laurel Elementary School, and
023Lindsey Mackin, the proud principal of Kinard Middle School, had the opportunity to join me as their superintendent in Denver as our school district along many other school districts recognized some award-winning schools for exceptional growth, exceptional academic achievement, and Poudre School District continues to be one of the school systems. There's only I think 63 school systems that were recognized. There were just under 293 schools and 20 of them are in our backyard. So, I continue to be super impressed by our leadership, our teachers, our community members who are volunteering, our paraprofessionals, everybody. It's all hands on deck all the time and the rewards that we're reaping in terms of advancing outcomes for kids continues to be super impressive. Uh but this is also a special way of entering since I spent the day this afternoon with
024three of our principals. Uh we are about to also acknowledge that school's principals day uh is here and before I play the video, I just want to take a moment to recognize the dedication and commitment of all of our exceptional principals in PSD. Um you matter. Hi, my name is Sweet. And I'm here with [music] Alyssa Kendall, principal at Traut Core Knowledge School. Hi, I'm Daykin. I'm in 8th grade at Cache la Poudre Middle School and I'm here with our principal, Matt Ellis. Hi, my name is Henry. Hi, I'm Cedar. Hello, my name is Logan. And I'm here with the principal at Polaris Star. I've got a few questions for you. What's a hidden talent that you have that most people don't know about? You know, I I think a lot of people know that
025I was an athletic director for many years, but uh many people may not realize that I was [music] a three-sport athlete and I can still kind of put the ball in the hoop, so I can play basketball pretty decently and uh I'm a avid off-roader. I recently learned [music] how to play the banjo. That's a great talent. My hidden talent is um if you needed to get across the Yukon, I could [music] harness and run a sled dog team for you. Wow, I didn't know you could do that. Tell us about a proud moment from the school year. It largely has to do with um our 8th graders taking some leadership roles, right? Um so, for instance, we had uh many girls on our girls wrestling team, [music] um yourself included, which was awesome. Uh
026you know, we had a we had both students help with a uh a bus emergency with one of our drivers, a medical emergency, >> [music] >> um and that just speaks to um you know, how wonderful and community-centered our kids are. Our students leading tours or any way that we really um welcome the community into our space. I'm I'm really prideful in in that and how you all um represent our school. I just went through all of our seniors' [music] transcripts and um almost every single one of them has earned Front Range Community College credit um or Aims Community [music] College credit, which means um not only did they have a college experience, they got to save their families lots of money on college. That's awesome. >> The work that our teachers and kiddos have
027done with our new writing program. We [music] took on the writing revolution and everyone has been working really hard at it and I'm so, so proud of of the growth that I've seen. How and why do you do it? Well, the how is simple. Um it involves where we are right now in our coffee shop. I'm a frequent buyer and I do it with lots and lots and lots of coffee. Um as far as the why I became a teacher because I struggled as a student myself and after being a teacher for a decade or so, um I decided I wanted to improve conditions and make [music] space for teachers to do their best work and so that is the why of why I became an administrator. Um and part of that is seeing students
028like yourself walk across the stage in a couple weeks. So, that's [music] pretty exciting, too. You know, I was the I was the student uh who struggled early on. Um I did not love school and it took me a while to build momentum and uh eventually I became a high achiever, but it took me quite some time and so I decided when I um was figuring out my path that I wanted to um help provide a better experience to not only students and teachers and the community that than what I experienced um growing up. So, that was really my why and um kind of what jump-started me into this line of work. I knew that I wanted to be a teacher [music] when I was a little girl and that motivated me to go on
029to get my teaching degree. I [music] do it every day because I absolutely love working with students like you. You make my heart happy and I love being here. You're a great principal. Thank you, kiddo. >> [applause] >> Man, I love that. Our kids are so cool. Our principals are so cool. Our staff. That warms my heart every time. All right. Uh we'll move right along into our community comment. This opportunity for public comment is for members of the community who registered 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 3 minutes to address the board. First up, we have Derek France. Welcome. Good evening, members of the Board of Education. I'm here to formally demand an
030immediate stay of the administrative hearing scheduled for May 4th, 2026. I'm handing you a packet containing a formal grievance and evidence of a procedural crisis that requires your intervention tonight. To proceed next Monday without counsel and while vital records are being withheld is a bad faith violation of due process. As of yesterday, April 27th, 2026, we are unrepresented. Unrepresented. The Colorado Education Association attorneys withdrew because we exercised our legal rights to a 21 stay 21 days stay consideration period on the District Leadership and Administration Council's settlement offer. This is a right mandated by federal law, yet it is a right District Leadership and Administration Council would not tolerate. They have successfully isolated a 22-year veteran teacher less than 7 days before a life-altering hearing. Furthermore, the district has yet to fulfill an emergency core request
031I filed on April 24th, 2026. You can't You cannot outsource your due diligence to an administration that has engineered an ambush. We demand a stay and a thorough independent investigation. Our family has over 40 years of combined teaching experience, including 18 years in PSD. We are both K through 12 PSD graduates. Yet of the 14 staff members involved in this matter, she is the only one being uniquely targeted for a formal termination hearing. This is a direct retaliation for our advocacy for our son's 504 rights after he was severely injured in a school activity. I sat in an HR office on June 3rd, 2025 and witnessed scripted interrogations designed to intimidate and coerce predetermination. The scripted agenda nearly cost me my life. Last August, I spent 8 days in a hospital bed. Six of those
032tube-fed due to a perforated ulcer in my small intestine. My wife now requires daily medication for severe anxiety to function daily. To stay afloat on a single teacher income, we had to take our take out a home equity loan to help pay our bills and mortgage. Furthermore, the district seized almost 300 hours of her earned sick leave. Time she spent in the classroom with her students, not at home. Do not allow this administration to define your legacy. Stay the May 4th, 2026 hearing and choose the truth. Thank you. Next up, we have Grace Turnbull. Good evening. Um I had a drawing, but I learned that I wasn't allowed to show it. So, if you want to see it after the fact, let me know. I'll send it to you. Um it's called the cycle of
033consolidation and it begins with stage one, ground zero. The conclusion is clear, consolidation is the path forward. The next phase is shock. In mid-May 2026, when 28,000 students and their families hear the criteria that will determine whether their schools stay open or closed. After that comes stage three, which I call denial, betrayal, anger, or the hellstorm. Emails, phone calls, packed community comments, strong emotions in every direction. Stage four is sadness. October 26th, decisions will be announced. We will be naming which schools are closing. It's unavoidable. But once decisions are made, they need to be carried forward with thoughtfulness and transparency. Next, stage five is identity crisis. Students, parents, and community members will speak why their schools should remain open. Some will threaten to leave the district. Some will withdraw support. The voices will be loud,
034but before the next stage, this is the most important part of the cycle. This is where we must lead with positive, clear, and consistent messaging, not reminders of why this is happening. We need to look forward. We need a new hope. People need to hear about opportunities, about resources, about what will be stronger, better, and more sustainable on the other side of these decisions. This is the moment where trust is either rebuilt or lost. With that, we move to stage six, acceptance and understanding. This is where I'm at. Because there is evidence, there are districts that have been consolidated and come out stronger academically, financially, and as communities. Then, August 27th, uh 2027. Sorry. Schools close. The change becomes real. However, don't mistake the pain of change for failure. Next, we have the final stage,
035stages Oh, wait. Second to last, forgiveness and healing. Stage seven. Because even if it's the right decision to consolidate, it's going to suck. And talking about that is important. And eventually, we reach the final stage, the new normal. So, I've lived through this cycle. It's not theoretical, it's experiential to me and many others. And one final point is that the mental health that has been cut in order to balance the budget, this was a mistake, especially at this time. As we move through consolidation, restoring these supports quickly and meaningfully must be a priority if we expect our community to navigate this cycle. We need to give them the tools to do so. Thank you for your time and let me know if you want to see my drawing. Thank you. All right. Next up, we
036have Anna Labeta. Welcome. Good evening. This evening, I want to talk to you about larger, well-resourced schools. I've heard it said a number of times in consolidation engagements that an ideal school tends to be around 400 for an elementary school and 700 for a middle school. I think that many people in our district assume that this also means that services for struggling students will naturally be available if a school hits these numbers and isn't contending with a tight budget due to low enrollments. I have come before you multiple times asking you to charge the sup- our superintendent with the work of prioritizing discoverable pathways for struggling learners who have historically and inconsistently fallen below the state averages in PSD. I want to share my family's experience with trying to find a middle school for my
037child in PSD just a couple of years ago. I reached out to Integrated Services and explained that my child is dyslexic and had a difficult road to finding support around dyslexia in PSD. As a result, my child experienced three different schools in elementary school, the first actually being our neighborhood school, which had 400 students. My goal was to get her to a middle school where she could find adequate support and be successful and not need to jump from school to school. I was told that I would need to get on the phone and call each school I was interested in and see what they offered and that it was always best to start with my neighborhood school. I attended the open house for my thriving neighborhood school where enrollment is just shy of 800 students,
038actually. Wow, what a school. They have three full-time music teachers, one for band, one for orchestra, and one for choir. They had five foreign language teachers and a jaw-dropping array of STEM resources. But at the end of the evening, when engaging in a thoughtful conversation with a knowledgeable staff member around whether or not my child would be appropriately supported. I was encouraged to maybe consider a specific charter school in another district because they couldn't think of a school that would meet her needs in PSD. I genuinely believe that this person's intentions were good, but it's a cautionary tale that we can't assume that needs will be met if there isn't a clear directive and a focused priority to do so. I want to leave you with a quote that I read this week by Kareem
039Weaver, an outspoken contemporary civil rights and letters advocate. "No social emotional program fully masks the smell of rotting potential. Potential crushed by the functional weight of low expectations, inadequate planning, inconsistent instruction, and ineffective leadership. Rotting potential, that is exactly what we have when we do not actively address supporting students struggling with learning gaps. A gap between their grade level expectations and their present levels." These are often students who are capable of learning yet need additional supports to learn to read, write, or learn the functional math skills required for every navigating everyday life. Please consider when you're doing your criteria and when we're doing next steps forward to consider these kids who need the help who are not helped by PSD currently. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Danny Lawrence. Welcome. Hey, thank you for
040the opportunity. A couple of weeks ago I watched a PSD presentation before the State Board of Education to gain chartering authority back and I thought it was a worthwhile fight. Thank you. And then I saw a director speaking at a charter school recently regarding justice, so I thought tonight I would share my family's experiences with charter school of choice and educational justice in Fort Collins. When we moved here in 2021, we came from a small public charter school after leaving the only public school district in our community. We were forced out of public school because they wanted to institutionalize my son in a state-run facility for deaf and blind children that was 250 miles from my home. And it meant separating siblings and living without our child, so we enrolled in an art school and
041had an amazing 2 years in the most the most inclusive when I look back in a place where he was embraced and educators had the license to experiment. Charter school saved my son's life and it gave him a place to belong during a medical nightmare. Initially, I tried to enroll in Fort Collins charter schools avoiding entirely public school and it was a yes and on paper and transcripts and a we no longer have room when they met him in person. You see, at the time my son had an IEP and he used a white cane then. Uh one charter changed their mind in 11th grade after seeing his PSAT score and his National Honor Society involvement. I'm sure you can guess which one. Charter schools discriminate in this community openly, defiantly, and proudly. So, with
042chartering authority comes the watchful eye of a parent like me who is going to be holding PSD responsible for not allowing that selective discrimination to continue with new authorizations. So, this is my word of warning to create the system now to prevent charter schools from prohibiting the enrollment of special needs students. We didn't want to fight PSD, Mr. Kingsley. This is our childhood home, but some of us are held hostage here, held against our will without a school of choice. And I hope you all keep that in mind as a board and that as an administration because school of choice is a luxury for parents with financial resources and healthy children in this community. In your email tonight is a sample of that discrimination. Please take time to ponder the sheer arrogance and lawlessness of
043those words. In the coming months when you are considering equity and disproportionality, I hope that those words will continue to haunt you. More than a graduation, my son is awaiting freedom from ignorance, from a system that he had to drag like an 8,000-lb backpack with him while he was just trying to be a kid, face a medical condition, and get an equitable education. Because that is the reality in our community from a white middle-class family, and I still haven't found the justice you speak of, Mr. Havelda, 13 years later and 25 days before graduation. But I hope that you use my vote and your awareness to create that opportunity for justice for all kids in Fort Collins. And I hope the school of choice becomes a reality for all someday. My favorite quote about justice
044is from Plato. "The worst form of injustice is pretended justice." And based on evidence in 5 years in this room, I question whether that isn't what we're doing here when we're turning our eyes away. Integrated services students need your help and are so worthy of the conversation of this board. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Danny. Uh next we have ML Johnson. Welcome. Good evening, board, superintendent, and audience. >> [clears throat] >> I have a cold, but I'm recovering. I have three items and one issue. First, and this is a metaphor, let's say I need some money to build my house, so I find a plan in which you can pay the mortgage. What a deal. Thus, I get a new residence and you get to stay in your old homes. However, some of you
045get to regularly visit my house and others by invitation only. That I get a new residence and you pay for the mortgage sounds fine with me. But it seemed but does it seem fair that you have to pay for something for someone else to enjoy? Probably not. The metaphor is number one. Number two is, and this is a normal process for building schools, when we considered building the elementary school on the Bethke site, it was only a big bare field, no people. There was not enough assessed property value in the attendance area, even in the attendance area, to build the 9 to 9 million dollars in uh school construction. So, we asked the voters in the entire Poudre School District if they would pay for construction of the elementary school. From Windsor to Estes Park,
046from Loveland to Wyoming, and they said yes. I was there at the Bethke school dedication and there were still few homes built. Although we have validated the concept of if you build it, they will come, there still probably is not enough assessed property value to pay the bond issue monthly or annually for uh that particular school. The third item in the three in the in the tree, a bond issue functions the same as a mortgage in which there is a borrowing and a pledge to repay. Although it is changing, the property value assessment that funds the annual bond payment for Bethke is paid for by property owners and voters west of the Timberline Road. This is the area in which we are evaluating older schools. Basically, what we have here is that property value property
047and voters west of Timberline Road are paying for the bond issue for the new schools. Your time has expired. If you could wrap up, please. >> Okay. In conclusion, consider that considering the metaphor, you probably thought it was unfair for you to pay for my building. Therefore, remember who is paying for the new schools when you think about closing the older neighborhood schools. Thank you. Uh and next up we have Joni Baker. Welcome. Uh good evening, President Zamora, members of the board, and Superintendent Kingsley. My name is Joni Baker and I'm the proud president of our Association of Classified Employees. I'm here tonight to speak about awareness and grace. On April 14th, it was announced that the district avoided a reduction in force for licensed staff, and that was wonderful news. However, it came with
048a significant, often overlooked impact on our classified staff. The reality is stark. 139 of our colleagues will not be returning next year. Additionally, 59 staff members are facing reduced hours or days, many losing some of their health benefits in the process. Next year will be challenging. We are asking a dedicated team to do more with less. In our classrooms, this means fewer hands for interventions and less support for our most vulnerable learners. Our paraprofessionals will always give their best. Their passion for their students is why they do this work. But we cannot ignore that morale is low. Despite these hardships, I want to lead with the message of grace and unity. We are entering unchartered waters. And the only way through is together. As we enter these unchartered waters, we must support one another, offer
049grace and patience. Most importantly, we must remain focused on our students. Our students' success should always remain in the forefront. Now is the time to show our community that we can navigate these challenges together. Thank you. 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 to report? Yeah, please Connor. So, quick report out from legislative committee, Director Spain and I attended and hosted the call Friday. To my count, we've got 15 or 14 days left in the session. It's becoming action-packed. Some of the biggest thing is is looks like the school finance act is going over to the house either
050later this week or early next week. And there was to my understanding just one small amendment to that. And it was immaterial in nature. So, it wasn't any kind of big change to the to the way that we're funded. The other thing is Senate Bill 135. This is the TABOR reform bill. On May 1st, there will be a day at the capital. That's this Friday. If anybody is interested in this, please shoot me an email and I will direct you to the right people to get in touch with about how to lobby your legislators. And I will leave it at that. Thank you, Connor. Does anyone else Yeah, please Scott. Yeah, I just wanted to recognize the student advisory committee is in the in the house. We got I think it's Jordan over there and
051Lucas. If you guys want to just wave. They are here to observe our our board meeting and uh I've been really happy to along with Jess to be and Carla as well to be able to to join them for their committee meetings and they're doing good work. I believe they added seven new members just last night. Uh We'll have an announcement about that coming up. So, I won't go into too many more details. >> [laughter] >> But thank you guys for being here. Great. Yeah, please. Quick ones. Brian already got ahead of me for the PSD celebrates. That'll be this coming Monday, May 4th at the Lincoln Center. I think it's a 6:00 start. 5:30? 6:00? 5:30 start. Thank you. Great [clears throat] kind of launch into celebration season with graduations. Before that, this Thursday,
052April 30th, we have I believe our last board of engagement session for this period. There'll be others later. This one is at Fort Collins High School at 5:30. At this point I did want to express my thanks to all the district staff who have been making these possible. Who are getting logistics set up, thanking the security who are there. We just did one at Timnath Middle High on a weekend. So, people are dedicating their weekends to help get those set up. The principals, the host schools, and most importantly the folks that are actually showing up and coming. We can only give you the opportunity to come and talk to us in these sessions. And for those that they're unaware or sort of curious as what they are, they're slightly different from the regular board of
053engagement sessions that are really informal and scripted. These are more targeted with the consolidation and closure process that we're moving into. There are five questions that are that are they're specific discrete questions for our community to answer in small groups. We've had some groups that have had like 30 or 50 people at Rocky. The one at Timnath Middle High, we had about 20, 17-ish. So, we had smaller discussions, but it's it's a really good opportunity for our community to pick each other's brains and to get some things on the table. The board is there to listen, to get some data, to get some input. And I do want to thank those that have come and and been brave in expressing some really candid thoughts about what they need from this process, about what values our
054district should stand for. We'll continue doing our work and hitting the pavement and reaching out to those that may not be able to come due to child care or other reasons. But I do want to express thanks to those who are who are dedicated in showing up to trying to make this process improved. Finally, on 5/6, Jess and I will be at the City County PSD Liaison Committee, the next one. I think it's being hosted by the county. There's I don't know what's on the agenda for that, but we've had some really good substantive meaningful discussions with our city city leaders and city planners about this process that we're in. So, we look forward to furthering those conversations and being very productive. That's all I got. Thank you. Any other reports? Yeah, please Coranda. I
055just want to highlight the fabulous theater programs we have in our district. I had a lovely opportunity to see The Wizard of Oz. Um Was it last week? Yeah, at Collins. And let me tell y'all, it was amazing. Um just so impressed with all the students on the stage and whatnot. But don't worry. There are some more upcoming productions that showing up. Um a personal favorite of mine, I might be a little biased. But my son >> [laughter] >> But either way, Poudre High School this weekend is going to do Much Much Ado About Nothing. I have a hard time saying that. So, that production's this week. And other school that I'm aware of, and I please forgive me any other school not uh But I think it's Fossil Ridge also has their production. It's
056on the weekend of May 8th and 9th. And I'm going to try I think it's called Kimberly Kembo Kembo. So, that's another thing. So, if that's your thing or if it's not, I encourage you to support our students cuz they are doing a fabulous job. And the reason I say this is cuz I love theater. I will go to Beulah and have been going I don't know, I think since I was like 12. And when I see these productions, sometimes these productions are equivalent to the things that I see on these national shows in our high school theater programs. And so, if you like theater, I recommend that you check out what we have in our district. Thanks. You're a good hype for our music >> [laughter] >> groups and our theater groups. All right.
057Are there any other things at the moment? Okay. Seeing none, then we'll move along. We next have our consent agenda. Would any board members like to pull anything from our consent agenda? Okay. 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. Can I get a second? Thank you, Kevin. All right, Jill, can you please call the vote? Carla Base. Aye. Connor Duffy. Aye. Kevin Havelda. Aye. Scott Showenbauer. Aye. Jessica Zamora. Aye. Dr. Coranda Ziegler. Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Thank you. Next we're moving into our action items. Our first action item is IMR EL 2.6. Can I please get a motion? I move the board determine that the superintendent has reasonably interpreted Board of Education Policy EL
0582.6 in his internal monitoring report dated April 28, 2026. And that the evidence presented supports the superintendent's conclusion stated in the internal monitoring report. Can I get a second? Thank you, Connor. And is there any discussion? Yes, please. Like always, I'm going to cherry-pick one of the things on these ELs cuz they're important. For our community to kind of give you a 10-second crash course. This is an executive limitation policy. These are the things the superintendent shall not. And the board has to hold the superintendent accountable if he violates one of these policies. So, this one being asset protection, I think it's worth pointing out the second uh policy of this EL 2.6. And I think it's a little unfair, personally. Among other things, the superintendent shall not allow facilities and equipment to be subject
059to improper wear and tear or insufficient maintenance. Now, it's not exactly superintendent's job to go out and look at every single building, every single school. We have an incredible staff that does that and monitors these things. But I think it is somewhat unfair that it's it's up to the superintendent to make sure that these maintenance issues go addressed and not go unaddressed, especially if we don't have the resources to do it. So, in the report that we that we've reviewed, the evidence suggests that the debt fill debt-free mill levy that was passed will support These are the numbers from the following, and this is an annual recurrence. 22.9 million in facilities maintenance. 21.5 million towards existing staffing and maintenance budgets. Per the statute, the debt-free mill levy funding is to be used specifically for facilities,
060which is what we're doing now. More than 30 facilities projects are to be completed in the summer of 2026. That's not a typo, right? Okay. 30 facility projects are to be completed in the summer 2026. Installation of new rooftop units are to use in air conditioning, boiler plate boiler excuse me, boiler replacements, roofing replacements, fire alarm systems, building automation systems, which we've had updates about, carpet flooring projects, athletic facilities such as tracks, tennis courts, and gym floors, generator replacements. That free mill levy also frees up 21.5 million for the following uses in the district's general fund. As we all know from the ballot language, 4 million in support of our small schools and programming, 2.5 million in high-quality instruction and replacement cycles, 15 million in competitive wages for all staff. It'd be easy for me
061to give Superintendent Kingsley the credit for not violating this policy, but I think it's behooves us all to yet again thank our community for their overwhelming support and for the incredible staff that we have that that can execute and implement these plays to make our district better, healthier, and safer. And with that, I yield the floor. >> [laughter] >> I really appreciate that call because your list of items in our agenda, not one of those 30 items is small. Not one. And so, to have staff be able to tackle 30 massive projects across our system is really impressive. Is there any other discussion on this item? All right, seeing none, Jill, can you please call the vote? Caron LeBase? I. Connor Duffy? I. Kevin Havelda? I. Scott Showalter? I. Jessica Zamora? I. Dr. Caronda Ziegler?
062I. Motion passes 6-0. Thank you. All right, next we have 8.2, our 2026-2027 student and staff device refresh. Can I get a motion? I move that the board approve expenditures in excess of $250,000 authorizing staff to issue purchase orders to DHE Computer Systems and Dell Marketing LP and expend funds to support implementation of the 2026 student and staff device refresh program. Thank you, Connor. Can I get a second? Any takers? Thank you, Caronda. All right, so tonight we look forward to hearing about the device device refresh from our Chief Technology Officer, Bud Hunt. Welcome, Bud. Good evening, board. And Superintendent Kingsley and public. Um, want to give you a brief overview about our student device refresh program as we are up for renewal this evening. Uh, I I remember when my daughter was five and
063about to enter kindergarten, I voted for the funds that are still provisioning this work right now. So, throughout our investment uh as a family and as voters in the community, I just I have a tremendous amount. It's almost ineffable effable and effable effable gratitude towards uh the the voters at that time and the staff who have before me and and supported and stewarded that and have allowed me to do the same thing. Um, the money from our refresh program does come from the 2010 mill. So, it's it's budgeted and scheduled funds. Uh, we provision currently a K-12 uh set of devices. We we begin that in kindergarten. That was the last addition to our K-12 uh model that happened during COVID. We began to deploy a one-to-one model for our K-2 students. That's a Chromebook
064device. And 3 through 12, we are a Windows laptop uh environment. That that uh investment now also supports our staff technology refresh in many and most cases. Um, while the refresh of our fleet takes 4 years, the life cycle of our computers is not 4 years. 4 years is when we begin to refresh them. As you might imagine in education, all of our devices have a second, sometimes a third, a fourth, a fifth life. We do try to retire devices for security reasons as they reach year six or seven. However, in many instances, that is a uh gentle, let us come and take this thing that you have come to care for. And on the other end of that, we also see a 4 years can't get here fast enough. So, we have a lot
065of users in the district. Uh, but we work very closely with contracting and sourcing to ensure pricing, warranty, uh and and thoughtfulness in the stewardship of those funds. Uh, we've been asked to to frame and remind folks why these expenses are important. When we don't uh continue to invest in our fleet, it does create instructional and operational interruptions, potential degradation of service. More and more, we have security concerns related to old or uh not kept up devices. They impact teaching, learning, assessment, and day-to-day school and business operations. Uh, in this particular moment as outlined in the packet materials, a a delay we believe due to as Dr. Ziegler and I were talking about just before the meeting started, everybody in the world would like all of the RAM that is available in the world for
066I don't know if you've heard of this AI. Um, it's a thing. People are talking about it. Um, we're seeing we're seeing some very significant cost movement. So, a failure right now it is likely an increase in cost even in the very short term. Um, that said, we have a lot of uh intentionality and and desire to be good stewards of that resource both in terms of how we spend time with our students and in how we spend the dollars that have been entrusted to us. And so, wanted to name for you tonight as we continue to talk about what's the right use of technology, we're experiencing several school districts across the country. You're experiencing conversations. I am eager to have those with parents who want to make sure that the 180 days that we
067have with our children are the best possible 180 days. They're focused on the right experiences. That's the work of our curriculum team. You'll hear some some things about curriculum tonight. That's the work of our educators. It's the work of our IT team to be good stewards in that space. And we want to be very intentional about that. So, we are in the process of doing some work around re-looking at two elements of our K-5 deployment. Want to name for you tonight, should we be one-to-one K-5 is an open question for us right now. We are adopting more and more digital resources and we have more and more physical items that we want our students to use. We need to get tighter on our expectations for for technology K-5. K-2 is a very interesting place for
068us in terms of where we think there's likely a difference between what we provision currently and what makes the most sense to provision. But, we're going to explore that in the year ahead. There are more details in your in your packet. And we continue to wonder if elementary school is right for a dual platform environment. That Chromebook decision was a COVID decision. We want to look at that. We want to take a look at it for all the reasons that you should on a regular basis challenge assumptions and think through things. So, want to name that with you tonight. I could read aloud to you. In fact, I will. A change in the device ratio and or that platform choice could result in an improvement in our ability to hold costs while still achieving our
069core mission. So, we have a primary need to make sure we're creating the right best experiences for children. We also need to make sure we're being the right best stewards of the dollars that we're using to provision that. And we we think that it's a good moment as a district to reorient and realign around how we are asking students and families and teachers to spend time in front of technology. Which is as as a technologist and a teacher and a dad, something that I think is always a part of the conversation about how we take up our tools and what we use them for. So, this last bullet in the slide is a little confusing. We couldn't make a decision until 26 or 27, which wouldn't take impact until 27 or 28. I just want
070to forecast for you what that means in terms of timeline. These are conversations. Some of the explorations that we've been doing as outlined in your packet are are in flight now. Many will take flight in the fall and we will be having some conversations in the new school year ahead about what that looks like in terms of instruction. So, I'll pause and see if you have any questions before we move forward. Thank you. Please. Yeah, thanks for this presentation, Bud. We talked a little before the the meeting and really glad to see that you guys are looking at revisiting the needs and maybe looking at a a refresh on on policy. I think COVID changed a lot of things. I remember when my kids were going through elementary school, they started I think they didn't
071get anything until second grade. They got a ThinkPad. And then Chromebooks just on a cart in third and fifth grade, never took them home. And then in middle school was I think when they first got their their laptops. So, that seemed to work back then. I don't know if that's with curriculum, that's a question I have for you in a second. I did talk to a volunteer this week who volunteers in an elementary school classroom. And he actually brought up something about tech. He said he's noticing and he helps a lot with math classes. He's noticing that teachers are having trouble getting started with their lesson plans because there's delays as kids are trying to boot up their computers or or get to the right the right spot. And so, he says it's it seems
072to be a struggle sometimes with the kids, which that's always going to happen. You want kids to learn how to troubleshoot that, but you know, he says I'm old school. Can we just do paper and pencil? And I said, yeah, that's probably true, but but that is something that's something that to keep in mind when you guys are talking about the needs for these these devices. The question I have is does our new curriculum in math or literacy require a laptop that can be taken home or needs to be taken home in elementary school for homework or any other other things? I I appreciate the question. I'd also love to talk to that volunteer more if you want to connect me to make sure that we're meeting that startup need because I have I have
073a couple of questions for you there that I don't think are for right now. The the answer to that question is it depends on how we implement that curriculum. And our team of of staff and our director of curriculum is here tonight. They're working through as they figure out what that deployment and implementation looks like, what the actual answers to that will be. And as we put together our pilot committee, we're working with our curriculum coordinators. We don't currently have a math person in place for next year. So, we're working through that piece, but answering those questions is a big piece of what we're trying to get tight handles on. How much screen time you probably heard a lot about screen time in your emails and it's a question we should be asking. Where those
074screens are when they're engaged those are all open questions for us. Yep. Other questions? Yeah, please. Me? Yep. I've got a few. Um I don't want to get into a big philosophical debate or conversation but I'm wondering if there's a way you could give us a summary in your view or the district's view. What is the virtue of a one-to-one ratio of devices for K through 2? Mhm. I would tell you that the the initial virtue for this organization was to support an immediate deployment of remote learning during COVID. We have come to this board and I believe you you were on the board when we've discussed how long should those Chromebooks last? What is the refresh cycle for those? That was an important question for us. Do we need to maintain a couple of
075years ago we looked at that question. Are they 4-year computers? Are they 6-year computers? We determined they're not 5-year computers. The costs got silly for us but um what is the role of screens in K1 and 2 are open questions. By second grade we do start to see a lot more assessment requirements and regular use of functionality. K1 Bud Hunt's opinion that's a place where I'd like for us to look very close. And we are seeing in terms of utilization those machines are being powered up and utilized throughout the day in schools. So they're not sitting quietly in the corner all the time. So we know there's use and we want to get tighter on that. Okay, follow-up question. I've got a few. I'm sorry if anyone else has you can jump in but I
076guess I've had a lot of conversations with parents as well and my self being one of them in this age range. Um are you aware whether the district has any policies on restricting use of devices from K through 2 and if not is that a site by site decision? And if so what are the parameters there? Is there We we deploy devices K12 for every student in our system. So the first level of control we have district policy around some basic functions that anybody who's using a district device would use. I'd refer you to oh gosh I'm going to need to refer you back to the policy which is up for revision later this year. I'm blanking on the the reference right now. What our student use of technology policy does articulate behaviors and not
077an age of like it's okay to do these things until you're 8 but then you have to really buckle down. It's a common set of expectations. Okay. As a district we've not set nor would I necessarily want to set in policy some of the requirements of do this and don't do that because we really work with our staff and our teachers and our our administrators and in some cases our special service providers around what that experience for a child should look like in the day-to-day classroom and we provision with the safety parameters that make sense universally. Am I answering your question? Yeah. Yeah, I got another question related to it. I just wanted to comment on what you're relating to but having kids in the district I will say that those first level district controls
078are pretty good. I'll give you some examples even sometimes in terms of like I've experienced right? Even trying to do homework right? Because there's certain guidelines right? So if you take a site like a I don't know if this is an example but like a YouTube right? A kid could have access to a variety of things. There's certain guidelines and restrictions that doesn't even allow for certain things. So I just wanted to you're commenting on it and I just wanted to share a lived experience of me seeing the effectiveness of those controls in terms of limiting what students do and do not have access related to their classroom instruction. I appreciate that. I will tell you that different families experience those controls differently and one thing not up for discussion tonight but we want to
079look at in the new year as well as how can we continue to refine that conversation so that the home use of technology is appropriate but thank you. I really do appreciate it. Yeah, >> [clears throat] >> I appreciate the point. I think mine was earlier down the age group the K through 2 the level of autonomy we're presuming those kids should have and the level of sophistication without appropriate supervision or help. I I still question some of the virtue there. Third question is can parents opt out of our use of screens? At this time no and and I would name that explicitly in the sense that it would in many cases it's akin to opting out of I would prefer not to have this textbook in the classroom. We do have some policy that
080allows for some discussion and some room. That's best handled at the school and in the classroom level. We have arranged some and and you'll sometimes see students who have different arrangements when it comes to if the device goes home or not related to some very specific circumstances at the school level but as a I as an option to not engage with all technology that isn't a a choice that's necessarily an appropriate or meaningful one. Um Am I answering your question? A little bit. Um and I think there's a value just to be clear I think there's a value in providing resources especially to students who may not have that resource at home and so they'll get the opportunity um I do I I'm going to press back and be a little concerned about whether we're
081allowing our parents to have any decision making whatsoever in allowing a kindergartner to have unfettered unassisted access to a screen. Let me let I completely agree with you. Let me nuance that a little bit. >> Yep. In our K5 environment those screens are not necessarily provisioned to a child. They're provisioned to a cart in the room and the teacher is very involved in when that cart is opened, when it is on when machines are taken out and what a routine or experience for the child or the children in the room might look like. Okay. There's also a level of lab management that is available to a teacher in the room to lock a machine down extremely far up to the level of let's all look at my screen together. Let's look at one screen. Let's
082look at a screen and not engage with the technology. So it is not the case that in kindergarten we're saying please enjoy this Chromebook we'll check on you in 6 months. It's a much more graduated release of responsibility and I would agree with I would certainly agree with the idea and all of all of the educators I work with would say we we have to be very attentive to the experiences that we're setting up for our children in in those domains. Okay. I appreciate it. The last one is so I think we're you're you're talking about a conversation that we're going to have about um informing the journey of education in PSD the right device in the right situation etc. So can you give us an idea of what that looks like? Are we going
083to have a committee stand up or is it going to be more board presentations or what can we expect? >> At this moment in time we have and there's some specifics in your packet. There are other things that are still being developed. We've got multiple experiments. In a district this large there are frequently experiments going on in terms of let's try this model. Let's try this mode. Let's try this software. In the case of the ratios we are putting together a pilot group to explicitly look at in K5 some screen time expectations and recommendations. Some platform or environment conversations. So I'll go back to the math example. Does the math curriculum my answer is no right now but does it require a Windows device to do what it needs to do? That that curriculum material
084is primarily provided through the browser but we need to have our arms around all of the experiences that we are provisioning for students to have in K5 and make sure that there aren't Windows specific requirements there. And so that's an active pilot that we're looking at. We're also looking at assessment windows and time and expectations because assessments are a place where we frequently get stuck in how many screens do we need with how much time and some very mundane things like and how much battery do we have to make through the testing window and the number of children that need to test so that we can prioritize our staff time to teaching children and administering assessments and not managing batteries and then hopefully administering assessments and then hopefully attending to children. Does that make sense?
085So we'll be looking at that very intentionally and very specifically with a tighter eye towards that in K5. Yeah. Thank you. Other questions or comments? Yeah. Please Scott. I just have a comment I think we all know Bud is one of the the more well-read um members of our staff and therefore his vocabulary is pretty strong. So for those keeping score at home it's ineffable when he was talking that's the only thing I focused on in this whole presentation. I'm so sorry. Um And thank you. >> When he was talking about his appreciation for the devices for his kids while in school it means too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words. So very well used word and thank you Bud for continuing to educate us. Thank you. >> [laughter] >> You
086do other stuff all around here. >> [laughter] >> Always a good time. All right. Did you have any Oh yeah, please. I just wanted to make a request in relation to this whether it be I don't know whoever's watching or whatever. I would love to know like what are the concerns with technology? That's like a broad concern screen time. So like um if those concerns are up if we could be specific around that it could I I just feel like maybe some of those questions could be answered. I think Bud did an excellent job in saying how that's managed in the classroom, how there's carts, how teachers can manage those different things. And so if we know specifics we potentially I don't want to put none on nobody's back. Don't have me up here lying
087but um answer those questions versus making an assumption that technology is used in the classroom, students are on the screens all the time right? And it's taking away from their education and learning. So that's just kind of a call out to folks of can we be specific because when we have specifics we can then actually address the concern cuz we'll know what the need is. I just wanted to state that. Thanks. I really appreciate that. I think your slides were done so good. >> Quite content. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. All right. If there are no no other big words for us Bud. Yes, please. Sorry real quick Bud. Thank you for all of this. >> Um in relation to what Dr. Ziegler was saying I think that um potentially a concern of
088parents could be that because we're lacking facilitators in classrooms that kids are spending more time on screens and I don't know how we would make an assessment of that but maybe that's something that we hear from our parents and educators themselves. Thank you for the comment. All right, I think we're ready to take the vote, Jill. Carla base. I. Connor Duffy. I. Kevin havelda. Nay. Scott show and bower. I. Jessica Zamora. I. Dr. Corrine de Ziegler. I. Motion passes 5-1. Thank you. Okay. Next up we have our ELD curriculum. Can I get a motion? I move that the board approve the K-12 and newcomers English language development ELD curriculum 7-year 1-year print from Cengage Cengage I'm not saying that right. Cengage for $362,208.83. Can I get a second? Thank you very much, Carla and I
089believe we have a presentation. Yeah, so with with us this evening to present the English language development curriculum is one of our assistant superintendents, Dr. In Sun Olson. In Sun, welcome. Good evening, President Zamora, board directors, and Superintendent Kingsley. I am very honored and excited to bring this curriculum to you. I want you to take a moment >> [clears throat] >> and think about in any of your schooling experience whether it was in elementary, middle, or high, or college and think about when you got a book that had pages torn, had holes in it, had highlighting in it, may have something fall out of it when they shake it, all the things, right? And then think about a time when you got a brand spanking new textbook. Maybe it was college cuz you were forced
090to buy it. I don't know. That's an experience I had but there's some there's something that comes with new materials for students who may not always have had access to concrete materials in the past. And so with that and a personal story, I don't know if you know but English is not my first language. I came to the United States in right before kindergarten and began my journey of language acquisition in public education. I was the only minority student in my K-8 school and we did not have curriculum like I'm getting ready to present to you today. I'm sure if you hear me now, you may not realize that English is my second language but I had to work really, really hard to shift my accent and to assimilate into our culture and our language
091and one thing I'm super proud of with the work that our staff have done in conjunction with the language, culture, and equity department and our curriculum and instruction department is to really find a curriculum that not only honors who they are as a person but amplifies their skill set in their own language so that they can now access and gain skills and confidence and competence in the English language arts component of our school. And so this is a direct connection to our strategic plan under literacy, our high quality instructional materials. We have explicit instruction that is now going to come in and ensure that our students are learning not only academic vocabulary but also social vocabulary. And as you know, there are multiple ways that we communicate in schools and our job is to help
092our students not only be literate but also be confident citizens within our own community. They will be supported in the four domains of language which is listening, speaking, reading, and writing and it absolutely is a direct through line to disrupting our disproportionality. And so I'm very excited that not only are we going to be honing in on language acquisition for our students but this is going to give our students who are coming in not at the proficiency level and or first time in our country that they will be able to not only leverage their own language but then also be engaged and be able to have access to all of the amazing options that we have here in Poudre School District. And just a friendly reminder that the funds for this has been earmarked through
093our regular general funds of curriculum and instruction so that we were prepared for a adoption I think first time in 15 to 20 years possibly. Oh, I was being nice. Over 25 years we have not adopted a high quality instructional materials for our multilingual learners and we are super proud of the fact that we went through a rigorous process. It was identified, it was piloted, and here is the proposal from the staff who would be teaching these courses within our schools. Oh, the other piece I wanted to say is the reason there is a discrepancy of 7-year software but 1-year materials is that we did hear you and we wanted to ensure that we were able to adjust our purchases every year based on exact student enrollment or the best that we can get as
094our ML population can fluctuate throughout the year but that is why you see a discrepancy of years is so that we can really meet the needs of our students and ensure that every year we have really good quality materials in front of our students. That's it for me. Any questions from you? Questions? Yeah. I just want to point [clears throat] out that in reviewing the contract, there was what I thought was a really nice provision about safeguarding of confidential student information. Yeah. I was really encouraged by that given other things we've heard in the news. This is pretty very good and also there is a I'm looking over Autumn and Dave, there is a choice of law and choice of venue that selects Colorado law and Larimer County. That's nice. Thank you. It's a good
095cost since you were very concerned about that for previous things. Out of curiosity, the cost of this is for the full 7 years or is that a Okay, thank you. I just wanted to affirm based on your comment. Are there any other questions or comments at this time? All right, I would simply like to say let's not go another 25 years. That would be wonderful. Thank you so much. All right, Jill, can you please call the vote? Carla base. I. Connor Duffy. I. Kevin havelda. I. Scott show and bower. I. Jessica Zamora. I. Dr. Corrine de Ziegler. I. Motion passes 6-0. Thank you. All right, next up we have French Field Track and Turf replacement. Can I get a motion? I move that the board approve expenditures for the French Field Track and Turf replacement
096in excess of $250,000 authorizing staff to execute a contract for $2,405,877 with Renner to provide construction services. Thank you, Connor. Can I get a second? Thank you, Scott. Great. So tonight we are here to get board approval for the for board consideration for approval for the Rocky Mountain High School French Field Track and Field. The track the French Field is actually located close to Rocky Mountain High School but it's actually shared by many of our high schools. So this is actually a facility that is not just for one high school but many high schools across the district and and other programs. This project is actually one that we wanted to do last summer because the condition of the field was such that we felt like that was important to do last summer but given the
097short timeline we had to get everything ready, we just didn't feel like that was going to be accomplishable last summer so we are bringing it forward this summer to be completed summer of '26. Just a little background, the last time that the the field was was worked on is in in 2012 and it was resurfaced and the turf was replaced and replaced. That was roughly 14 years ago and typically for these type surfaces you're getting anywhere from 8 to 12 years. So so that's why we were talking about it last summer cuz it was in poor poor disarray at that deterioration at that point. The the replacement is necessary because safety, the functional service and and that supports student athletes. So the way it's described to me is that the the field has been compacted
098such that it no longer has the cushion that's necessary and I learned a lot about this. They actually come and test this to see is there enough cushion when people fall on the fields and and our athletic director has been concerned that it may not pass that test for a while. That's just one example of some of the things that are starting to deteriorate on on such a big level that we felt that we needed to bring this forward for the board's consideration tonight. The summer '26 work would be completed this summer and and again it's made possible because of the debt free mill levy. Great. Are there any questions or concerns? Yes, please. I just want to firm and support this. Um I don't know if anyone knew, but I ran track for a
099long time and I never knew that that would actually come into play on school board, but it does make a difference in terms of the quality of that track. I can recall times of running on not so great tracks and the damage and the impact that it has on your body. There's also a consequence of spikes not landing and grounding correctly causing trip ups and falls and different things and stuff like that. So yeah, also the way it's taken care of, it also makes it more resistant to weather because when you do have things that need to be repaired, it can wear out over time and stuff. So I just wanted to add that extra piece of having had that experience that this is a good purchase to have as we support our students in
100all their activities. And I and I continue to learn more even tonight about our tracks and field. So thank you very much. Great. Other comments? Yeah. Yeah, I'd second Dr. Ziegler on those comments. I think the fact that this is a you know, well used facility for a lot of different schools in the district including our our middle schools, sometimes our elementary schools. It's really important to have this as a safe facility. The cushioning is really important. I've I've seen it with my kids and their friends and it's it's a big deal when you play on a poor field. So we want to be proud of of what we offer. So thank you. So is the field getting replaced with turf as I understand it? My my it wasn't loading yesterday and today. >> So
101so we're actually doing both the track and the turf. So it's pretty substantial retrofit of the field. Is the district looking to replace a lot of our natural grass with turf and if not could we look into that to save on water costs? >> to come back to you with some further discussion with staff to see what we're talking about there and and to actually see what our inventory looks like with with what is natural gas and grass and turf. And we're actually talking about it right now in real time because we're expecting that water is going to be a precious resource this summer and that we may have to put some drought considerations in them to as to what we're watering and what we're not. So that that also is something that we're looking
102at. And the one I appreciate that. And then the one other caution I'd give is was also former athlete in a former life Dr. Ziegler playing a lot of soccer in my life. The quality of the turf matters and I don't want to our kids to get injured. There's there's research that suggests our teenage girl soccer is more susceptible to ACL tears on certain kinds of turf and so I want to make sure that we're not going cheap on certain things if we can do it right. So if we have any kind of studies or anything that would would help. I I I know we had the right experts in the room having that conversation specifically our athletic director and and he was very instrumental in making sure that we got what the right value
103for the district is and not going with the cheapest and and as you said there's actually cases in Colorado where that's been an issue. And people putting in turf that was on sub par and then injuries happening having to replace it again. It's not a good situation. So I figured you guys had it covered. I just wanted to put it out in the room too. That's another reason why when we do good procurement we have the right experts in there to actually create a good scope that we're thinking through all those things. Appreciate it. Yeah, please. Just last thing since everyone's bragging about their athletic experience. Uh you know, as a player I spent a lot of time on the bench. I think the sideline condition is also important. So thank you. >> [laughter] >>
104I think we're all feeling that we're heading towards the end of the school year. >> [laughter] >> Uh yeah, but our field isn't until June. So we've got some time left. We've two months left of board meeting meetings. Keep it going. >> [laughter] >> But I do think we're ready to call the vote. Yes, yes, Joe. Carla Baze. I. Conner Duffy. I. Kevin Havalda. I. Scott Showenbauer. I. Jessica Zamora. I. Dr. Karanda Ziegler. I. Motion passes 6-0. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dave. All right. Next, we have a bus purchase agreement. Can I get a motion? I move that the board approve expenditures in excess of $250,000 authorizing staff to execute a purchase order totaling 2,169,806 for bus fleet replacement with McCandless Truck Center. Q&A please. Oh, can I get a second? I'm sorry.
105Thank you, Karanda. All right. All right. Joining us this evening to present information about the bus purchase item is our transportation director Mr. Dan Weaver. Dan, welcome. Thank you and welcome. It's always lovely to see you. Um are there any comments on our potential bus purchase? No. All right. I >> have no comments. I just All right. I'm going to just joke cuz I'm not Um but I support this and so I didn't realize serving on the board would bring back so many childhood memories. But I can recall buses breaking down and being stuck on the side of the road and it takes a very long time for that to be repaired. Um so I just want to say that we should always support the replacement of buses because it's a very harmful experience and
106decades later kids remember that experience. So I support Yeah, yeah. Sorry. I was looking at the materials. How did What's the sourcing fund of this? I think you covered it Dan, but it Was this a bid or what was this? It was. Yeah, I apologize. I just found out my mic was off. So I'm I'm a loud gentleman, so I heard me anyway. Yes, we did set it out for public bid. There was an IFB done through Bidnet and we did receive bids back. This was the lowest bidder and the time scope is also on par with the the other ones as well. I just wanted that for the record cuz in my packet there I didn't think anything was checked. So just it did go out to bid. This was the lowest cost. >>
107Correct. Yeah, lowest cost. Um Yeah, comparatively to everybody and all of the manufacturing are about the same time to get them. We'd be anticipating a delivery in September or October. So shortly after next school year starts. Of this year. Wow, that's that That is impressive considering we've had some long lead times in the past. Yeah, and part of that in the past was that International, which is the company we are going with for these, they were actually redesigning their buses. And so they were going they were between generations and so they were short on inventory and unable to supply some of the stuff plus then supply chain crisis stuff. So yeah, they've they've significantly increased the turnaround time. It's great. Yeah. Are there any other questions? Yeah, please. I just have a quick comment. I
108also rode the Tin Twinkie to school and as we lovingly called it and I have just in the last nine months become aware of how much you all do and that your techs also are drivers and that you're covering all of the bases with many fewer drivers than you need. I just want to have that on the record and make sure that our community knows how amazing you all are and the incredible trust that we all have in you to get our kids safely to school. Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate that. I get to be part of a fantastic team. Here, here. Um just because I've been around a minute, like I think you I appreciate you calling out that we have historically had an average age that was substantially higher than the
109nine-year goal and the fact that 11 years gets us within reach of it is a huge achievement. Like that is it makes me just feel safer like for our students. It just makes me feel more confident that our fleet can we're not we don't have to worry about will there be a bus. So, I appreciate the work and the diligence um and just thank you so much for making this happen. Thank you to our voters for obviously helping us financially make it happen, but also thank you to your team for your diligence in getting us the best price, making sure we're getting quality buses over and over. So, thank you so much. It's our pleasure. Thank you. All right. I think we're ready. Yeah, vote. Thank you, Jill. Carla Bayes. Hi. Connor Duffy. Hi. Kevin
110Havelda. Hi. Scott Showalter. Hi. Jessica Zamora. Hi. Dr. Caranda Ziegler. Hi. Motion passes 6-0. We're a lively bunch today. Thank you so much, Dan. You want to take a break? I'm going to. Does anyone else need a break? Are we ready to keep going? You want the 2-minute 2-minute break? All right, we'll come back at 7:18-ish. Let's get as close to that as possible. >> Okay. All right. We're going to rein it back in. We are professionals. Um and now we have our informational item for our preliminary budget for fiscal year 26 27. Yeah, Brian, welcome. Uh Brian Gustafson, our budget director, is here to present our preliminary budget for fiscal year 2026 2027. Glad you're here, Brian. Good evening. It's good to be back with you all again this this week to uh talk
111about the preliminary budget that's in your packet. And as was mentioned earlier, this is the first of three budget submissions. And a couple weeks ago we talked about what this budget would entail. And so we're going to build off that conversation and understand that uh while doing this, I'm going to talk about numbers, but also give you a little bit of a brief tour of the budget document. And so walk through both of those things simultaneously. Now, just to set the stage a little bit, uh what's on the screen is a visual of a summary sheet that we like to use when we get together and we we talk about uh what's available in the budget. And that's what the the purpose of this preliminary budget is is to identify what's available for ongoing recurring
112needs. So, I'm not going to go through this slide specifically line by line, but what the presentation does is it addresses each of these lines. And so we'll go through this. I'll show this again at the end. But the bottom line down there at the right bottom right corner is that this preliminary budget identifies a difference between the revenues and beginning balances versus the expenditures and ending fund balances of about little over $5 million, about $5.1 million. That's that's going to be available for on-time recurring uses. Now, I will tell you as was mentioned earlier, this is a draft. And things will change. We we will have some changes and I anticipate even in the the few days since submitting this to board packets, going through some different analyses, that some changes have been already
113uh starting to to pop up. But we'll we'll talk through this budget with that number in the back of our minds. Again, I'll reiterate. As was already mentioned, this is a draft. This is a draft and we're going to keep coming back to this is a draft. I think I mentioned last time uh the budget guy's default is always, "Hey, uh I'm going to be wrong. I'm going to be wrong." Hey, but there will there will be changes here. We feel pretty confident uh despite the uncertainties that we're experiencing as we've been talking about with uh state funding and other things. We feel fairly confident about where this will end up. Uh and and I'll guide you through that a little bit here this evening. Primarily, we're going to focus on the general fund. In
114fact, almost exclusively on the the general fund, but primarily on the revenue portion of it. And touch a little bit on expenditure um assumptions and what's what's not in there. So, in the document, if you you've got hopefully the document in front of you. I And uh I'll I'll talk about pages so you can kind of follow along. You're going to see comparisons, four columns in there. You're going to see three years. Last year, last year is fiscal year 24 25. We call that fiscal year 25. This year is fiscal year 25 26. We call that fiscal year 26. And then next year, fiscal year 26 27. So, you'll see a comparison of last year's actual numbers compared to uh this year's budget and this year's estimated actuals through three quarters of the year, through
115the end of March. And then next year's budget figures as a preliminary look. What do we have in this document? Well, we've got various funds, primarily the general fund. Hey, but all of our other funds are represented here as well and they have separate pages in pages 7 through 14 of the document. Not going to get into those really tonight, but if you have questions, certainly welcome uh uh those later on. And understand that those are still being worked through just like the general fund. We we've got um adjustments and and um some things to dial in with the other funds. So, let's turn to page two in the budget. And page two starts us off into our operational um budget revenue summary. And we've talked multiple times in in board meetings about program funding
116or the total program. That's the formula, right? We keep going back to the formula. Funded pupil count times number of funded pupils. And this number represents about three quarters of our general fund budget. That's why we focus so heavily in this area. I I've got a uh graphic on the screen that has those four columns of fiscal year 25 versus 26 and a budget column for operational budget revenue for fiscal year 27. We're going to talk about the formula a little bit that will generate what we expect to be about $325.2 million. Just quickly stepping backwards, what goes into that $325.2 million? It's different now than it used to be. Hey, we're in that situation if you recall from a few weeks back where we're in the the crossover of two school finance acts. And
117so we are assigned basically a funding dollar right now and then uh we we know our estimates for funded pupils and we back into that per pupil rate. It didn't always used to be like that and then that will change down the road as well. But as we look on the right side of this screen, the table that's there, fiscal year 26 27, uh the total program estimate of $325.2 million. To do the math to get there, we expect our funded pupil count to be 27,786.1 students. This does include our district charters. Hey, to get to that 325 million, that per pupil rate would be about $11,705. Hey, a 3% increase from what the rate is this year. Hey, comparing year over year, fiscal year 27 to 26, it's pretty similar. Pretty similar and that's
118cuz we're in this hold harmless situation. Hey, it is about $715,000 more based on this calculation. Uh but what I'm illustrating below that table is we do expect that our charter uh in-district charter enrollments are growing. Not quite to the same level as maybe we thought initially. Uh but we do know that uh a portion of this will go to fund their growth, right? About a million dollars is the estimate right now. Hey, now if you're doing the math, you go, "Well, gosh, how many charter kids is that?" Hey, that million dollars includes not only program funding, but charter um allocations, and mill levy funding, special education funding. It's the whole the whole formula that's in there. Hey, we expect having having seen uh the preliminary charter budgets start to come in in the last
119couple weeks, charter growth at about 1% when initially we were thinking about 2% pupil growth. Right. Now, in talking with some of those folks, uh that they're strategizing intentionally to kind of undershoot a little bit. Where where maybe this year they overshot some estimates and then had some um some negative TRUA. So, just that that's some information for you. So, really when you take that out, we're looking at uh $285,000 decline in program funding when you um uh remove those those charter allocations. Hey, we talked about this a little bit last time as well and trying to get to that idea of uh trying to conceptualize this whole hold harmless thing. And so uh what I've what I've done here is in hopes to simplify a little bit is really just reduce this down to
120the three years that are included in in the budget. Hey, the previous year 25, the current year 26, next year 27. These three bars hey, represent uh from the range of 300 million up hey, where the hold harmless line was established. Hey, we've got uh stack bar charts there with these these uh levels right about $355 million all across the board. Hey, that calculation was identified last year as our hold harmless calculation for the entire district. What's in here, the the tops of these bars are the charter school institute amounts that come out before we even get to that 325 million I was just talking about. Hey, the calculation starts there. Hey, that's the horizontal line right at the top of this this bar chart. Hey, those get peeled out and then the formula that
121I've been talking about is really below that gold line that's in the middle. Hey, that's the allocation line that starts in with our 2024 School Finance Act. Okay, so when we peel out that the Charter School Institute amounts and that initial hold harmless calculation, we get a look at our program funding in a little more of a realistic manner for what's in district here. Okay, where we have a line of a funding allocation going from fiscal year 25 up to 26 and across the 27, that's the new School Finance Act and what it's providing for our district. Okay, that's that $325 million that I was just referencing. Okay, the dark blue bars in these stack bars represent the calculation of funded pupils times per pupil rate in the previous School Finance Act, 1994. Okay, that
122number for next year would be about $317 million. We're going to be funded at 325-ish. There's a difference. Okay, that difference is what we're calling the hold harmless and what's being referred to across the state as the hold hold harmless. That includes a lot of things. That's a lot of one-time dollars like we talked about from the state level that's propping that up, we believe. Okay, that includes part of a phase-in of the new School Finance Act, but in in that fiscal year 27 bar, the gap that's shaded and got a little texture there, that's the hold harmless that we feel are one-time dollars in our formula. Okay, I paused to you last time and I'll pause again if we've got some questions for for clarification. Brian, would you mind Thank you for the gentle
123pause. Would you mind going back one slide? So, many of us I think in many members of the community are visual learners and so one of the things that took me a second for my eyes to calibrate on this slide. I think Brian did an amazing job explaining it. When you look at peeling out the yellow parts of the each of those bars for CSI schools, it's visually looking like, well, that's a lot of money. And I just want all of us to orient our eyes to where the Y axis on this grid starts at 300 million. So, when you think about our total share of the contribution of like what we're retaining, it it doesn't start at zero there. So, there's a lot more depth to those bluer bars and I just think for
124those of us that are visual learners, it's just important to call that out. Yeah, thank you. We're we're zooming in so you can see that detail. Okay, so we've talked a lot about that total program. Where does that stand right now? Well, as was mentioned earlier, the School Finance Act is is still going. I think that was in the second reading with the Senate today and and still proceeding. Uh we don't anticipate really significant changes uh based on what we've been hearing so far. Uh in fact, we received a communication from CDE last week that's basically was like, "Stop asking for runs. Stop. You're not going to get it. Uh use the January 14th data and keep plugging along and when the School Finance Act comes out with with some numbers, then uh the the
125folks that generate that that data for us will will start to plug it in. So, I don't have uh any additional information besides what we've had as far as the numbers. So, we're continuing on uh with the assumptions that we've been working off of. So, again, back to page two in the document, we talked about the state formula, about $700,000 more than last year. The big middle section of that page is other local revenue. And you can see that we we have in the budget various local revenue items. Primarily, the the bulk of local revenue are mill levy override dollars. And we have a handful of them in there, six of them in there, okay, from 1988 all the way through 2019. And that revenue is budgeted to be about $66 million next year. A
126significant chunk. The general fund total program is about three quarters of our our general fund. Okay, this is a really large large bucket, that mill levy override that's been approved over over different years. Of those mill levy override dollars from different elections, one grows annually by the rate of inflation. The others remain stagnant. They were um passed on set dollar amounts. Okay, but the 2019 mill grows by the the established rate of inflation in the School Finance Act at 2.3%. We we expect that to be about 500,000 and that drives the change in what we see in other local revenue for next year. Below that, we've got other state revenue categories and we talk about categorical funding. These are specific uh streams of dollars to address specific needs in school districts. For instance, transportation reimbursements,
127special education state funding, uh vocational funding, various uh other ones. These are scheduled to also increase by the rate of inflation and when you start to factor those in, we feel like that section, that state section will grow by about a million dollars next year. So, we see some some revenue growth, not not really huge growth because we're talking about 2.3% inflation, but some growth in those those sources. Below the state revenue, we've got a federal revenue section and right now we're leaving that unchanged. Okay, that's primarily our Medicaid reimbursement dollars. And federal revenue as we've talked about over the the last year or so, we've got some uncertainties there, instabilities here, and we also work on a much different fiscal year when we're talking about federal federal dollars that we have to integrate into
128our school fiscal year. So, we'll learn more about federal dollars hopefully a little later on in the year and that's something that if there are significant changes, we can address with a mid-year budget revision if necessary, but I don't anticipate right now making many changes to the federal revenue lines. If you turn to page three, okay, that also a revenue summary, but basically condenses what we went through in page two. So, it takes all those sections, reduces them down and it adds in a key component down at the end in line 16, that of the beginning balance. Beginning balance is what we anticipate will be the ending fund balance from this year moving into next year. Okay, we've got two more two more months of activity obviously and I things, you know, I'm knocking on
129wood. I'm doing all the things you got to do to you know, bring some good mojo, but things are looking pretty good, but you never know, right? You never know and so we're we're hoping that that's where the the beginning balance comes in and when you combine that beginning balance of 75. just about $9 million with what we anticipate to be about $444.5 million of revenue, we've got a grand total of $520 million in the the general fund budget. At the end, when we compare this to expenditures plus reserves, those two dollar amounts should match. In the preliminary budget, they don't and that's intentional because of this availability that I've been talking about for ongoing uses. So, we'll jump in and talk a little bit about expenditures. Pages four and six of the document uh
130look at the the general fund expenditures. Okay, here at PSD, page four is a good illustration of this. We really kind of carve it out differently than a lot of places and we look at expenditures by location type. So, you can look and you can see, well, elementary schools, what do we spend at elementary schools? Okay, and that includes all kinds of things. That's compensation, that's books, that's whatever that gets assigned to elementary school locations. Okay, same thing as you go down through the list of those locations, uh finance, you know, that's what we spend in the finance operation. So, it's not quite by program and object that maybe uh would be in different formats. This a little more of the kind of the the user-friendly sort of um general look at at expenditures. We
131do, however, compare it to a different slice that's on page six and that's more of a compensation focus where we lump some things together, but we break out how we spend the dollars on on uh licensed staff versus administrative staff and classified staff. So, you can see where the compensation chunk of the budget falls and how we spend those across the the classifications. Okay, so as you explore the budget, though those are always interesting things to compare, pages four pages six. Uh We'll talk about what's what's in these. Okay, in or we'll stay on page four, that budget column is based initially on fiscal year 26 estimated actuals. So, through three quarters of the year, we analyze, all right, where are we at? What do we know about these locations? How are they trending with
132expenditures? And then we try to project, what will the end of the year look like? That then becomes the basis for establishing the budget for fiscal year 27. And then we make some additions and subtractions. Okay, based on some known variables that that we've got in front of us. Some projected cost increases that were we know we're going to be facing. We know our health benefits, the district portion of premiums is going to go up by about 5%. Okay, that's about $1.6 million. Additionally, we have have been monitoring leaves of absence and what we spend on leaves of absence over the past few years and acknowledge that we need to increase what we budget on those. Okay, to the tune of about 700,000 dollars uh to get us more in line with with how we
133spend there. Uh we're all feeling the pain at the pump. And the the buses, as Mr. Weaver talked about earlier, are going to be feeling that for a while, too. Right? And so, fuel is the big driver of what we see are some increases when we're talking about fuel, insurance, and utilities. And then I've already talked about uh how we flow through dollars to the charters. What else is hitting that that uh budget column? Well, our schools and our departments have been working hard to adjust the budget and make reductions as well. And when we deployed the school-based or student-based budgets out here in uh February, right, for the declining enrollment impact, if you were to compare fiscal year 26 with 27 student-based budgets, hey, 27 will be about 8.2 million dollars less. Okay, so
134that is also um reflected in this fiscal year 27 budget column. Additionally, our central departments are are going through processes and and finalizing those to evaluate their budgets and have identified to this point about 2.9 million dollars of reductions there. Okay, so those are also reflected across the location types that you see in the expenditure columns. Okay, so what's missing? Well, what's missing is changes in compensation besides the health benefits. Right? That's that's considered some compensation. We know that one we know that driver is uh set. Uh what's what's missing is, okay, the difference uh in compensation. So, as we start to get towards the end of the budget, we turn to page five and take a look at the reserves. Okay, the fund balances. The series of stack bar charts are on the screen
135is a reflection of 10 years of reserve levels. And this is something that you've seen a portion of in a in a previous monitoring report. But this compares uh ending fund balances from June 2017 through June 2026. And the the trend is pretty obvious, right? You you can identify that fund balance and reserves grew through 2020, 2021, 2022 pandemic times as we had other sources come in and and stabilize the budget. And then as those sources were spent, right, the reserve levels have been dropped. Okay, what the office of state auditor and those that would be monitoring these, what they would look for are trends, like increasing trends, decreasing trends. And we're at that spot where we need to start to see a stabilizing trend, if not, probably a little bit of an increase as
136we move through uh the next few years. What's uh stacked up in these these bars are various forms of reserves. From the bottom is the most restrictive. The bottom sections. Right, we can't we can't spend the non-spendable reserves, which is a very, very, very small amount. You can't even see it on these bar charts, it's so small. That's inventory. Followed by uh restricted levels of reserves, which are things like our table reserve, that's a statutory 3% we can't touch. And and multi-year obligations. Uh and as we move up these charts, we get to a little bit more flexibility with how we can uh utilize these reserves. Committed reserves is that that's a an amount that really helps us transition with a an overlap of our payroll calendar versus our fiscal year calendar. They don't quite
137line up by a month. So, that reserve helps us make an audit transition, a gap transition there. And then we've got assigned reserves. That's where we see a lot of our carryovers and budgets and more things that have identified uses in our budget. This year, and I'm going to show you these numbers here in here in a moment. This year, as a group coming into this year, we identified a portion of this year's hold harmless to assign in the event of future funding uncertainty, about 4.3 million dollars. That's part of that green middle section. In June of 26. And then the top is the unassigned reserve section. That's where there's the most discretion and we have two unassigned reserve categories. If you were to look on page five, line 61 and 62, those are the
138unassigned reserve lines. We have a required that and this is district requirement, Board of Education Contingency Reserves. We would really like that to be a much higher number than what you see right there. Okay, that's uh so a number we would like to get into the 2% range and at the end of this year, it's probably about a half of a percent. Right? And so, I'm going to talk about what are what's our strategy to address this. Okay, that number combined with the number below it of uh the appropriated reserve, that's that's sort of the what's left. Okay, that's there for emergencies. We appropriate the dollars, things come up, we have that available to address challenges that occur during the year. Whether that be a mid-year recession, we had that question last last time, uh
139or other things that that come up. Those two amounts combine, and this is reflected in the estimated actuals on the screen in fiscal year 26, are about 3 and 1/2%. Okay, our target there that we're working to get to and we feel like we need to get back towards is like 7, 8%. for those two items combined. Yes, sir. get to it, but how does the district accrue unassigned reserves? Can I jump forward to that cuz that's a question that's been percolating. Unless you want to build the suspense in your presentation. The un- the unassigned reserves um really it it it's kind of like I I'm trying to think of it simply. It's it's a little bit of what's not already spoken for. Right? So, if we haven't spoken for them in other areas of
140the reserves or expenditures, then that's how they get here. Okay, and then when we have an established level, for instance, in the the required Board of Education Contingency Reserve, we have an established level. That's going to be modified annually and try and held at about 2% of the budgeted expenditures unless there's a significant event that reduces them. We had a significant event that reduced those and so now we actually have to make some adjustments to then start to replenish those. Does that help a little bit? Okay. So, as we look at next year, what's the strategy uh that we're putting into this preliminary budget to start addressing this this uh need to start to replenish reserves? Okay. Line 60 has the reserve for funding uncertainty. And in this year, we carved that out as part
141of the hold harmless, about 4.3 million dollars. All hopes are that we don't have to address or or utilize those those dollars here on the next couple months to address any uncertainties. And then uh to address that question, the the process would be move or reallocate that out of assigned reserves and more into that required Board of Ed Board of Ed Contingency Reserves for next year. Starting to replenish that portion of the fund balance. Okay, that would start to to get that moving back toward the 2% target in that particular line that we'd be looking for. Okay, the appropriated reserve line, that illustration of uh 13.3 million dollars, that is simply a multiplier right now comparing um that to the the budgeted expenditures so far. So, that will change as we add more expenditures in
142and what we try and peel out there. But those two combine would then be more at a 5% level. We're we're starting to head in the direction of getting getting a little higher, but still some work to do there. Okay, now I'll take your attention back to line 60. The addition of uh another reserve for funding uncertainty. If you think back to the the stack bar charts where we showed the hold harmless, that 7 million dollars is the difference between the 1994 and the expected 2024 levels. Right? Again, could change. We we've got to see these numbers come out, but that gap, that 7 million dollars is the the the plan in this budget would be to put that into that reserve for funding uncertainty. So, then you kind of see how this flow starts
143to work. If we can get into fiscal year 28 and not have to utilize those dollars, then we've got that to start to build our unassigned reserves. As we think about things down the road, um you know, we we've we've even received emails from lobbyists, case, others that say, "Gosh, with this state budget being propped up on a lot of one-time funds, wouldn't be surprised by a recession in early 2027." Well, how would we address that? Okay, this would be our how. Uh we do not we have no idea what those levels would be, but this would be the strategy towards how. Okay, thinking even uh further down the road, we've talked about specific ownership tax sweeps. Fiscal year 28 beyond, how would we address those changes? You know, this is where we're trying to
144get into a system to to address those and think into the future. Um for those those things, we can maintain some agility to address those. And then continuing the the impacts of enrollment. And what is that going to do with our school portfolio throughout the district? How are we going to address any changes that occur there? We've got to continue to think about strategically using these assigned and unassigned reserves to to probably get into those spaces. So, we'll add one more line down at the bottom. It's on that same page, line 65. You do all that math, you compare the expenditures and reserves combined versus the operating revenues and the beginning balance, and we've got a difference of $5.1 million. Uh That's what's different in this budget. When it when we come back with a
145proposed budget in a few weeks, hey, then the hope would be uh any compensation changes have been identified, other changes have been identified that we've plugged into the budget that would balance this out. But, that's what's different and available as of right now. And that takes us back to this summary summary uh page. Okay, again, I'm not going to go through it, but those are the items I hit on uh as we as we went through the presentation. Hey, that you know, and we're constantly looking at, okay, if we had uh to walk through the math of these things, how would these uh be adjusted? Then we try and use this to check check the budget numbers. So, what's next? Uh we talked about the school finance act. We've got the negotiations process and and
146compensation decisions to make. And uh any final department adjustments and budget priorities that that uh arise have to be addressed. Uh we've got scheduled, anyway, I believe I have the dates right, uh fiscal year proposed budget here on May 26th, where we'll show you the the next and closer iteration of where we think this should land. And then budget adoption scheduled, I believe, for June 9th with uh the requirement of having it adopted by June 30th. All right, with that, what questions do you have? Questions? Comments? It's a lot to take in. Yes. Even though you just did this 2 weeks ago, still never ceases to amaze me. Yeah, please, Connor. Brian, quickly, on the expenditure side for health insurance costs, um driving that increase, are we seeing um a higher rate or are we
147seeing what we saw coming out of COVID of uh more of our employees utilizing those services? Um boy, I'd have to I'd have to think back to the benefits committee for some specific answers, but I can I can say just generally the rate increases we've seen over the past few years have really resulted from utilization. All right, and in particular, shock claims. And and so, the benefits committee does a lot of a lot of work with Aon, um uh a broker to monitor and analyze those and try and mitigate any increases as as uh they arise. And and this year has been a little better year than what we've seen recently. And and nobody cele wants to celebrate a 5% increase, but uh I know our HR department is tracking what others are experiencing in
148some of these realms, and there and there are some high numbers. Speaking of those other realms in insurance, has our rates for um building insurance, asset insurance, gone through the roof like it has for residential? Not yet. Last year. Yeah, but but we're not anticipating really big changes so far this year, but I don't know, maybe if Dave, you know of others, but fingers crossed. All right, I did have a question while see people seem to be contemplating on slide 12. Can you tell me why does it seem like our restricted reserves are highest when our funds are lowest? Maybe I'm just Ah, now I'm trying to open it. Oh, so many slides. Okay, there we go. It's the red bars at the bottom. >> Sure. Oh, that's a good question. I'd have to look
149into that. Okay. >> I'll I'll yeah, I'll have to look into that cuz so many of those are going to be 3% Mhm. of uh what our expenditures are, so you would see some fluctuation there. I would have to look back at June 2017 through 2020 to see what else was in those restricted Okay. uh categories at that time. Yeah. Yeah, good question. I'll take a look. Considering we had the 3% and we expected it to go the other direction. And I have curiosities with COVID, maybe there was an exception, so Sure. I just have a wondering in what would cause that to be. Um so, I'd appreciate a follow-up if you don't mind. Thanks. Other questions or comments at this time? Yeah, please, Scott. Um Yeah, I just wanted to comment that I'm really
150happy to see the focus on getting our reserves back up to that higher number. Um it's just there's so much uncertainty going on. I'm seeing it on on the business side of things, and uh so I think it's really good stewardship to to get going, so I commend you guys for pushing for that. Thanks. A lot A lot of things got to go well, but we're going to keep working hard at that. I don't know. I feel like there's just like trepidation on I can't honestly imagine what your day-to-day looks like right now without more firm, hard numbers. Um but I really appreciate the the presentation and getting us kind of settled into what our budget is hopefully going to look like. Going once, going twice? Comments? Questions? Okay, I think we're good for the
151evening. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you. All right. Um next and we have board forecasting. This is an opportunity for board members to discuss topics of interest for future board mem board meetings, so something you'd like to put in consideration for our next year um to discuss in June. Yeah, please. I had a question. Brian, we'd had an update um >> [clears throat] >> I can't remember if this was last year or the year before. It was an SRO update on our numbers and expulsion numbers, uh student contact numbers. Do we anticipate having one in this calendar year? We normally align that with the contract renewal, so I need to go back and check in with staff, and we can work together through board agenda setting to to discuss that. >> remember
152being a really good presentation. We should probably be looking at what those what that data is telling us we're doing right, what we're doing what we could do better. And then, in addition to that, sort of the next step is what happens, and what are the options for students who have been touched by that disciplinary process. Happy to. Thanks. Okay. Other topics for consideration? All right, none at this time. Then that leads us into our 11th item for executive session. Can I get a motion? I move the board enter executive session for the following purposes. One, to provide the board with specialized details of security arrangements related to security protocols for board meetings and related events as authorized by CRS 24-6-402-4D. And two, to develop the strategy of the school district for negotiations relating to
153the 2026-2027 collective bargaining agreement or employment contracts as authorized by CRS section 24-6-402-4E3. Individuals invited to join the board in all or part of the executive session are Superintendent Brian Kingsley, Chief of Staff Dr. Lauren Hooten, Lead Assistant Superintendent Dr. Tracy Gahl, Chief Finance Officer Dave Montoya, Director of Student Safety and Emergency Management Jared Sargent, Budget Director Brian Gustafson Gustafson, I always butcher his name. Sorry, Brian. Worry. Gustafson. School Resource Officer Mike Natalizia, and General Counsel Autumn Masmen. Thank you, Kevin. Can I get a second, please? Thank you, Corinda. Uh Jill, can you please call the vote? Carla Baize. I. Connor Duffy. I. Kevin Havelda. I. Scott Showenbauer. I. Jessica Zamora. >> I. Dr. Corinda Ziegler. I. Motion passes 6-0. Thank you. We will now convene in a closed session. This will be the last
154agenda item before adjournment, and at the conclusion of the executive session, we will end the meeting, and the adjournment will be recorded. Oh. Yeah. Or if I'm in a meeting, like Are you talking about the budget update? >> [laughter] >> It's like I'm sorry. It's like this is the second time this week that a computer has updated and It's always