Board of Education Meeting: January 27, 2026

001We are going to get started. Okay. So, we're going to call our meeting to order at 5:40 p.m. on January 27th. Thank you all for joining the board of education this evening. Please mute your cell phones as we begin this meeting. All right. 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 uh to these live streams, please visit the board of education page of the PSD website or PSDTV on demand

002on YouTube. All right. Next, can we get approval of the agenda? Would any board members like to make any changes to the agenda? Andrew, not I don't think you want that yet. I think you're looking for consent. >> We get to consent. If you have anything else you want to do, that's fine. Just knowing what you want to do. Any other things that people would like to change on the agenda? All right, then we'll move on. All right. First, it seems we have a resolution in support of career and technical education. Can I get a motion? >> Thank you. I move that the board approve the resolution in support of career and technical education month. >> Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Kevin, for the second. >> All right. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Uh joining

003us this evening to speak to career and technical education month is Kelsey Burgerer, our career and technical education coordinator. Uh welcome, Kelsey. And I know that you're joined by a couple special guests that we'll allow you to introduce as well. Thank you. Welcome to all of you. >> Okay. Good evening members of the board. Uh Mr. Kingsley and PSC cabinet members, thank you for recognizing CTE month for February and your continued support of the work that we do. This resolution is more than symbolic. It refle reflects our shared commitment to ensuring students graduate with purpose, preparation, and options. NPSDCTE is not a collection of standalone programs. It's a growing system designed to support students from early expiration through post-secary readiness. Over the past several years, we've made intentional investments to expand access, strengthen quality, and

004prioritize career connected learning as a core district strategy, and we're seeing that work translate into meaningful student participation. In recent years, PSD students have access CTE and career connected learning at increasing rates. This year, more than 51% of PSD high school students are participating in CTE by taking two or more courses, up from 49% last year and 42% three years ago. That represents over 4,800 students in grades 9 through 12 engaging in sustained pathway aligned experience that connect to their future goals. One of the most significant shifts behind this growth is that we're starting earlier. Recently, PSD implemented universal access to career exploration for all eighth grade students through a district-wide career and college exploration day hosted at CSU. Every student participate participated regardless of school or background and each left with four-year pathway guides

005aligned to their high school class high schools they plan to attend. These guides help students understand how CTE pathways and coursework, work-based learning, and credentials connect over time. That exploration continues in middle school CTE classes where students begin translating interests into informed choices. You'll hear more about that work in just a second from Joe Zappa, principal of Blevens Middle School, who will highlight how career exploration is coming to life at the middle school level. We've also expanded career connected learning into our elementary schools. Beginning in fifth grade, students across the district are engaging in career exploration using our new platform or not new to them, Zello. What makes this initiative especially powerful is that these lessons are co-taught by elementary counselors and paid student interns from our CTE education pathway. These future educators are gaining

006authentic paid work-based learning experiences while helping younger students see themselves in a wide range of careers. One of these future educators, Brinley Firks, a senior at Timoth High School and newlyannounced Betcher finalist, is also here to share with us about her experience serving as one of these interns and how this work is shaping her career path. Research consistently shows that early career exploration increases student engagement, strengthens academic relevance, improves post-secary persistence, and this is particularly true for students who have historically had less access to career networking. These efforts align directly with our priorities as a district around equity, student agency, and meaningful graduation with options. CTE month is a celebration and a reminder. Preparing students for life after graduation begins long before high school. Thank you again for your support of CTE and for approving

007this resolution recognizing February as CTE month. Your partnership allows us to continue to build a coherent system where students can explore early, plan intentionally, and graduate with options. All right. Well, thank you. Good evening. I'm Joe Zappa, principal of Blevens Middle School. Uh Kelsey reached out to me and asked if I'd be interested in speaking uh about CTE as a topic, and I I was so excited to say yes to that. Um I'm really proud of the work that um we've done together, but but really the work that our our CTE team does here in this district, Kelsey does, what Tanya Alcarez does, and we're seeing the impact of that. I even think that about that with Brinley speaking tonight. Um, but it's exciting to talk about it from a middle uh school perspective because

008what we discussed is uh you can see this career technical ed and its fit at the high school level, but getting kids excited about it early um is really what makes makes education fun. And so the work that we've been able to do um has has had some profound impact at the middle school level. I can speak to what we do at middle school, but what really we've seen is this team has made it easy um and exciting for educators to be able to get endorsements in CTE, which uh creates funding opportunities, which gets more opportunities for our students in the classrooms. Um and in our school in particular, we have uh we have classes that uh just you wouldn't see uh typically, you know, we have multimedia classes, we have uh computer sciences classes,

009we've got like you name it. um that is uh just so fun to think about the the new opportunities that kids have nowadays that they wouldn't but it's also been able to to do things like for example in our school as a project-based learning school we've got teachers who you wouldn't typically think of as CT educators being just that and they're able to uh be a language arts teacher or a science teacher and create new classes and new opportunities through that project-based learning and that CT avenue um that we see things that are just so fun every day and what it's doing is um for example Example, I've seen my eighth graders just this month signing up for their high school classes and they kind of know what to do. They know that I'm now

010interested in these things. I've explored a lot the middle level and I know where I want to go next. And uh they're still nervous about going up to high school, but they also have a lot of excitement going along with that. They feel like I have a plan. I know what I'm doing and I think it's going to it's going to go really well. So, um, there there's so much to talk about with this, but really what it is is this exploration and opportunity is making huge change for for our students right now and and I think we're seeing that uh really across the entire system and now to think about how that's getting into our our fifth graders as well. Um, a lot of good stuff building up for students really quickly. So, it's

011great. Um, do I get the pleasure of introducing really up next? All right, I get to do that. Really, it's it's your turn. Come on up. Hi everybody. My name is Brinley. I'm a senior at Timnith. And this past year I've had the opportunity as working as a paid intern for PSD. Um, and I also get credit for it through workbased learning. So, it's kind of the best of all the worlds. Um, a part of my internship is teaching college and career lessons to fifth graders. And you might be like, fifth graders? They're so little. They're tiny. And yeah, they are. But also starting this early, like Miss Burgerer said, is so crucial to their success. It's so fun for me as the educator in the room when I get to watch them light up

012when they learn that they don't necessarily have to be your traditional maybe doctor or teacher, but instead they learn that there's a job out there that fits them, fits their passions, fits their values, whether it be um a combat engineer, adoption counselor, optometrist, and so much more. Um, also, you would not believe how many PSD alumni are about to be professional athletes in the next couple years. It's going to be insane. It's going to look really good for you guys. Um, but don't worry, if for some reason it doesn't work out, they all have a backup plan saved in their Zello ready for them. As a sixth grader myself, I loved exploring this type of stuff. Um, I loved learning about my personality, the things I would be good at, the things that fit me,

013and all the possibilities that I had ahead of me in my future. And while I knew that I wanted to be a teacher for pretty much ever, most kids don't know that. And this is why it's so important. Um, by introducing this early in the way that we're doing it, we're finding that kids actually love this exploring. They love that high schoolers are teaching. They love imagining what their futures could look like. They love that we're talking to them about the things that they love and they get to tailor their own interests into their future. um and they love knowing that they're not going to use this just today, but that they're going to use it for the rest of their educational careers. It would be a miss for me also not to mention that

014I am a CTE student myself participating in this internship, teacher cadet in lots of concurrent enrollment classes. This internship as well as teacher cadet has been an incredible incredibly impactful for me as a student. It has given me the opportunity to verify that teaching and now maybe counseling is the career for me. I am so thankful for this experience as I can go into my next steps confidently with the passions at the forefr forefront of my brain and my experience to look back on. I hope that all students get the opportunity to feel this way. Thank you so much for having us and recognizing the amazing things CTE is doing. Happy CTE month. Would any board members like to comment? Okay. Well, I would like to thank you guys for coming and showcasing how our

015schools are a key link between what our community needs and what our students need to engage in that. I really appreciate the focus uh and principal Zappa for you coming and telling us about how it shows up in middle school because we often just think about it at the high school level and that we're actually showcasing it in fifth grade is amazing. And Brenley, thank you so much for being here. I I can only imagine how privileged your students are for having you in their classroom because your enthusiasm and excitement is contagious and so just thank you for sharing it. Um any other comments? Are you sure? Okay. Going once. Going twice. All right. Joel, can you call the vote please? >> Carla Baz. >> I. >> Connor Duffy. >> Hi. >> Kevin Havda. >>

016Hi. >> Scott Shenbower. >> Hi. Dr. Andrew Spain, >> I >> Jessica Zamora, >> I >> Dr. Kuronda Ziggler, >> hi. >> Motion passes 70. >> Oh, yes. Can you guys also stay for pictures? We we'll do that at the end of the our resolutions. Um, next, I believe we have a resolution in support of National School Counseling Week. Can I get a motion? I move that the board approve the resolution in support of National School Counseling Week February 2nd through the 6th, 2026. >> Can I get a second? Thank you, Andrew. All right, Brian. >> So, with us tonight to speak to the National School Counseling Week is Beth Green, our K12 counselor coordinator, and Andrea Christensen, counselor at Boltz Middle School. Welcome to you both. >> Thank you. Thank you, Board of Education,

017Superintendent Kingsley, and Cabinet for your support in honoring our school counselors during National School Counseling Week. And I think it's very fitting to celebrate it alongside CTE month. Um, counselors are awesome, Brenley. Within PSD across all ages and grade levels, counselors work tirelessly to support students and families to foster safe and supportive environments for students to learn and grow. As dedicated advocates, connectors, and collaborators, counselors are a thread that weaves continuity of care and support throughout a student's school experience. No matter a student's backgrounds, needs, or challenges, counselors provide a consistent source of support. From the moment a student enters the building, counselors are there throughout the day. Counselors process challenging situations and emotions with students. Collaborate with staff to advocate for students. Support communication between students, families, and staff, intervene during crisis, and create

018a welcoming, safe environment where every student feels seen and supported. We celebrate their dedication, compassion, and commitment to helping all students thrive academically, socially, and emotionally to reach their full potential. I'm honored to introduce Andrea Christensen, one of our middle school counselors from Boltz to share further about the impact and importance of school counselors. We are grateful to the board of education, Superintendent Kingsley, and the cabinet for recognizing the work of school counselors. Feeling seen and valued in this work makes a meaningful difference and inspires us to continue supporting students every day. School counseling is deeply meaningful to me because for many students, we are often the first point of access to mental health support and for some the only support available. This work is strongest when we partner with families because students thrive when

019students in their lives work together. We see students grow in ways that others might not notice. We celebrate wins like doing well on a test they were anxious about or resolving a conflict with a friend. We also support them through difficult moments such as coping through the loss of a loved one or processing a disagreement with a teacher and taking responsibility, helping them recognize their strengths and resilience along the way. A student once gave me a note that said, "I think of you anytime I need to feel brave." And that captures the heart of school counseling, helping students leave feeling supported, capable, and not alone. Thank you. Thank you both for being here. I really can't imagine our schools without counselors, being a parent of two kiddos who have needed the support and guidance at

020times throughout their career or educational career, I guess. um whether that's navigating friend relationships or what courses they should take or like you said some teacher experiences trying to advocate for themselves while also listening to other experts just helping them learn how to be their best selves but along with honoring their individuality and not trying to box them into something. So I really appreciate what our counselors do each and every day and I just don't think we could be the district we are without you. Um sorry that feels like a tough act to follow. Does anyone else want to speak? Go, please. >> I just want to say thank you. Thanks for giving our students the confidence to be successful. >> And I just want to say thank you. And then for me, like just

021thinking personally, um I definitely would not have made it through school without our counselors. And so you mean a lot. And having kids who also one in particular, um that same one, but um um and just what has meant and so I just you know I and I want to highlight that um my master's program was in counseling and um I stopped short of doing those observation hours because I understood the weight of that and um wasn't something for me at the time. So I appreciate those who have continued on that path continued their practice make a difference in the lives of so many. So thank you. All right, seeing no others, Jill, can you call the vote, please? >> Carla Bass, >> I Connor Duffy, >> I >> Kevin Havda, >> I >> Scott

022Shoenbower, >> I >> Dr. Andrew Spain, >> I >> Jessica Zamora, >> hi. >> Dr. Kar Ziggler, >> hi. >> Motion passes 70. All right, we'll like take a picture with y'all if we could make more You see each other All right. Next, we have our superintendent report. Superintendent Kingsley will now make remarks to the board of education and to the community. >> Thank you everybody. Good evening. Uh I'm looking forward to a very productive meeting tonight. I want to just it's been a great start to this meeting. I want to thank again Kelsey, Joe, Brenley, uh Beth, and Andrea. Uh there's obviously you see the spark that they're igniting in their respective school environments, district environments. They're helping students get not only more smart, connecting them with their passions and feel more brave. And

023I will tell you, they're not just doing that for their students, they're doing it for their superintendent, too. So, I just uh want to say special thank you uh to all of them. Uh members of the board, I actually want to direct my uh next set of remarks to you. Uh January is board of education appreciation month. Um and I want to thank and congratulate you and I'm going to ask the community if you can help join me in giving them a round of applause. Hopefully, that's a well-deserved applause. All of you each and every day work full-time jobs, yet are dedicating a full-time worth of time on top of that of a job to this community through your public service, serving as directors of our board. And I want to just thank you for

024showing up in the community, being responsive to your constituents, being responsive to staff, whether it's enjoying or not enjoying or joining me. Carla, last week you were at one of my community engagement sessions and we had our first duet in the community. I thought that was awesome. And today, Kevin and Scott, we're side by side in partnership with staff, meeting with 20 plus uh industry leaders from our automotive divisions across Northern Colorado trying to think creatively around how we can innovate. And all of you in every, you know, just so many different ways are showing up in our community. And as a token of this district's appreciation, I hope you got a little swag bag that was on your chair. Uh that's to help celebrate you uh throughout the course of this month. So again,

025thank you very very very much for everything that you do. uh as I have an opportunity to scan our agenda this evening, there's really two themes in my opinion that emerge. One is how do we invest in our core business of learning and teaching and how do we protect the incredible quality that we have across our schools. Um and the first you know I have a video to show the community as we always do and I'm not queuing it up yet just m yet Matt. Um but we're going to start off with the thinking about curriculum and then learning about what do teachers do with our curriculum. Uh when we started our strategic plan almost three years ago, we really built it around the concept of a former Harvard professor, Dr. Richard Elmore's work around

026the instructional core. And if you can all imagine on the back of your eyelids a triangle, the three components that make magic happen in every one of our classrooms is the knowledge and skill of our teachers mixed with the engagement and brilliance that our students bring into their classrooms each and every day, mixed with high quality content. And all of those things are really important. And Dr. Elmore's research suggests if you're going to elevate student outcomes for all students, you can't just invest in one of those areas. You must invest and elevate all three because what matters most, what's really the powerful aspect of every one of our classrooms is what we're asking students to do on a daily basis. It really matters. And so as you have an opportunity tonight, members of the community

027and members of the board, you're going to be hearing from our director of curriculum as well as one of our assistant superintendents about proposed curriculum adoptions. Tonight's anformational item. Uh so we're asking you for questions and engagement on topics that center around K5 math, English language development, Spanish one, and German one. Uh but from the bottom of my heart, I just want to like reiterate investing in high quality instructional materials for our students and for our teachers elevates all three aspects of the instructional core. Our students and how they engage so they can see themselves in the curriculum. Elevating the content itself to make sure it's not just standards aligned, but future ready as we're learning about what our students need to be ready for postgraduation. and continuing to have an investment of elevating the

028knowledge and our skill of our teachers knowing they interact with these materials every single day. So, it's a super integral part of our work. And I will share with you selfishly as the superintendent, I believe when you look at all of our improved outcomes that we've had over the last four years. A lot of it is due to investing in our teachers, investing in our principles, and making that magic happen. Just buying things and saying good luck is not sufficient. Which is to me the reason why the video we're going to show here momentarily is so important. Watching what some of our teachers are doing in their classroom to bring curriculum to life and progress monitor and academically monitor their students to bring a sense of urgency and joy into their classroom. So take a

029look at this video about how this is playing out instructionally across our district. I have one student who has an IEP. He responds very well to the academic monitoring and the checks and the underlines and the direct feedback really quickly. I've seen a lot more growth in him than I did in the beginning of the year and now his integrated service teacher uh did change his minutes recently to only be inclusion. Um, and that is I really do think that just the the checks and the underlining and the direct feedback really quickly to him has made a difference. And also I have a child who doesn't know any um English, but he also can't he came to me this year not knowing how to read or write in Spanish. So he was just illiterate. He's

030like everybody else now. I feel like he feels more included like I'm getting the check, I'm getting the star, I'm getting the underlying. So this really helped motivate him. >> These were all from our initial first fraction unit. And then this is that was November 6th, 7th. I usually put the date on there. And then this piece, this column right here is what we did today. And it was our first day coming back to manipulating fractions um and adding them because this was kind of more that fraction review, everything they've done up until now in fourth grade. And then now we're starting to manipulate them with operations, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. So, I was able to kind of see who struggled with that initial concept and then pick up from there. It's also helped

031me track student absences and kind of link where some of those holes are in part because they missed all these pieces. Um, which was another kind of surprising piece I didn't even think about. I mean, in my head, I have a tally of how much they've missed or where they've missed, but I had no idea it was going to be able to link perfectly to like the concepts themselves. And then see, they missed that entire foundation a week. No wonder they're struggling. Now >> we have a 15inute version of that video that we played recently at a shared leadership meeting with all of our principles and our directors that had many uh snippets around how our teachers you heard them mention check stars and underlines, right? This isn't just to get credit. This is creating

032clarity around what success looks like in the classroom and they're wearing out the bottoms of their shoes pacing throughout their classes to make sure students are continuing to meet the expectation and surpass the expectation. And because they're showing them a sense of academic belonging by feeling seen, the students want to do more. And so I just really proud of how we are collectively elevating consistency, coherence, and academic belonging across our system. And it deserves a huge shout out to our academic cabinet members who are here in this room tonight who are leading this work in partnership with our principles who are then leading this in partnership with their respective teachers and pair of professionals. It takes all of us to elevate and disrupt disproportionality. We are not yet satisfied with our outcomes. We're thriving in

033a lot of ways, but we have more work to do and the only way we get there is by going there together. And I'm just so proud of this team and district's collective efforts. As I shared with you, that's the part of this meeting that I believe is spirited around the investment in our core business. There's also a really important presentation later in this evening that I believe is centered on protecting uh our core business and that's when we hear from our comprehensive planning committee. Uh this evening, the board and the public will hear an update from the comprehensive planning committee which has been collaborating for the last several months to ground themselves in our district's data and about enrollment and the trends that we are collectively observing as a school district community. I want

034to reiterate that this work is incredibly important to the future health of our district as we center ourselves on transforming the student experience to ensure that all students in every single one of our classrooms and every single one of our schools has that access that they deserve and it's the same opportunities across all schools, not just some schools. I also want to note that this work is deeply connected to our district's budget and financial positioning about what we dream about and think about wanting to do for all of our students moving forward. As I've shared, the district faces significant budget challenges this year due to declining enrollment and anticipated changes that we are getting forecast from regarding the state budget. These budget challenges will change the way that we do business in PSD and as

035a part of our commitment to ongoing transparency. I will continue to keep our community updated in a prize of budget developments as well as we all learn more through the spring and the legislative session. For all the members who that may be here and or who are presenting from our comprehensive planning committee, I want to thank you on behalf of this entire governance team, on behalf of this entire district. It's a lot of work that you've been doing on behalf of this system to make it better and keep it strong. Uh, and I just want to share gratitude. I look forward to a productive meeting this evening. Thank you for the time. Thank you very much, Superintendent Kingsley. This next brings us to our community comment section. This is an opportunity for public comment or

036this opportunity for public comment is for members of the community who register to speak by the designated deadline. Those people will be called on to make remarks in the order that they signed up. Each speaker will be allowed three minutes to address the board. As a reminder, there are board policies for community comment. Violations of those board policies concerning community comment can result in a verbal warning or forfeiting your time to speak at the board's discretion. Uh, welcome. >> Oh, sorry. Still not used to this. Uh, first speaker tonight is Mark Bartlett. Welcome >> over here. That's the entrance I wanted. Uh, good evening, Superintendent Kingsley and, uh, members of the board, cabinet. Uh, my name is Mark Bartlett. I'm the PE teacher at Irish Elementary, Esquea Dilingu. Last semester, I watched the board meeting

037uh where President Draper remarked that while recess is valuable, it is not instructional because it lacks standards, assessments, etc. The suggestion was made that adding them would strip would strip recess of its value as free play. Tonight, I'd like to provide a different perspective. In physical education, our CDE standards aren't just for the gym. They're also the backbone of the playground. Uh the the standards we teach are movement competence and understanding, physical and personal wellness, social and emotional wellness, and prevention and risk management. Recess is not a break from learning. It is the application phase of learning. In the math workshop model, students learn a formula and then apply it. Recess is where students apply the formulas of skill related fitness components, SEAL skills, and so much more. Using Zarretta Hammond's frame framework from culturally

038responsive teaching in the brain, recess is a chew phase. It's the productive struggle where students actively process information. Whether it's a student checking out a jump rope uh to hit a personal goal they set in class or 64% of our fourth and fifth graders opting in to the Irish World Cup during their lunch recess to practice sportsmanship strategies and skills. The data is clear. Instruction is happening. When we see a game being played incorrectly or conflict arising, we don't just watch. We instruct. We check in. We pivot. and we use those moments to drive additional instruction. As we face budget and enrollment challenges, there will be, no doubt, talks of cutting amp, art, music, and PE. We often call these specials as if they're a treat like ice cream. But we aren't the dessert. We

039are fruits and vegetables. We provide the essential nutrients that allow a child's brain and body to function. To say recess has no instructional value is to disregard physical education as an academic subject. Recess cannot supplant PE, but it is one of its most vital supplements. The solution isn't extending the day, nor is it cutting AMP FTEEs or these moments of application. It's fully funding education at the local, state, and federal levels. So our students don't have to choose between play and instruction. They deserve both and I know my colleagues and I would love to talk to you more about ideas and solutions to the challenges we face. Thank you for your time and consideration to this issue. >> Thank you. >> Next we have Tom Griggs >> there. Good evening board members and superintendent Kingsley.

040Uh as a former professor of foundations of education, school of teacher education at UNC, I part part of my responsibility is foundations of education, which is a euphemism for the social context of education. So this is about the social context of education. Great Education Colorado has very recently taken a strong stand on the federal school voucher proposal presently being somewhat stealthfully forced upon us as Coloradoatans. Great Ed, as it is known by many of us, is our state's most ardent and oldest nonpartisan, non-special interest nonprofit advocate for education in Colorado and has been for over 20 years. However, great great ed is only one among several state organizations that are urging Governor Polus not to commit our state to such a radical proposal during the lame duck year of his gubernatorial tenure. Of course, most

041of us are already aware that due to term limits, the governor will not be around to undo the damage to our system of public schools that would result if vouchers are adopted. The organization that is perhaps among the very earliest to challenge the whole privatization agenda for public education, however, is a national group called Network for Public Education or NPE, which was founded over a decade ago by former US Secretary of Education Diane Ravich, along with others who have helped make NPE the best known of all the advocacy groups fighting privatization within Colorado. Other organizations joining the fight against a statewide voucher program besides Great Education Colorado include Advocates for Public Education Policy and Public Schools Strong among a growing list of others. You can find out more about this matter at any of these

042groups websites. Although Governor Polus has already expressed his interest in taking up the federal government of uh the federal department of education's voucher plan, we still have time and the intent to help him recognize what a terrible idea vouchers would be for our state. But the timing is critical. Colorado voters have already rejected similar proposals floated on state ballots three different times. Please read up on this urgent matter and let Governor Polus know how you feel about this policy that will do irreparable in medium and long-term damage to our public school system in large, medium-sized, and small communities throughout Colorado. I intend to share a copy of this manuscript that has uh websites and URLs that will help inform you about this issue. I know it's beyond the local concern uh directly, but uh you

043all need to know about this. It's really critical. Thank you. >> Thank you for coming. Uh next we have Megan Mullen. No, we do not. Next we have Wendy Bergman. Welcome. >> Thank you. Um, I'm speaking tonight as a union proud educator, but not in an official capacity for my unions. I'm glad to be here at the end of a long day on the tail end of a month where I have welcomed a student teacher to my classroom, a former PSD grad, visited the state capital with hundreds of CEA members and Mr. Kingsley to demand legislators remain committed to public education. And most importantly, I began three new classes with 80 incredible kids who are asking questions thinking critically about the world and engaging with their peers and community. I've one of I'm one of

044those people who's wanted to be an educator since my early elementary years and I love my job. I know many of my colleagues feel the same. We are passionate about our work and want to be supported in doing that work well. Our reality is different than those dreams. Our system is not serving our families or staff and there are many reasons for the dysfunction. But a critical piece of that is the critical piece and the thing that prevents us from solving other issues is the systemic lack of funding at the state level. It's not just enrollment and this year's legislative session. It's a result of our tax structures. We will struggle to make any vision of our district a reality without adequate funding. And in my opinion, that means changing aspects of our tax system.

045I'm one of many educators fed up with the status quo and doing impossible things to better the funding for reality and educational experiences for students in our classrooms. I'm sick of seeing amazing early career educators at risk of losing their jobs in this community because our state structure systemically underfunds our vital public service. As a member of my union, I've participated in and led campaigns to end the BS factor, prevent cuts to K12 in 2025, walked to ask our community to pass two separate mill levbies, and spent hundreds of hours speaking to members of this community and our public officials about the reality of K12 funding. Since 2009, legislators have balanced the state budget on the backs of students. The 2024 school finance adequacy studies showed that we are more than four billion short in

046K12 funding per year. It's about $4,500 per student. That kind of investment means small class sizes, dignified wages for all staff, mental health supports, and full-time employment for our dedicated staff. This week, 11 PSD educators, last week, 11 PSD educators wrote sub plans and showed up to the capital. We delivered more than 450 postcards containing stories about the impacts of this chronic underfunding to our legislators. PA members and CA members are enga engage staff and parents from around the district and state to collect stories. We're asking the legislature to refer a measure to the 2026 ballot so Colorado voters can choose to raise the spending cap and invest already collected tax dollars, tax money into K12. I look forward to sharing more about this issue with the board um so you can hear about our

047grassroots funding measure and hope that as a community we can be committed to building a system centered around meeting the needs of our students. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next we have JR. Thank you for your time and for your efforts and work. When my family decided to pull up roots and move 750 miles from our home, we started with meticulous research into what community shares our values. Colorado was an easy match. And uh Fort Collins was very attractive with its um with its human rights score that it scored here for for uh the M municipality equality index. But it was a it was P PSD's excellent education scores and the anti-harassment policies that really sealed the deal for us. We sold our house and we traveled to our new freedom here in Fort Collins

048and we love it here. My child is amazing. She's funny, curious, she makes friends at every playground in town and she's transgender. She's confident and proud and everyone at school knows her name. Our former state passed a law that if any student was found in a restroom that didn't match their biological sex as assigned at birth, then a fellow classmates could sue that school for $5,000. Essentially, this law placed a bounty on my child. As a kindergartener, no one questioned whether she was in the correct bathroom. If she were to follow the new law and use the boy's bathroom, she would have become target for ridicule and bullying and violence. So essentially, this law left us marooned, unable to use either bathroom. My child is not a predator. She's not there to sneak a peak.

049We decided best not to put our school or our lives in danger. Shortly after the 2024 election, small cracks started to emerge. Just as we began to feel accepted and proud of our family, we're being pushed back into the closet. Nationally, an increase in laws targeting bathrooms, pronouns, sports, documents, healthcare, and basic civil rights all felt painfully personal. In Colorado, the True Center shuddters under the smallest breath of intimidation, and PSD's relationship with Splash has already disintegrated. I fear that our school district may be vulnerable to bullies. We need PSD's protection. We need your protection. I'm concerned about the identities of our most vulnerable population and how their privacy can be shielded. What will happen to any documents like gender support forms that have been signed? Um, will PSD be coerced to reveal names or

050identities? Um, if government funding is threatened, I fear our school district may be vulnerable to these bullies. Um, what can you do to help keep our students and families safe? Mostly I want you to know that we are here and we're scared. We rely on your strength now. Just as PSD school has been such a valuable resource for us in the past. We know that safety and security are your primary objectives. Thank you for helping to keep the community inclusive, kind, and affirming. Thank you. >> Thank you. And next we have Danny Lawrence. Welcome. Thank you for the opportunity. I wanted to comment about your board retreat last week. Something I saw there made me very worried. So first, thank you for having a public discussion about priorities. I thought it was helpful and transparent.

051I hope next time you will consider using microphones. It was really difficult to hear you, including handouts and slides on your website prior to the meeting in accordance with sunshine laws. And mostly I hope that you would televise it in the future on your YouTube channel. Um I I thank you for the conversation. I just wish more people had been able to see it. A comment was made there that hit me really hard and I cried all the way home in my car. I wanted to share my observation uh because one of you listed as a priority, quote, "We need to get kids off the bus." End quote. Instead, you wanted them to use city systems, bike trails, etc. And many of you talked about transportation as a priority. I know it's costly, but I'm

052a human and I thought maybe if I shared my personal story, it might help to elevate your discussion. I was proudly raised in PSD, K through 12 educated. I g as a child, I grew up in the trailer park on the corner of Tapill Road and Horsetooth where the dog park is today. Uh we used to climb those Cottonwood trees on hot summer nights and watch the drive-in movie. It was a really beautiful childhood out there. Uh my parents were super hardworking people. My father had a 28-year career in the United States Navy. Military pay isn't great and so we needed affordable housing. Uh children in my neighborhood uh including me were bust to Dun Elementary. Midtown affluent. I have no idea why because we passed three elementary schools on the way. Don was and

053it still is a world-class education and PSC afforded me an opportunity to beat my socioeconomic class to be what we call first generation and to achieve a college education. I was the second in my family to attend behind my big sister who is also a PSD alumni. That decision by PSD helped to curve poverty. sorry for my family and just the simple act of busing. Today I am lucky enough to still know many of the teachers from Dun and um from those days and I've had 45 year friendships with the kids from that school and the kids from the trailer park. So when you talk about costs, understand that you're talking about people. It impacts real children who grow into adults who deserved opportunity. Every child every day is a tall order and it's going

054to cost. So when we're talking about getting kids off the bus, understand that some kids can't afford bikes. They don't have parents to drive them to school and they are no less worthy as children raised in affluent homes and timid of an education. As a community member, I'm gravely concerned that you're all talking about this at a time when the district has intentionally no longer displayed the equity dashboard on its district website while simultaneously prioritizing consolidation in your discussions. I am scared and frankly appalled by the lack of care and I ask you all again to find a more humane way to talk about the children that you serve. And I'm asking you to prioritize children over cost, especially in a community that has supported PSD emotionally and financially. And as my friend Sabrina often

055asks you, please do better. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. Next, 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? >> Go ahead. >> Uh yeah, earlier today, uh Brian mentioned that Kevin and I were able to join him um in the automotive center here at RCTE um location right up right behind this building. Um and I have to say I was very impressed with uh with the um the facility even though it's small. Uh the students especially though were amazing and our uh the lead teacher that we talked to today was absolutely impressive and um bringing in the community uh business leaders that are in that industry

056and talking to them about our program I think really um made a big impression to them and uh brought some excitement about some of the new things that we're we're planning to do or hoping to do hopefully with their partnership. um possibility of getting uh more bays to use for the automotive industry because we have a what 80 person backlog uh that of kids that are interested in the automotive program but there's no capacity for them right now. So I'm really excited about that and and what the future holds there. So >> I just want to add on to that. I was really impressed. Uh credit to Tanya Alcraz too who put together an flawless program. Got us out exactly on the hour as she promised. Uh we got kicked out of Pter High School

057um with a class coming in three minutes after we concluded. So thanks her for being the drill sergeant on that. But um it was it was an impressive display. We had so many folks from cabinet and from district leadership there and the principal there. Um principal Zappa was also there. Um it it was impressive to see not only our community and the the district's support physically but also to see the front center nature of the students who were presenting to us and explaining their experiences from various different high schools that opted in for that very reason. Um and I' I'd be remiss if I didn't use this opportunity to to trumpet the fact that we've had two of the highest graduation rates or two of the high two highest graduation rates in district history consecutively.

058Um, and as Dwayne Schmidz will go through some of our data, our engagement is going up and that also drives graduation rates. So, I think there's proof in the cooking. Um, I'm really proud to be a part of this district at this moment and continue to hope that our community continues to invest in some of these things. Um, not just with their money and their dollars, but with their physical presence and being there and knowing and hiring our students. Um, it was it was an incredible moment. So, thanks for the invitation. Okay. Is there anything else? Not seeing any. All right. That'll bring us to our 7.0 consent agenda. Would any board members like to pull anything from consent? >> I would like to pull item 7.6. Um, fun. I have had to recuse myself

059from that vote due to my wife being on that board and being a volunteer for that organization. >> Okay. All right. We will make that action item 8.2. Are there any other changes anyone would like to make? >> All right. Seeing none, can I get a motion? >> I move that the board approve and adopt the recommended actions for the items remaining on the consent agenda. >> I got a second. Thank you, Andrew. All right, Jill, will you please call the vote? >> Carla, >> my apologies. Carla Ba, >> I. >> Connor Duffy, >> I. >> Kevin Havda, >> I. >> Scott Shoenbower, >> I. >> Dr. Andrew Spain, >> I. >> Jessica Zamora, >> I. >> Dr. Kuronda Ziggler, >> I. >> Motion passes 70. >> Thank you very much, Jill. All right. Next,

060we have our action items. So, our first action item is our internal monitoring report, EL2.0. Can I get a motion? Thank you. >> I move that the board determine that the superintendent has reasonably interpreted board of education policy EL 2.0 in his internal monitoring report dated January 7th, 2026, and that the evidence presented supports the superintendent's conclusion stated in the internal monitoring report. >> Thank you. Can I get a second? Thank you, Kiranda. All right. Do any members have any questions or comments about this report or are we getting the presentation first? Oh, there's no present. Sorry, I misread this. I apologize. Do we have any comments? >> All right, seeing none, Jill, can you please call the vote? >> Carla Baze, >> I. >> Connor Duffy, >> I. >> Kevin Havda, >> I. >>

061Scott Shoenbower, >> I. >> Dr. Andrew Spain, >> I. >> Jessica Zamora, >> I. >> Dr. Kar Ziggler, >> I. Motion passes 70. >> Thank you, Jill. All right, now we'll do 8.2, the lease agreement with Wellington Food Pantry. Can I get a motion? >> I move that the board approve the Wellington Food Pantry lease at Istone South. Thank you, Connor. All right. Do any board members want to speak to this item? >> All right. Andrew's recusing. Just a reminder, I'm recusing myself due to perceived conflict of interest. >> Such a short turnaround. Thank you so much, Andrew. All right, Jill, can you please call the vote? >> Carla Ba, >> I. >> Connor Duffy, >> I. >> Kevin Havlla, >> I. >> Scott Shombower, >> I. >> Jessica Zamora, >> I. >> Dr. Karan

062Ziggler, >> I. >> Motion passes 6. >> All right. Now we will move on to ourformational reports and discussion items. Right. Uh Brian, I believe you have some folks. >> Yeah. Joining us this evening to provide an update on the materials adoption are our assistant superintendent, Dr. Ensun Olsen, and our director of curriculum and instruction, Amanda Kger. Welcome. Good evening, President Zamora, Superintendent Kingsley, and board of directors. Thank you for the opportunity for our curriculum and instruction department to present to you the cyclical journey that we are on and the tremendous amount of work that has been completed in collaboration with teachers, administrators, central office staff in preparing for uh in preparing and for adoption recommendation and action planning for implement implementation across sites in the subject areas we're getting ready to present to you

063Today, as you know, we have clear district priorities and the one we are going to center on today is our literacy one where we um want educators to teach using district adopted highquality instructional materials and use evidencebased strategies. So our goal is to provide highquality instructional materials to support teachers in ensuring that all students have equitable access to highquality instruction and engage in opportunities to develop and apply literacy skills across discipline. So in order for our students to access highquality rigorous content, we must have instructional materials that are guaranteed and viable, which fosters consistency and coherence for students experience across every site. Curricular adoptions and implementation process for all district-wide materials is our core business. And we must ensure that these materials are well we must ensure that the materials that we purchase is of

064quality because it is the structure that supports and improve student outcomes. These adoptions ensure every student receives access to materials that they get to engage in for their learning and advance through all the opportunities that we provide in this district. What do we mean by high-quality instructional materials? It is all the stuff we provide educators along the way and the materials that our students engage within. It is our textbooks, it is our workbooks, it is our consumables, it is our digital resources and of course the teacher additions that come along with that. We have to ensure that all of those resources are up to the ADA compliance of accessibility which has come new in the last few years and so all of our new adoptions have to come into alignment with those expectations. These publishers

065have time, personnel and resources to produce the high quality content and grade level materials because they also have to rise to the level of national standards and through our RFP process which is very robust. We want a guaranteed and viable curriculum, which means that we guarantee that there's adequate time for teachers to teach the content and therefore for students to learn. So where have we been? Where are we now? And what might you look forward to in the future in terms of adoptions? So for the last three years, we have adopted a K5 literacy curriculum which you all are aware of and we have seen improve outcomes from the implementation of that K5 literacy and we also learned a lot from the implementation process. We have also in literacy um adopted our 910 language arts.

066In middle school we adopted the 68 middle school science. In high school, we have adopted world history. Oh, and eighth grade for US history. And then we also have a couple of highlevel math courses that were adopted in the last three years. This presentation tonight is focused on our K5 math, English language development, which is for K12, and for our newcomer programming, world language for Spanish, and for French. So those are all the curriculums that we're bringing forward to you in that wonderful 300 plus report that you have in front of you as well. And then for some future um thoughts for you to also wrestle with is that we have adoptions that come forward almost every year because they have been on a seven or 10ear cycle. So what you see listed under the

06726 27 adoption year are all of the licenses that are going to expire by the end of this year. And so middle school language arts, social emotional learning, algebra 1 and two, Spanish to German 2, K12 physical education, K5 art, and K5 music. All of these subjects will either have to be rellicensed to keep going or we will have to go through an adoption process. We also are aware that some of these licenses that if we were to just continue them, they would not meet the current ADA expectation. I did hear you in your retreat and so we have added a few limitations that happen with an adoption cycle. So part of our limitations is that the amount of what is required for adoptions keep increasing. So what was costing for a math curriculum 10

068years ago is not the same as it is now. The quantity that needs to be replaced at one time you see that list for 2627. The cycles are 10 to 10 year 7 to 10 years. And as we are living right now, funding is not as predictable as it used to be for us to go. We can earmark this, we can reserve it and then move on to other funding opportunities. We also have um certain dollars earmarked for curricular adoptions. We have mill levies. We have the 4A. Thank you so much. And we also have general fund dollars. But in all that combination, it's still not quite enough to get us to the finish line. We recognize that we're heading into a time of less dollars flowing into our district and we will continue to

069prioritize our core business, but we also have to ensure that our materials are up to date to our best ability and support the efforts our educators are doing each and every day with our students. So, you will now get to hear from our director of curriculum and instruction, Amanda Kger, about the adoption process. Would you can follow along with the board report starting on page 11. Thank you, Dr. Olsen. Good evening, President Zamora, Superintendent Kingsley, and members of the board. You have the process in front of you. You have 389 pages of process in front of you for all the work that was done around this. So, what I want to highlight for you tonight is the experience. the experience that our teachers went through in being part of this process, the experience that our

070community had in being part of this process and the experience that um my team got to lead to be part of this process. Uh three of my team members who are leading this are in the um audience today and I would like to thank them personally. We have Kelly Shank for mathematics, we have Mary Beth Johnson for world languages and we have Rosie Nejas for um all things literacy and also helping with our ELD. So, thank you so much for all of your work. So, as I highlight for you the experience, let me talk to you through some of the numbers. You have all of the words, you have all the processes in your report. Um, let's talk about the hours that went into that. So, each curriculum facilitator in this room put in about

071400 hours a piece. So, just from them, that's about 1,200 hours across a 10-month process. We started this in April of 2025 for this recommendation to come to you today. So, this has been months of time and hours of time and thoughtful um thoughtfulness around what is best for our students and how to bring to our students the best high-quality materials we can find. So, our adoption teams, we had about 91 people for a total of 2500 a little over 2500 hours. The piloting of materials was 55 teachers for about 3,500 hours. Planning meetings for a little over 300 hours. That may not sound like as much compared to the 3,000, but 300 hours of planning is a lot of planning. Our approximate total number of hours for this process has been 7,651. So to

072put that in a little perspective, that was a team of people working together over 10 months. That would have taken one person working 319 days, 24 hours a day to get all of that work done. So um I just want to acknowledge the time that was put into this process. And then time is also money. So we put in about $48,000 for subs to bring our teachers in to be a part of this process as well. So we have made a significant investment in both the time and in the money to make sure that we are bringing forth the best instructional materials that we could potentially that we could possibly find. Thank you. So what I'd like to do is just review a very high level of the process. And again, as Dr. Olsen said

073if you'd like to look at the whole process that is in pages 10 and 11 or excuse me 11 and 12 in your report and what you can see in the adoption process is that we have a systematic way of looking at all of our different curriculum adoptions. We use the same basic process for every single content area to ensure that we are looking at the equit equity and the access for all of our students in all of our different content areas and making sure that that process is consistent. We also have the thinking, the discussing, the debating, all of those pieces of the process that really are relentless in our drive to make sure that we are finding the best resources for our students. So what you see, what you see is all of

074the ending of that, the participation in that process is just all of the thinking work. gets all of that time and energy from all of the different groups represented who are our vested partners to make this happen. And so you can see that our first step is requesting a proposal and that was submitted back in April of 2025. And that is when a small group gets together and decides on all of the elements that a curricular resource must meet in order to be a best resource for our community. And that includes meeting the academic standards. And it also includes looking at students being able to see themselves in those materials. Then you'll see that we have um vendors submitting materials. All of the vendors who submit must meet minimum requirements in order to move forward

075with the evaluation process. Number three is adoption teams are reviewing materials using the rubric. All um committee members are use the rubric and then the scores are averaged in order to determine which resource best meets the criteria. And please note that the adoption review committee is founded with diverse equitable representation from all of our vested partners including teachers, administrators, um members of the different departments across our district such as our language culture and equity, our I is department, integrated services department, our professional learning department. We look at all of these different viewpoints coming into this process. We also include um parents and community members in the process as well. Um the fourth thing is the um adoption team identify the finalists and they use the rubric to do that and then they also um pilot

076materials with students which we talked about a little bit. That is quite a few of the appendices is the feedback from our teachers and students in piloting those materials in your reports. And then once the final finalists are identified by the stop top scores on the rubric, um the pilot process provides the adoption committee with teacher and student feedback over time. So it's not just that one shot, but it's over that time of two to three week process of piloting those materials. Then we have number five, the community provided feedback on the finalists. So, additional qualitative data is collected during a community engagement night where all members of the community are invited in to view those materials and have an open dialogue with staff and with the vendors and ask the questions that they need

077to ask and then provide feedback on any or all of those finalist materials. And then number six, the adoption committee made final recommendations which are coming to you tonight. And that is after analyzing all of that qualitative and quantitative data data the committee makes a recommendation to the cabinet and to the board of education and this is with all of our adoptions. I'd really like to highlight three aspects of the process and one is a focus on equity and access for all students. Another is the focus on the participation of teachers in all aspects of this process. And a third is a focus on engaging our community in the process. First, to ensure that access and equity were part of the evaluation process, our curriculum adoption teams utilized the newly developed PSD culturally responsive and

078sustaining scorecard for um all of the different areas. This was developed in collaboration with our coordinator of language, culture, and equity. And it is designed to ensure that all of our students can see themselves represented in an assetbased way in the instructional materials. The second highlight is the participation of teachers in all aspects of the process. And I would like to acknowledge right now every single person who gave their time and expertise to the adoption committee. And if you would refer to pages six through 10 in your um report packet, you will see the names of every single person who participated in this. The curriculum adoption team really does act as a microcosm for the entire educational community, ensuring that new materials resonate across diverse classrooms. The committee members were intentionally chosen to represent all

079of our vested partners perspectives to ensure that the rubric evaluation provided a content review through multiple lenses. So above you can you can see the statistics for our K5 mathematics here for the adoption committee members. We had 31 elementary educators across grades K through five, two elementary administrators, one interventionist, and seven central office staff. Other representation included RGT programming, gifted information technology, integrated services, multi-tered systems of support or MTSS, language culture and equity, professional learning, and parent and community member. The members of the English language development adoption committee members included three elementary English language development educators across grades K through 5, four middle school ELD educators across grades 6 through 8, four high school EL educators across grades 9 through 12, two multi-level EL educators across K through 12, four administrators, three central office staff,

080and then other representation included gifted programming informationational technology, integrated services, and language culture and equity. And then our world language adoption committee members included 11 Spanish educators, four French educators, four German educators, one multilanguage educator, one administrator, one language culture and equity representative. And then the third highlight is the engagement of our community in the curriculum adoption process. Our community input is essential to work together to ensure that our students have what they need and we need to make sure that this curricular resource all of them reflect the needs, values and aspirations of our diverse community. And so when we have a dedicated public event, we can structure that to allow the um community to directly examine those materials and ask those questions and then provide authentic feedback. And then this feedback becomes part of

081the data that we use to um make those final recommendations. You can find information on the educator, family, and community input on page 42 in your report. And on November 10th was when our educators, family, and community members were invited to get together and it was very well attended by our community. We received 71 responses in writing or digitally over um all of the different materials. You can see this um in appendix C on page 86 of the report. And then you can also find teacher feedback in appendix D on page 118 and student feedback in appendix E starting on page 227. The program finalists included I Ready for K5 mathematics, Syngage for English language development and comprehensible classroom for Spanish and Wayside for German for world languages. The following slides summarize the reasoning that

082the adoption committees came up with in the end for choosing this particular resources. So why I ready for K5 math? Superior standards alignment. I Ready math outperformed all competing programs on the instructional materials evaluation tool, the IMAT, demonstrating a significantly higher level of academic rigor and alignment with core instructional standards. Comprehensive instructional depth. Pilot feedback from both teachers and students identified I Ready as the most comprehensive program available, ensuring a robust and thorough mathematical foundation for all learners. Authentic linguistic rigor. The program provides the highest quality Spanish translations, ensuring that the academic complexity and integrity of the curriculum are maintained for students across multiple languages. Why intercultural by wayside for German? Instructional alignment. Materials feature a structured design that ensures instructional alignment and equity of experience for all students regardless of a teacher's tenure. Academic

083integration. The curriculum emphasizes intellectual depth through authentic primary sources. By bridging language acquisition with interdisciplinary study, it ensures rigorous engagement across academic subjects and global perspectives. materials represent a broad spectrum of cultural and geographical diversity, fostering critical thinking and a sophisticated globalized approach to learning. Why reach for the stars reach higher impact and lift by Singage for EL? Those are just the names of the program within um within the program. Um strategic scaffolding of language functions and metalinguistic awareness. This curriculum prioritizes the explicit instruction of language functions such as informing, narrating, explaining, and arguing through a metal linguistic lens. Systematic mastery across the four language domains. Rigorous instruction is achieved through the intentional integration of the four language domains, listening, reading, speaking, and writing within both interpretive and expressive communication modes and an assetbased pedalogical

084design. Worldclass instructional design and assessment and Colorado English language proficiency standards, the WEDA and the CLLE alignment. Adhering to the WEDA 2020 standards, the programming centers on the equity of opportunity and access by leveraging a student's primary language as a high lever instructional asset. And why the comprehensible classroom for Spanish? It's research aligned and cognitively rigorous instruction grounded in second language acquisition research. The material requires all students to understand and interact in the target language from day one, promoting me meaning making beyond memorization. High quality sustainable instructional design. The curriculum is engaging for both students and teachers with ongoing updates that ensure long-term relevance and alignment with best practices and cultural competence and global awareness. Students explore diverse cultural products, practices, and perspectives from across the Spanish-sp speakaking world, supporting intercultural competence and critical global

085thinking. So, that was a lot of content. Um, but it is also really important that the adoption process is valued and then implemented with integrity. How we implement will be really important and it will depend the program's effective effectiveness in how it was originally designed. Our implementation plan is now a combination of our last few years but with all the feedback that we have received from teachers, administrators, pair of professionals and those specifically working with curriculum with directly with students. And so our implementation process is encompassing all of that and I will go through that here and then we are done and that will allow for you to ask us some questions. Um so this process um is now standardized and we will be using it for every single curricular adoption. So therefore um we

086have to ensure that that collaboration um Amanda talked about earlier is so vital to this work. We need our professional learning educator effectiveness department to take this information and then figure out in that wonderful puzzle that they do how to make all of this work in terms of how to get all the right people to the right trainings, but also to ensure that we have continued and ongoing support as we move through implementation year 0, one, two, and three. And so, um, year zero is the one we're currently in right now, which is the foundational knowledge through pre-implementation training. So, we've already started that with our administrators and will continue to provide um introduction into the new curriculum at our elementary principal meetings. That is new this year. We are also planning and ready as

087long as you do approve these adoptions and um all the contracts fall into place which we're working very hard on um that for our March PL day for elementary teachers they are actually going to get their first big dose into the curricular resources. This is also new for our system and we heard very loud and clearly that waiting until August or five days before they start working with students was not effective and made it even harder to implement with integrity. And so we worked with our teams to ensure that during this foundational knowledge time that we also work with our adoption committee leaders along with additional teacher leaders from our schools and together they are our implementation team. And so before if you remember um when we adopted we were heavily dependent on the company

088the vendor providing majority of our implementation training and this time we are going to do some vendor training. It is important that the people who created the materials let us know how we should be using them. But instead of continuing with vendors, we are building the capacity of our teachers and our principles so that in partnership with our curriculum and instruction department, we can move our implementation forward. And so we will have our PL day which I just explained and we will have an additional training day for our teacher leaders this spring. We will continue our work in summer institute with scope and sequence pacing guides again well before our teachers come back so that even though it won't be a finished product and they will need to provide feedback and continue on with that

089cyclical process we will have them starting with a foundational expectation with the appropriate resources before students even arrive in the fall. So that year zero is the new piece that you probably haven't seen if you were part of the last adoption on sitting on the board. Once we move into year 1, um again we are heavily dependent on the partnership between our teacher leaders, our adoption committee and our principles at each site. And so we will be providing additional PL days of course for training in year one, but we will also provide additional training time for our teacher leaders. that entire cost for all of the curriculum that we just talked to you about that we would we are informing you about. Um that cost of year one implementation only is about $145,000 and that

090is for just the teacher leaders to come and be pulled out and pay for subs so that they are best prepared to support their buildings um as they continue to move forward. We will also partner with our um DCTS which is our teacher leads in each content area that comes and works with Amanda's department. They will also be part of this network of building capacity and support for our implementation. And so we are super excited for this partnership because one, it's going to really depend on collaboration and we believe that when we put more wisdom in the room together collectively, we will come out with a much better product. And so in our sustaining year, we are looking at um three days of teacher training in addition to PL days. And then for our third

091year implementation is reduced back to two days um with our PL days. Again we would love to do more and do we believe that we should do more? Absolutely. But again some of our limitations is the budgetary limitations that we have and so we're doing the best to predict with the amount of money that we have earmarked thus far. Um so hopefully you are hearing um some similar but also some adjusted ways that we are implementing our curriculum. Some of what we have done is to really partner with our leaders and having them have the right tools so that they can prepare for and with their teachers as they implement this new curriculum. We are getting better at defining roles and responsibilities. Um, we do expect our principles to be the instructional leader of their

092site. And so therefore, between them and their teacher leaders, building that capacity across our system can move at a much quicker pace than if we're wholly dependent on a vendor coming in and us being able to work within the vendor's timeline as well. Our commitment to ensuring that this program is um implemented with integrity is to ensure that we're also talking about what a school schedule would look like if there needs to be adjustments or honestly just reccalibration. Um we have to ensure that the materials that we are no longer going to be using are decommissioned. We have already started that list. We have let our principles know which curriculum that we will start asking for packing up and bringing back to the well they're not bringing it to the warehouse sorry they're packing up

093and then somebody is bringing it to the warehouse but also the software platforms that our principles have been and to their best capacity have been trying to supplant and supplement and provide adequate resources for their teachers. but it's not consistent and it's not coherent for that student experience across all of our sites. And so that is what we are trying to move towards. And deimplementing is hard. It is not an easy thing to let go of something that you have used for an extended period of time. No matter what the results are, it gets ingrained in our system as educators. And so we will have to work very hard to not only support this conversation but then also hold the line so that our resources that hopefully we are going to purchase will be the

094actual resources that are in front of our kids each and every day. It also is an expectation that our curriculum department along with our principles do some walkthroughs around our implementation. That has not been an expectation in the past. We had hoped that that would take place. We are strategically going to implement that so that we have three cycles of data every year for the three years we do implementation really around are you using the materials of course there'll be more details than that but that's the main heading and what supports do you need now because we know that there is that uplift of learning that has to take place there's a little plateau of satisfaction and then probably a little more uptick as they start actually looking at student performance How do we adjust

095to that? And as you saw the video earlier, how does academic monitoring fit in so that we do know how our students are performing and what gaps we have based on the integrity of the curriculum, not necessarily what we perceive based on past practice. All of that to be said, this is an extensive, robust process that requires all of us to work together in collaboration and support curriculum and instruction so that they are excellent stewards of the millions of dollars that are required to put coherence and consistency of highquality instructional materials in front of our students. So here is our recommendation. Please know that this is not a one-year cost. Most of these are at 10 years and um our EL is at seven years. Um that will allow us to provide high quality instruction

096in front of our students in these subject areas for the next 10 years. And as you probably predict, things change in about a decade. So, we'll be coming back to you in 10 years with this information again because again, just to remind you, this is on a cycle. So, it is a 3.9 million cost. And I want to remind you that K5 math is hitting over 9,000 students. ELD is smaller than that, but it is so important that our ELD, our students who are multilingual learners have the best chance at gaining language acquisition as quickly as possible so that they can engage in all of the wonderful programs and some that you heard tonight during dinner presentation. world language will continue to work through nuances especially Spanish with dual language but again future conversations to

097be had. I just want to make sure that um one yes we acknowledge that this is a hefty price but two if you think about a 10-year hefty price this is pretty nominal to be honest when we're impacting a K12 system. That is all of our pre presentation tonight. We did have a lot of content to go over with you, but um that's why that report is so extensive is so that we didn't miss anything and that we really acknowledged every single step and process and all of the hundreds of great thinking and feedback that was provided to us. So, thank you so much for this opportunity. And what questions do you have for us now? Any questions? No. Oh, go ahead, Scott. >> Thank you for the in-depth presentation. It's pretty amazing and the

098amount of hours obviously it's a big investment. Um, this also was a big investment, this budget uh piece in a tough year. Um, tell me, I had a couple questions. So the the 3.9 million um over 10 years, do we have to pay that that right now or or is it literally spread out over the 10 years? So >> we pay for it all upfront. >> Upfront. Okay. So it's not 3 390. >> It binds us to the vendor so they don't change the product. >> Okay. >> After we've purchased it. So it binds us and binds them in this contract. >> Okay. Um, but it lasts us 10 years. >> Um, and then the other question, and don't get me wrong by asking it, I'm just asking it because people in the public are

099asking this. >> Are these uh pieces of the curriculum, you talked about the next round in 26,27, they're, you know, up for renewal? Are these pieces like the K5 mathematics, is that up for renewal right now? All of the ones that we're putting forward to you now, their license ends this spring. >> Okay? >> We will not have access to anything if we do not do something >> for these particular curriculums at this time. >> One piece of information I think that would be good to know just so we know the alternative is what the cost would be to renew those pieces compared to buying new. And again, I'm just asking it to be responsible uh stewards of the of the funds. So, I don't know if you have that information now or could follow.

100Do you Okay, that'd be great to know. And you can go with round numbers if you want. >> Perfect. I can do round numbers off the top of my head. I appreciate that. >> Yeah. >> Um it's about 1.5 million for math K5 math to renew for two years. >> Okay. >> And that is not access to any updated materials. that is with the current contract that we have. So even though the company has updated their materials, we would we would not get those. We would only get the ones that we adopted 10 years ago. >> So half a little less than half of the 10 years that we're getting with the new at 3.4. >> We would also we don't really have a digital access platform that has been purchased kind of ongoing and

101throughout. Um, and I would say that um, this is a curriculum that all of our schools participated in, whether they were e education, literacy, dual language, or core knowledge. They all agreed that this was what we needed. Part of why we we um had dual language as part of this conversation. I don't know if you know, but both our dual language schools are translating all of their curriculum on their own. >> We don't believe that's appropriate, nor the best use of time, and we're burning them out like like that. >> And so, this curriculum will help us with our dual language schools as well. and they will not have to spend they will have to do a little translating but they won't have to spend time actually translating the text or the workbooks or the

102assessments like they currently are. >> Okay, great. Thank you. So, just just to go back to that. So, a renewal is $1.5 million, but you would only get two years of it. >> Correct. >> Two years of the old materials. I just want to specify that as well. Uh, I've got a few questions which probably aren't fair for you, although you might be able to answer them because they're somewhat legal. Um, I presume when we get the action item back, it will have the actual contracts that we can look at too. >> Yes. >> Okay. Um, and this may be an autumn question and I can follow with you after this, but at least want to get it out. Is that in the curriculum adoption type contracts, I'm looking at a 10 year, sevenyear, 10-year

103term contract. Um, are those different from other vendor contracts where we have term agreements? And let me ask let me tell you why I'm asking is that the only thing that I'm I'm fine with this is our core business. This is what I believe we should be investing in. I'm worried about a 10-year contract and presupposes the company will be around in 10 years. What what about instances of insolveny in year four? Um you know if we don't if we're not getting services or support I guess my bigger question is with these contracts are there offramps? Um and are we exploring those um two-year increments, three year, four year, seven, whatever they may be, whatever standard for curriculum, instructional type contracts because um you know, if things aren't going well in year two and we

104need to make a detour, are there damages the expected life of it or are we going to get anything back on that return? Kind of to Scott's point, too, mostly for I want to look at what our avenues are for exodus in case we need it. That may not be fair tonight, but those are questions that I I would like answered if possible before we get to the the action item. >> Yeah, >> thanks. >> Yeah, I think Dave may have some thoughts. >> I I was just going to confirm I I understand the question. I don't think we're prepared to answer that tonight. We need to look at the contracts in in detail, but Autumn and I can do that. >> Any other comments this time? Go ahead, Connor. So, we're getting really close

105to 90% graduation rate. This is obviously a huge change. Um, adoption of a whole new curriculum, teachers having to learn how to teach that as well. Um, you guys see any risk of us pulling back off of that? Um, that's one of our strategic goals is to get kids to graduate. Um, and if we start introducing all kinds of new stuff, we may be lose more kids. Any risk in that? >> I think what I can say is at least being in this the 11 elementary schools that I oversee. It is probably the number one or number two topic of concern. When are we getting the new math curriculum? When are we getting the new math curriculum? I can't afford to supplant anymore. I I don't know how to hodge podge anymore. So, I'm those

106are anecdotal. I can't name specific sites or things of that nature, but I can tell you that it is a pretty high-end topic for principles when I meet with them and look at their achievement data. Do I believe that it's going to cause some negative ripple effect and all those things? I can't predict how people may perceive that. What I can tell you is I feel based on the three short years I have been here through several adoptions that this is probably the ro most robust implementation plan I have seen yet and it was truly in partnership with our teachers who are going to be leading the implementation. I am not hearing the same angst. I've gone to a few of the curriculum meetings as they were doing the adoption process. Everybody is very excited

107for this adoption there. The only concerns that came my way was please don't repeat what we did with literacy adoption. Honestly was about the most negative I got. Um outside of that, I'm not sure there's much else I can share at this time. Do I believe there's an impact? Yeah, it's changed. Absolutely. you're you're addressing um I'm sure some concerns that people have and are I would say we have teachers who are hungry to get once they've seen what the literacy adoption can do. Oh, okay. Let's do this over here. And so that's not everyone and that will never be everyone when we are in a district of this size. But getting adequate highquality instructional materials all at the same time so everyone gets the opportunity to engage within it is pretty remarkable and has

108not been done for math in a while. And so I think how our educators and leaders champion this will be a lot of how the ripple effect happens in our community. >> Quick followup. Any chance of that that it improves it? >> It could. It absolutely could. We've had um lots of conversations about math and we're going to continue talking about math and so having a really solid foundational K5 math curriculum is just going to boost us further along and we have to be cognizant that if we do it at the elementary level, we have some other levels that haven't had a math adoption either. And so we are going to they're on the docket. They're just not next year. Um, and so that cycle will continue. And I have really high hopes and I

109have a lot of faith in the staff that came together and volunteered their time to put this adoption into place. >> I think Superintendent Kingsley has some things you'd like to share. >> I just want to reinforce reinforce what Dr. Olsen said that this to me is a strategic ask of the board as an investment to improve outcomes for all students, not just some. And we have invested over the last five years approximately $10 million in our elementary literacy curricula alone. So when you think about the price here for the investment of one of our core big subjects of mathematics uh it it's a big big bet to improve not just mathematic outcomes but graduation rates too. I mean we simply put we cannot intervene our way to excellence. If our students leave our elementary

110schools without a foundational sound understanding of mathematics their ability to catch up at the middle school and high school level is just almost impossible and so investing in our elementary space is really really important. Ag again I want to agree with the sentiment that Dr. Olson uh and um Amanda also shared regarding the sentiment of our elementary school leaders and teachers. The current curricula, this is not just about price, this is about investing in quality. The current elementary math curricula has so many holes in it that we have to spend money on top of the 1.5 in digital resources and other to fill in the gaps. And those resources are being filtered not just at the system level but each of our individual schools are trying to figure out how to do that on their

111own which is really splintering our ability to have a coherent mathematical program in our elementary schools. So I just the investment in quality I price matters especially in the context of all of our scenarios that we're dealing with but having a substandard curricula it can't be acceptable either. Um and I just I really appreciate your response. do appreciate the questions because there will be some change management that we will navigate and as you know we've heard deimplement deimplementing is hard um doing things that are new and uncomfortable um but I think there's a general sense of enthusiasm and excitement about where you are landing with your collective uh around these recommendations and so I just uh I couldn't be more supportive supportive of the effort. >> Thank you for that. Any other please? >> Um,

112Superintendent Kingsley, you spoke to what I wanted to talk about and that is investment and really thinking about how we're defining investment and how we're prioritizing that. Investment can be seen, what we're putting in right now, but could also be that long term. And we also think got to think about what are the um gains that we might get in the future from that. And I also want to go back to other districts and stuff when we just had a presentation where we were talking about workforce readiness in the future and we know leaps and bounds are occurring in terms of how we use math in in our world and how it adds to you know real world consequences and stuff. And so I think as a district we have to be willing to invest

113in that for our students as we not only think about where we are now but making sure we also stay attendant to the future. Um and I think we have a responsibility to not only serve our students now but in future and reconceptualize what investment means and how we articulate that. So thank you. >> Go ahead. >> Question just to start off. How often does Colorado change their standards? Is it a 10-year cycle? Do we know? >> Sorry to laugh. Um or giggle. Um, I think it just depends on their cycle and their internal staff. So, sometimes we've seen seven years, sometimes we've seen 12, sometimes we've seen four. It also depends on the legislative cycle and what they put into enactment. So, I I can't really give you a solid answer, but I can

114find out for you if you would like to know for sure. >> It it feeds more into probably my second broader question. How flexible are each of these companies with what can only be described as potential changes? Colorado standards would be one. >> Uh I think about um what what are their accessibility related items for things like the audiobook part of things for those who are visually impaired. They're braille based resources for those who um sorry getting them backwards in my head here. You know what I'm saying? audio resources, uh, braille type resources, even additional languages when we're looking at 2050 being predicted as French have being the number one language worldwide. Uh, so they have those sorts of things and they written into the contracts for additional resources, course corrections, protecting us against now

115the teachers having to come up with all these additional things again because something changed. We're now out of alignment. and will they match with us and be a good partner or are we left on our own again is what where it sounds like we are right now with what you described. >> Sure. I think there's a lot of questions in there so I'm going to try to answer some of them. I don't know if I have answers to all of them. >> Ultimately it's are they going to play well with us? >> So what I do know is that it is really important what goes into our contract um and how that contract is written. But what I have learned is that our vendors are not like Apple. They do not let you purchase something

116and then when they choose to update, they update everyone. That's not how vendors work with curricular um resources. So there's always a chance that in the future it may not ne meet all of our needs, but the robust process that they go through is not timelmited. And so there may be some aspects that we may run into in the future, but I feel pretty confident with how they are working through contracting and what the actual RFP was asking for that we will have capacity to tweak and adjust as we need to. But in terms of let's say for an example, a whole new historical perspective comes out and it's not in our books that we purchased. um we would have to then go back and have another contract conversation if we were to purchase additional

117items from that vendor. So our original contract has to be robust enough, but it's not going to be ever extending because then they're going to raise the price every time we add more things to that capacity. So we do the best we can with the amount of years that we've got. And I'm going to tell you with the packages that they're giving us now compared to 10 years ago is significantly different. And so I'm very enthusiastic and a little bit of caution is always warranted when you purchase something for 7 to 10 years. >> Dr. Olsson, if I could to the accessibility point, I'm sorry to interrupt, but Colorado is under a new law that does require some of that accessibility uh adjustment to happen in real time. and our contracting team has done a

118great job of providing that language with our vendors and that's an active part of our digital negotiations as well. So that's not on the backs of our teachers to make those. That's on the obligation of the vendor to continue to provide that digital accessibility support. We'll never be done getting that perfectly right. But there is an expectation in in our contracts and in Colorado law and soon to be in federal law that would support us in that space as well. >> I'm sorry. All right, I want to build off Andrew's concern. This was kind of where I was going earlier. It it it seems to me though that um if we're going to do everything upfront, um we're relying on the contractual provisions to hold them accountable if things go ary or if there's things

119that need to be considered. I would and I don't know, accept my ignorance on this and apologize for it, but with this kind of vendor, I'm wondering if given the price tag, a more staggered payment cycle would be appropriate if that's ever negotiated. So lump sum up front in year three. They get the 35% in a in a descending amount each year to completion. I don't know if they'll go for that, but I don't know how popular they are. I don't know if they're they want our business well enough. Will they'll work for us? I also know the implications, Dave, on what that would do to budgeting, forecasting for next cycles. If we've got it in the coffer now, do we use it or kind of lose it? So >> sorry. Um um Okay, so

120those are my questions. as as far as you again this just apologize for my ignorance on this. I don't know this vendor. I don't know you know who we're doing business with and whether they would accept the >> I'm going to hop in real quick to say you approved in consent earlier tonight a contract with our uh communications vendor. If you look at the pricing statement there, we were originally told by our vendor that we needed to pay them upfront for things and then it would be cool and we'd be fine. The pricing statement that you see as our contracts team worked to negotiate will show that we don't pay a full implementation price. We pay a partial and then upon completion of work, we pay more and then we build. So we do everything

121we can to structure and you'll hear from others who are more experienced in large curriculum contracts in this district than I am. That's not always how our vendors allow us to be in the space. We do everything on our end to hedge those investments to protect them. and there are all the things that you've raised and more. So that's that's constantly in conversation to make sure that we're protecting the district as best we can. >> I can also say and I don't I don't even pretend to know all those and that's why we have our wonderful finance team to help us but we negotiated this price for the 10-year or seven-year. If we were to change the years I guarantee the price will change. So just want to put that there. >> Thank you for

122the context. Are there any other comments at the moment? Okay. Well, I will just say one, as someone who has adopted a few different curriculums at this point, I really appreciate how that this process of choosing the curriculum and then implementing it has evolved over time. Choosing curriculum has become so much more inclusive and intentional with that inclusiveness. and then the implementation, you know, really holding people accountable, but doing it with kindness and with support. So, it's not a gotcha, it's a how do we help you? So, I just really appreciate how we've evolved as a system. Um, and then the other thing I just have to say because as a math instructor, having many students along my pathway who have decided not to do careers specifically due to math content or math experiences, having

123teachers be excited to adopt a new curriculum that can support their children, their students early makes all a world of difference. It's those early years that really define their math education going forward. And so, >> absolutely, >> I I love to speak to all of them. I'm I'm not a not a language teacher. I'm not um an ELD teacher, but those are also incredibly important. I think probably for very similar reasons. So, I just wanted to put my two cents in the room and thank you so much for the presentation. It's very thorough. >> Um on that note, we are going to take a five minute break or maybe seven. Let's meet back at 7:35 and we'll see you soon. All right, we are back together a little bit behind but not too bad at

1247:37. Um, and then we are going to do our lastformational report with our comprehensive planning committee. >> All right, so welcome back everybody. Tonight, we we look forward to hearing about the comprehensive planning committee summary from our lead assistant superintendent, Dr. Tracy Guile, and committee members Brett Hansen, Sarah Everly, and Britney Pierce. Welcome team. Thank you all for being here. >> Good evening, President Zamora, um, Director, Superintendent Kingsley, we are pleased to provide you with an update on the work of the comprehensive planning committee up to this point. And so I'm gonna turn the presentation over to the co-chair Brett Hansen. So welcome Brett. >> Good evening. Um, first off, I want to acknowledge uh the the work of the committee members that we've had and I think it's worth taking a moment to uh

125explain for the benefit of the public as well as anybody that might be uh interested uh as who exactly is the comprehensive planning committee. This was a committee that was formed in the aftermath of the consolidation discussions a couple of years ago and it reflects a an intent by the board to get more community input into any kind of facilities making decisions facility decisions and uh any of that process. Uh as part of the committee, half of the committee is community members. Uh we have parents representing uh the various high school feeder systems. Uh, I have children that attend in within the Timoth High School theater system. Got a couple at Bethy Elementary with a couple coming behind them. Uh, I have a couple community members who are volunteering to attend with me tonight. I

126have Sarah Everly, who represents from the Fossil Ridge system, and then one of our community members at large, Britney Pierce, who also has children uh on the west side of the the district. Uh, and so that is the community member side of this committee. uh but we also have support from uh various levels of staff within PSD. We have representation of uh principles at the various levels. We have uh representatives from the principal union, the teachers union, the classified staff union. Uh in addition to district staff, we have uh our lead superintendent, Dr. Guile. We have uh integrated services. We have the language culture and equity center as well as facilities and finance. It's really an attempt to get uh a number of perspectives into the room uh so that we can come up with

127a quality recommendation. So what the committee does as part of the charter that was approved by the board uh is we are to look at how our facilities are being used. Look at the utilization numbers, look at the boundaries, look at the condition of the facilities and look at criteria that can be developed in order to guide the district in any kind of change to our facility status in in the district. And what uh is in our charter is that for our first year of operation, we are instructed to learn about the district, learn enrollment trends, learn numbers, learn what the impacts of those trends are on the budget both at the district level and within the school. And uh so this slide outlines the topics of discussion that we've had in our meeting so

128far. And what I want to emphasize is we are not coming today with any kind of specific recommendation. We're not coming today with a specific plan. In fact, it was explicitly defined to us in our charter that uh we should be learning and analyzing data. And today we are presenting some conclusions and making a recommendation on what plan we should now be forming and what is the topic of discussion we should be having with the community going forward. And we'll be seeking the board's uh agreement that now is the time to begin making a plan and engaging in discussion with the community. So as we've looked at enrollment enrollment trends and what is going on the schools, it has been a heavily data informed process. We've tried to look at various angles of the data,

129tried to dig into the reliability of the data. Uh but what we're looking at is how enrollment trends are impacted by for example shifts in grade levels. You know, what's the fifth grade enrollment versus the kindergarten enrollment in schools and that gives us a good indicator of what will be coming down the line. Uh we look at school choice data uh choice patterns uh development trends and development patterns u as well as looking at how well the data within PSD correlates with data from the state demographer. There was a presentation to the board uh a couple months ago early December uh which also informed our perspective and and looking at how we wanted to evaluate the data that we were seeing. I won't go through all the data we went through because we spent nine

130months now uh looking through various angles of data but I would do want to give a couple summary points. Uh the first slide here has a number is a little bit extensive but I what I would like to focus on is this gives us an idea of how reliable the one-year projections are for the district. uh if we're just projecting what are going to be the numbers next year and what I'd like to highlight for your attention is the fourth row percent difference and what we see is uh in general the difference between the projections and the actual enrollment numbers are pretty good within a percent with the exception of being uh 2020 the co year and that gives us a good idea of what an outlier something that extreme can look like on uh

131projections but in general the trend seems to be pretty reli it's pretty reliable some pretty uh acceptable data, but one year isn't super helpful if we're trying to make long-term projections. So, it's worth looking at how reliable is the data when we're saying this is what it'll be like in three years, four years, 5 years. And this slide shows uh two school years, both the 2526 and the 2425 school years. The red line shows what the actual enrollment was that year in the uh district and the blue bars show what the enrollment projections were 5 years before that time, four years, three years, two years, one year. What you see is at the 5year mark, there definitely is a little bit of noise. Again, that's that's the co year. So, if you want to get

132a perspective of what it looks like with a with a significant outlier year, that is what it can look like. Once you get out of that and you look at these four, three, two, one year projections, you see that we're actually quite close. Um, I believe the the 2024 projection there, the the graph on the left, we're off by about 60 students and I think it's about 20 students uh on the graph on the right for the 2526 school year. So, when you're talking about a district of 25,000 kids, uh it's a pretty reliable benchmark if you're trying to gauge out what long-term trends look like. Uh this data is also not just analyzed within PSD but it's also verified and audited by the state. I think an important consideration to keep in mind. Uh

133PSD has every uh interest in the world in making sure they count as many students as they can. Uh that that's what impacts our funding and the state has every interest in the world in making sure we do not count any students. We should not be counting. And so that those competing interests really uh work to refine the models, refine the estimates, refine the projections as well as the final counts uh to make sure the proper uh count is is being made. So what are conclusions? What are the conclusions that the committee came up with as they uh study these trends? And I'll highlight a few here. First off, we are seeing a 2% annual decline uh in enrollment across the district. Uh I imagine many people saw the articles uh recently in the Colorado

134and talking about a 500 uh student decline across the district and those numbers were projected uh for for anybody that was involved with seeing that data 2 three years ago. Uh that wasn't a surprise and and it fell right in line with what was expected. Uh but more importantly it's expected to continue based on the projections that we're getting both within uh PSD's planners as well as state demographers. And it's important to understand what exactly that means. Uh based on today's uh budgeting models that the state uses, that the district uses, what that correlates to is a drop in about $6 million of uh funds for the district every year. Every time there's a decline, it's $6 million. If there are changes to the funding levels uh from the state, then there will be changes

135to this number. Um just an important piece of context to keep in mind. Another uh important conclusion that we drew was that trying to change boundaries within our district was not a desirable thing to do. And the reason for that is as we look at enrollment decline, it is general across the district. Uh sometimes I've I've heard people have the impression that one side of the district is shrinking and the other is growing and booming and that really is not the case anymore. uh it is across the district and there's no one area that's that's a hot pocket anymore. Every spot has good enrollment numbers to really low in numbers, but there's enrollment numbers, but there's no place that's just booming at the seams and and over capacity. And it's important to note that as

136we looked at these uh data points, the committee achieved 100% consensus on these facts. uh from time to time we just want to do a check with the committee members and just see are we all in alignment on these data points because we need to know if we're in alignment before we can move on to forming conclusions. Uh as well as noting that small schools and elementary schools are the ones that are most disproportionately impacted by these costs. They just have a smaller population as it is and so when you start cutting into their enrollments as well as we are seeing bigger drops at that level it it can be more impactful. Uh the next thing that we really wanted to look at and understand was not just the numbers on a spreadsheet. There's this

137many kids at this school and this many dollars at this school, but we really wanted to understand what does that mean with what is going on in the schools. And to do that, we did a survey of all the principles in the district. And we saw some really strong uh general conclusions uh from across the district from our principles. What we what we asked them was essentially what uh what impact have you seen in your school as your enrollments have dropped and what uh changes would you need to make as if your enrollment continues to drop? And on the flip side, if you were to receive a a growth in your number of students, what would that look like? How would you change your budget? And what we're seeing is as schools lose uh population,

138lose enrollment, uh the principles are having to cut services in their schools. they're having to have fewer pair of professionals, fewer IP supports, fewer counselors. Uh, one of the data points that was surprising to me is, you know, as you as you see a school shrinking in population, you think maybe that's a smaller student to teacher ratio, smaller classes. But in practice, that isn't how it plays out. And certainly that's how our principles uh phrased it as well was as as as populations shrink, you end up having to cut staff and you actually end up with higher student toteer ratios. Uh you also have less stability in your staffing as you're having to cut hours. Uh and you're having to consolidate tracks. You have to cut programs like gifted and talented or even some of

139these supplementary services that may not show up as a formal program. Say kids that don't quite qualify for gifted and talented or don't quite qualify for IEP support but maybe still need some form of informal support. There is less money around for that. And conversely, principles expressed that as their population would grow, they would be able to expand those services and offer a uh more complete educational service within their school. So given all these data points, uh this is our core conclusion that we wrestled with over over several meetings actually. Uh we we discussed uh what points needed to be included in our core conclusion. It's PSD has too many vacant seats in their buildings and five-year projections show the number of empty seats will grow across the district. In order to provide more ideal

140educational programming across the district, the number of open seats needs to be reduced by consolidating some schools together into fewer locations. PSD should then utilize newly available buildings with alternative uses that support PSD educational services and goals. And this was a conclusion that we we wrestled with. We wrestled with some of the wording trying to fine-tune some things until we got to the point that 100% of the committee expressed uh agreement. Um and we didn't have any there was no concerns with that at that point. And so one of the things that we will be asking the board today is essentially are we on the same page in terms of what does the data say on this conclusion on what plan we now should be starting to make and what is the subject of conversation

141we can now engage with the community because that's what we really want is to start engaging with the community start asking them how they can help us move forward with this process and uh take it out of the theoretical but into actually trying to adapt our district to the to better address the needs within our district. Our immediate next steps is we want to start reviewing utilization data and start drafting the criteria uh that would be used for a consolidation process. Uh is it going to be based on utilization? Is it going to be based on status of the building? Just whatever criteria that uh we think is relevant and that we can get from the community as as criteria that should be considered. uh we're trying to find u a datadriven approach here uh

142in a way to best benefit students across the district. Um, and the plan would be in May of 2026, we'd come back before the board and we would present to you that criteria and that plan. Uh, at that time to give you kind of a preview of what of this data point, I wanted to look at uh utilization and what does this data point mean? We wanted to compare uh how are some of our neighboring school districts are looking at this consolidation process. This is happening across the state. We have some of our neighboring peer school districts that are a bit ahead of us in the decision-making process and so have already established some criteria and uh the examples we chose are Boulder Valley School District and Thompson School District for both of these districts.

143Once you reach a certain capacity threshold uh percentage certain sorry a certain percentage of utilization uh that triggers certain actions by the district. It might be that they decide they have to subsidize funding increasingly or they have to start consolidating grades or they need to start talking about consolidating a school altogether. Those are the kinds of things they start looking at. For example, Boulder once they reach below 60% capacity on a school and in Thompson below 75% capacity. Uh I think it's worth noting for full context if we were to apply these criteria to our district what does that mean? Uh if we were to look at the Boulder Valley School District, we currently have, if we look at our 28 elementary schools that are in the main Fort Collins, Wellington, Timothith area, of those

14428, 12 already meet the criteria that would trigger something in Boulder and 14 of those 28 meet the criteria that would trigger an action in Thompson. and projections are showing by fall of 2029, so only about 3 years away, uh 15 of those 28 would meet the criteria set in Boulder and 22 of 28 would meet the criteria set in Thompson. Uh it's it's an issue that that has come. You know, I I I think one of the the points that we noticed in our committee is we're no longer trying to act on something that we project will happen. We are now reacting to something that has already happened and will continue to happen. And as a as another point of reference, we we ran this our our core conclusion by all the principles in

145the district. We had a separate meeting recently and asked all the principles in the district there whether they agreed and we actually received a verbal unanimous agreement with that statement. And what surprised me the most was it was pretty much instant. uh your your principles across the district unanimously agree that this should be a plan that we need to start moving forward with. Uh and one more data point I'll go and share just to kind of help try to give the full context to the board and to the community here is we have 80% of kids in PSD boundaries that are choosing to attend PSD run schools. So we have about 20% that choose other options and that's a signific that's significant. It's one in five kids. And uh the reasons that people choose other

146options, they're varied. And it's important that that they be understood and acknowledged and uh that that is considered. But the bigger trend and the bigger point is that even if PSD were to be successful in retaining most of those students, you're still looking at thousands of open seats across your district. Uh there's just not enough school age kids in the district anymore. That's just the reality we're in. And so now it's what are we going to do about it? That's the hand we're dealt. How are we going to play it? Um so our district, you know, we we move to delay consolidation a couple of years ago and there are certainly valid reasons for that. Uh but uh the committee feels that delays are are no longer in the district's interest and no longer in

147the interest of our kids. And we think that this plan, a plan to develop a consolidation process and criteria and to begin to have that conversation with the community is our recommendation of where we would like to go. And so with that, I will ask what questions do you have about our work so far? >> Thank you very much so far for this and I'm sure we have plenty of questions. Great. Would anyone like to start? Okay, I will gather my thoughts. Um, so I think one of the things that I just want to make sure we explain and specify is we talk a lot about our our specials or as our community commenter said, our fruits and vegetables. Um, and how we're not funding them at 100%, but oftentimes our families and our children

148experience them as though they are 100%. And so wanting to make sure that we're able to articulate to our community what they're experiencing and what our what this the buildings are actually having to make choices on and how that discrepancy happens. >> Yeah. So um right now the minimum threshold of like experiencing specials particularly art music and PE is that students get that at least one time a week those subject areas. The reality of declining enrollment means that those are partial contracts for the majority of our art, music, and PE teachers at the elementary level. They're it's not the norm to have a 100% contract now for those areas. So, they're splitting between schools, which means those professionals oftentimes might be driving across town to go to another school and teach those music classes um

149midday or they could be doing an alternating like a Monday here, a Tuesday there. And so, a lot of them are either um paired contracts to get people to 100% or they're less than 100% contracts. And so we're trying to find people who are willing to take a 40% contract, a 60% contract. And when you're dividing your workload across two schools, it starts to impact the additional programming that you can offer such as programs and family nights, afterchool clubs, and enrichment that it's just too much to ask someone who's juggling two schools to do all of those things across two schools. >> Thank you so much, Okay, I can keep rolling, but I feel like we have questions. Please, >> thank you for the presentation. Um, I'm going to ask these questions. I know you're

150both standing at the the pulpit, shall we say? But if there are others that want to jump in that were there, please please jump in. Um, uh, the first question I've got is it looks like to me that the um we talked about one conclusion where there was 100% alignment there there was not there was a conclusion where there was not 100% alignment. It looks like there was a slight deviation and that one was since school districts are funded on a per pupil basis declining numbers of students can lead to budget reductions as well as inefficient facility operations and most importantly a less comprehensive educational experience for students at schools with small enrollments. Uh Dr. Dr. G, I think you you were just talking about that last part, but I've got 93% of the committee

151agrees and 7% disagree. Can you speak to as a committee where there was misalignment, not just with conclusions, but maybe with some of the factual statements because I do remember seeing those throughout the year. >> Sure. So, we included uh every I don't know if official is the right word, but we include I I'll use that term loosely, every official summary statement that the committee voted on when we voted on them. A number of those ones, the ones where we do not have 100% alignment show up when we were earlier in our discussions. Uh I believe that one may have even been August. Uh our core conclusion was was finally formed in December. And so when we got to when we did these initial temperature checks, that was our chance to see what data do

152you need to see to be able to feel comfortable with conclusion or what data do you want the rest of us to consider so that we also agree with you that maybe we shouldn't uh go that way. And so that was that that's basically how the process worked. And so for our final conclusion that that represents the culmination of all the discussion including those summary statements that we'll call intermediate summary statements. uh so that we could make everybody on the committee feel comfortable with with the final recommendation, the final conclusion here. Does that make sense? >> That's well I was hoping you would explain kind of the process of deliberation. It sounds a bit like a year-long jury pool service is kind of what it sounds like. Um >> little bit. >> Uh okay. So

153next question is um was in these discussions about looking at data looking at you know some of the metrices were were forming these conclusions did you did the committee consider 4A and specifically the $4 million of uh allocated to small neighborhood school support um if you did consider it how did it come into the conversations if it didn't why not? So our focus on data was on the enrollment numbers themselves. Uh the mill levy dollars uh there was not a lot of direct consideration of that. It was more on the base what is the studentbased budgeting allocate to the school. Uh once we get to the the mill levy dollars I think we tended to view that as more of a supplemental ex expenditure that could be used to support a school however another group

154wanted to do so. you have a separate committee that kind of oversees those funds including yourselves. Um I don't know if if anyone else wants to add any on that or do would you agree with my characterization? Okay. So, uh so not a lot of direct consideration of of those dollars. >> I appreciate it. Um last question. Uh I see on the the core conclusion that you presented there was 100% alignment from the committee. Was that did we get the sense that was a begrudging alignment? That was a I'll just vote yes to get this over with or was there true and I mean I mean this genuinely. Could you speak to some of the authenticity of that? >> Please, >> come on up to the mic. >> Thank you. >> I was one of

155those members on the committee that felt very strongly that we needed time to consider what statement we were bringing towards to forward to the board. Um, and so I had asked and I think I can't remember who it was, they gave this analogy of crockpotting and I was like yes. I was like I just yes. I love that. I was like, "We need to crockpot." Like, I I I'm not comfortable. And there was I think we were like right up to the hour like the hour we were done. Um and I think the committee at least uh agreed that we weren't ready to vote on that. And so, um over the winter break, I believe we were asked to take a vote. We had an opportunity to think about u they had an opportunity to

156tweak the language to really include the voices from that discussion and then that was presented to the to the committee who then voted in January. Go forth. >> I'd like to get a little feedback on how confident you are with the denominator for each school because capacity clearly is driven by what that total number is. And in the few school visits I've had so far, there sometimes are empty classrooms. They're not out at recess or things like that. Um, I hear of rooms being used specifically for um, things like dyslexia and things like that. Otherwise, a classroom space type room, but it doesn't seem like that should be counted as classroom space if it has a designated other purpose. And so where are we with the process of validating each school specific to you know

157feedback from the principles all these things to make sure we are you know quite literally 100% confident that our denominator is correct so that way we get our capacity set because I also hear there are I still get stories of classrooms with far more than the 25 and I don't know if that's still the magic number we look at and that's concerning and because that sounds like artificial um inflation of you know the risk of it anyway. Let's put it that way. And and and again I say risk because there's lots of different things. There's teacher planning time and things like that just to make sure we're counting exactly as we should and not getting those larger classroom sizes unintentionally with too many students etc. >> Yeah. So that is um a data set that

158we're going to start reviewing with the committee on this coming Monday. So we meet as a comprehensive planning committee. Um Dave Mononttoy in partnership with um his team have been working to review the um building utilization floor plan. So we have a floor plan of every building that has the square footage of each of the rooms within the building and then very clearly a table that delineates which rooms are counted in the capacity. And so the approach that we are presenting to the committee to review on Monday is to only take those rooms that meet a minimum standard of 25 pupils or greater depending on the level. So there is a variability whether you're an elementary versus a secondary school in the design. And so to take that as the core standard, minimum standard of

159what defines a classroom and then to be able to visually show that that percentage then that translated utilization percentage is based solely on that classroom um number. So the number of spaces that meet that criteria. And so that's what we'll present to the comprehensive planning committee for their feedback about our approach to um doing the denominator for capacity. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. >> Go ahead. >> Um I just had a few questions. Thanks again for putting this together on that on that capacity question. Um, are you getting any feedback or input or will you from the principles themselves? I think that was a question that came up on the last round that that they truly know their buildings and you can't always tell from a floor plan. That's one question we can go. >>

160Yeah. Yeah. So the the first step is is like looking as a comprehensive planning committee of like hey does this visually represent what makes sense and is transparent as far as a metric. So that's kind of the first thing that we'll do on Monday. And then if committee is like, "Yeah, this approach yeah makes sense that is transparent to a community member." Like what I wanted to do and what I've worked with Dave on is I wanted to be able to basically count one two three four five six seven eight nine ten classrooms and then be able to take that student cap or capacity and then arrive at the same percentage that the utilization criteria is named at. And that's what we're going to share with them. So it should be that transparent so that

161a principal could take that you know same approach and count and go that's how we get the utilization criteria then that feedback will be then nuanced about like we know that maybe some of our buildings and how they were designed is different than the educational programming that we provide today. And so we'll then have to take that look at yes we have these you know this number of minimum standard classroom spaces and we know that this site is going to need this type of programming so we have to make sure to make a space for that and so that'll be the next level of inquiry that we have into this process. I just had a couple other questions. I think in in any of these discussions um going forward, I think there are a couple

162big things that other ideas that are out there that I think we've addressed them somewhat in our meetings, but I think we may need to circle back and do it again. And um the boundaries I think you know in this presentation you said boundaries were looked at. I was in those meetings and talked about how it is a problem that's kind of pretty much universal. If you look at the numbers, it's you could see how it could be if you're just doing it from a pure math standpoint, you could average things around and make it work. Um, but I think we need to really have a public discussion about boundaries and also acknowledge that even if we do end up transforming our schools, our buildings, um, boundaries are going to have to shift anyhow. So

163that would be a part of a solution. So it's almost a hybrid solution. Grade reconfiguration, that's an old idea or we used to do. Uh, that's a whole another can of worms. But I think it at least deserves a public acknowledgement and discussion as to why. And when I say that, I'm talking about sixth grade coming back into elementary schools, therefore bolstering those elementary school populations. And the reasoning as to why that's not a good idea in the situation would need to need to come up. I mean, that's an earthquake. I don't mean to scare everybody by saying that, but that is something that was here even when my kids were in elementary school. Um, so I just think we need to be open to having those discussions transparently if we want to address what

164the public is concerned about and make sure they know we are ticking off all the different alternatives and really having robust discussions, which I I love that this committee has been a standing committee since last April. It has been in the plans before that. Um, I think we're doing the right things, but but it's such a deeply emotional uh decision that um that I think we need to make sure we're we're covering all our bases. And and then the last thing I'll say, and this is just my marketing side, I keep talking about this. You guys get sick of me talking about this, but and I don't think this is a this is a short-term problem we need to address, but we need to know, we need a mechanism to learn why people are or

165are not choosing PSD. We've said, we've tried, we've done surveys, nobody responds to them. We need to get a better mechanism to get that information. I think I had a great discussion with Brian about some things that the principles at elementary schools are talking about for kindergarten parents who are putting in their applications uh and how we can change the way they do that. Instead of it being online, they come in person to the school and you actually have a discussion with them. That does happen at a lot of kindergarten or at a lot of schools, but doesn't happen at everyone. But we need that feedback. Is it class size? Is it bell time? Is it behavior issues? The reputation of PSD? Is it types of curriculum like are people seeking out core knowledge? We

166need to know what our customers or potential customers are thinking and including the ones we're losing and what can we do to change things and attract them back. Because I think if we're projecting 2% loss every year, we can't just accept that and say, "Oh, well, that's the way it is." We need to do something. I think of it from a business perspective. If I'm losing that much every year, I'm going to be out of business within 10 years because we just can't absorb that kind of loss. So, we need to to do that. It's a very hard ask and I know that that's the truth on that. But but I think we need to understand why they're choosing or not choosing whether it's an accident interview or if they never even put their kid

167in our school district, what made your decision for you and hope we get some honest feedback on that. And I think that can help us tremendously in our communication efforts and and that type of thing. So sorry I spoke too long. Those aren't really questions. Those are more statements, but I just wanted to throw that out in the room. I think Carla had a Okay, Kiranda, go for first. I want to support what uh Scott is saying in terms of that um how we come about these decisions. I think it's so important to include the community voice. Um I'll just be real. It's concerning to me that we were talking about consolidation. We had a committee put together to look at all these aspects and then the conclusion is consolidation. So with that, one of

168my first questions is what other alternatives did we look at? Like there's always one way to solve a problem. There's multiple paths to solve that problem and we can choose a particular path. So I'm curious as to what other pathways showed up in you all's discussions um in addition to consolidation. >> Right? So uh you I'll address the the boundary boundary question. the way the discussion unfolded was and and I'll invite any committee members you know Scott Connor or or or committee members here to to contribute as well but when when you see the decline being so general for example half of the schools in the district being considered underutilized based on criteria in other districts there's not really a way to get all the schools to a healthy place it's it's like squeezing a

169half-inflated balloon and saying now I've inflated to this part, but this part's now shriveled and and empty. And so we we moved on actually fairly quickly from that from that discussion simply because it was so broad. If if it we if it was clear that we had certain pockets as we looked at we didn't dive deep into specific schools. It was more of the general trends we're looking at. But if if it was apparent that we had pockets of schools that were healthy and schools that were not, then I think we would have dove more into that discussion regarding some of the options about are you going to change, you know, K to K through six or uh looking at choice schools or or or other options. For now, I would say that is outside

170the scope of of our committee and what we've been chartered and charged with doing. I think that that is probably more of a question of board policy of how you want to approach that. So if if you are wanting to approach vastly different options other than looking at the facilities then then I would uh humbly suggest that that that is a policy the board needs to think about in terms of the directions that they want to give this committee or or another group. Um does that answer the the question of what we've looked at? me was your question. >> I'm just thinking about like what else came up besides consolidation >> like was like was there something else on the table >> we looked at if boundaries was a viable >> boundaries and was there

171other options that might have surfaced >> uh that and essentially should we wait should we wait and delay because it's not as big of a problem and we came to the conclusion that delaying was not a good thing. Um, that was essentially the three avenues that we looked at that were within the scope of this committee. >> Awesome. And I kind of I guess I'm like other people. And then my other question is I noticed that you bring up Boulder and Thompson and I'm curious how do they compare to us as a district? So the language that I'm often thinking about is like a peer comparison, right? Like are they a similar size district? Does the context and environment and contracts and all that stuff align to where they would be a comparable district? those

172two in particular. >> Certainly Boulder Valley School District is comparable in terms of size and demographic. Um Thompson School District similar but not quite as large as um we are and geographically pro you know they're just more approximate to us and um so we can learn from some of their policies that they've had in place a lot longer. So their um policy for this approach goes back to 1995. And so as a comparison district just because they're a neighbor to us and similar but Boulder would be the closest um comparison to us demographically. And then just my last piece is I guess I'm also thinking about what criteria so I'm hearing like we're going to move forward with this but how have you addressed equity and access on that front part because I see that

173and so the reason I'm saying is because if our only measures are utilization and enrollment that's missing a significant part and I heard what you said too in terms of like you know if we were to change the boundaries it wouldn't solve the problem but I guess my question would be if the problem solves was that instead of closing 15 schools and I know we're using transformation and all that stuff versus having three schools that might be underutilized, right? That shifts the conversation in terms of what we're doing. So, I'm curious as as to and and and once this ball gets rolling, right, you can't rever like, you know, I guess like how do you have confidence that we're doing all the things that we're doing to be inclusive? And I'm just naming this and

174I'll say it here. We are talking about utilization rates, enrollment and data as if they are not attached to people. And this is not a simple decision. This is people's lives. These are children's lives. These are teachers lives. These are our staff's lives. Right? And so it's not just numbers on a data sheet. It's people's lived experiences. And so I want to name that in this space. And then secondly, how are you all considering those aspects of equity and and access within this framework? But before you answer that question, if you can clarify what you mean by equity and access just to make certain that everyone in this space has shared understanding and definition, I appreciate that. Thank you. >> So, so I want to make sure I cover all your questions there. Um so

175the committee at this point uh in accordance with our charter we are analyzing data in order to recommend what plan we should be making and what conversation we should begin having with the community. And so if you're talking about uh gathering on the ground personal stories that comes next. We aren't there yet. We we are we are looping in right at the very very beginning. And as far as uh how are we going to get uh equity involved uh and you know how I would define that is providing a quality education to all the kids in the district. Um and and I appreciate your your comments about how we need to remember that these are people and and I know that that's come up in our committee meetings a lot. That's one of the reasons

176we we wrestled a bit with our final conclusion statement was trying to make it actually a very people focused statement. Uh the whole point of this process is to provide a higher quality education, a more equitable education across the district instead of having instead of having half of our schools have to be subsidized and having uh part-time teachers and not as many services as other schools that are having to do the subsidizing and have all but still have all the programming uh because they just have the scale numbers. that that is a process that I believe undermines the equity that that you're seeking. And so again, that's for the benefit of families and kids. And I understand change is not a pleasant thing, but the point is to come out on the other end with

177a better outcome with what we're able to deliver the children in our district. Is that >> Yeah, thank you. Um I'll just name two points and I'll move on. One, let's be clear about what is data. There's both quantitative and qualitative data. Qualitative data, whether that's stories on the ground, is just as robust and has its own methodology as quantitative data. There's still quality criteria for qualitative data. So, you can get people's stories and that still have a robust, a reliable, and a verifiable data set in order to shape and inform decisions. So, I want to be clear on how we're naming data. Secondly, um I want to name what equity is in this space and people could disagree and share your own perspectives, but there's one thing when we're trying to talk about fairness

178and so subsidization as one taking away from one space and subsidizing another is somehow wrong or inequitable. In actuality, that's framing it through the lens of fairness and equality. when actual equity is about access and also reducing disparities and outcomes and those disparities. So if subsidization within the district is an aspect that reduces disparities and increases our outcomes for all students then we are operating in an equitable manner. So I just wanted to be clear that that's how I define equity and I just wanted to put that in the space to shape and inform our conversations. I yield the four. Thank you for allowing me to ask those questions and I appreciate um the ability to engage with you. >> Thank you. >> Carla, did you want to go? Thank you. >> Thanks for the

179opportunity. Um, I'm new here. So, I just want to say that first and um just sort of uh I think name what I'm seeing and hearing. I think tonight you mentioned that you had spoken with principles that were um leaning right into the fact that they feel like we need to have this conversation that we need to move forward that we shouldn't be waiting. I have had the opportunity to speak with a couple of principles and they've been able to share with me how very challenging it is for them to divide the budget that is provided them and that they are unable to provide equitable services to the kids in their care. Um, and so my my hope is um it's not really a question, but uh my hope is that um and it sounds

180like that's what's informing these decisions as we move forward. And I think leaning into what Kurando is saying, I think that as we consider the schools um that we decide will no longer function as schools. Um we need to be so clear with that criteria what made us choose one school over another. I think that clarity is caring and we're all here because we deeply care about our community. Excuse me, I'm losing my voice a little. Um, and so I think that uh I think that that's kind of where we're that's where we're all feeling a little bit um I mean I'm I'm I'll speak for myself. That's where I'm feeling nervous about these conversations because it becomes less about people and more about money. I think Brett, when you were like, you know, we're

181we're missing $6 and half million dollars. I've said this a couple times, I was like, ah, but we're talking about kids, not dollars. And so, um, my my other question, I guess, would be how are we framing this, um, when we're communicating everything I just said in a very jumbled way. um the fact that we need um to pay less for buildings and more for resources for our kids and how we're communicating that to the um the people that we're serving um in a way that they know uh kind of what to expect, what's coming. I I don't think it's going to be easy. Um but I do think that we need um more than numbers. We need more than just that those utilization percentages. Um because we are attached to our neighborhood schools. We

182are, you know, and we do really care about our educators. Um but I know that those divided um specials teachers and integrated services and um I know that they're being just like segmented and segmented and um because we don't have the dollars in our across our district. Um yeah, I I think that for me, um leaning into that equity space, that access space, um if we're not able to prov provide integrated services and mental health services, the dad that spoke here earlier and named our um district as a really special place where he landed with his family, um I'm not willing to sacrifice that. So, I really um I I just want to be sure that we're we're just really careful with this and I I really appreciate the work that you all are doing.

183Um I know that you're taking it as seriously as you can. I don't know what next steps are. I know you mentioned that too. Um, but I think that's maybe where we involve the community and get their their voices involved in those very personal spaces. Um, I know that people are going to be, you know, gunning for their own schools. Um, so we need to just be so clear. So, I don't really know if I asked a question. Um, but I I think that it's important too that that we sort of all make a value statement around um how we're feeling in the face of this inevitable event that's coming. Um, and for me, it's really about clarity. Again, I can't say that enough. Um, and another thing that I haven't heard mentioned is our

184compliance. Um, uh, Brian and I got to sit with some parents in Wellington, and one of the moms had mentioned us being in compliance with some codified law and policy around um, closing schools and um, moving boundaries. And so I don't know if there's like a a certain section of the committee that's focused on that or if that's you know autumn questions or um but I'd like to know how we're remaining in compliance there too. Um I guess first off I I'll I'll uh mention and I guess just to kind of be clear um we felt it important as a committee to align on the fundamental conclusion of should consolidation even be the discussion we're having. We wanted to check in with the board see if we're there. So a direct answer to your question

185I don't have but I am assuming Dr. Dr. Hier will have some input on that, but I just want to make clear where we're at in the process. And it's a good question. >> So, as far as our local um policies, so really the applicable policy is um your EL policy. So, your executive limitation, I think, and that is referenced in our charter. I think it's 2.6 um is the executive limitation. And so within that policy there are many many things that the board must um agree to do. And one of them is you know you must have some oversight over our facilities right and determine what is the best um approach for their maintenance their condition etc. And also in that policy and in the executive limitation policies is you know having a budget

186that is acceptable. And so as far as like what what the board must do in compliance, it is in that e policy as it pertains to this matter. And so we are just an advisory committee. We're not a decisionmaking committee. And so ultimately it is going to be a board decision if we move forward with anything. So we're chartered at the request of the board. And so if if we need to amend that charter, it would be at the request of the board. if we need to do something different in compliance, it would be at the request of the board. But right now, we're governed by that EL policy. As far as like guidance from the state around like utilization, that doesn't exist. So, the state of Colorado doesn't set class sizes. They don't set

187caps. They don't set standards for facilities except in things like fire code and those areas. We use um whatever metric or research that is best practice to determine locally what we do for utilization um class sizes criteria. Other states dictate that at the state level. We don't do that here. >> All right. I think we're starting to head into like the next layers. Do you have questions about their actual processing committee? Okay. Y >> I did want to ask about um facility specific criteria as well. Um it's come to my attention that um just for instance that Batty received air conditioning. So are we looking at ways that our facilities are that are most efficient will be the ones that remain online? >> So that is part of our discussion on Monday. What criteria should

188we use? like what makes the most sense given some of this feedback, given some of the ways that we can be really clear and transparent in our process. And so that will be a point of discussion for for the committee. um 2022 23 we had Mckinstry do a facilities condition audit of the district and so those um reports are publicly available so you can go and see any one of our school conditions where they did an audit of all of the the mechanical features of that building. So part of that audit was how many schools have air conditioning, how many don't, what would it cost to retrofit and provide air conditioning. All of that's posted on our website if you just look for facilities condition assessment. >> If you don't mind, could I ask a

189follow-up question? Um, so so I know again that the topic of the mill levy over I came up and and you brought up the the air conditioning units just so I have some feedback. In your opinion, should a school that was able to get their air conditioning unit recently installed, should that be a primary factor over since we're talking about people, what's going on with the people in the school district? Is that something you're comfortable overriding? This school just got a new AC unit, but for the for the kids, we should probably look at consult. I'm not talking about a specific school. I'm asking just generally, hypothetically. What are your thoughts on on that? So I can understand a board perspective on that. >> Um >> I mean this one seems spec specific to Carla.

190>> Yeah. It was to Carla response to her question there. So >> um >> I mean I think that we should try to be efficient. So in my mind um the most utilitarian facilities would be the most efficient but that doesn't weigh in the people's side. So, I mean, I I feel like, yeah, I I don't think that you can weigh one without the other. >> Okay. A balance is what you're suggesting, not just >> Absolutely. >> They've got a new AC unit. They're the top of the list to stay. >> Yes. >> Okay. Just want to make sure I understand. >> And I think balance comes from many voices. >> Yes. >> In the room. >> All right. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Sure. This was a free-for-all, but I had I had a

191lot of notes for the next couple slides. So, >> um, just so you've heard it from another person, I've been thinking about this a lot as far as value statements. Um, and I've said this before and I'll say it again. I I think it should be a building's overall um, utility or efficiency could be a factor. I am very uncomfortable with predetermining what schools or sites should be off the list or on the list based on that alone because those decisions were not made with community input. Those decisions were not made with board input. Those decisions are made in the cadence of when we needed to do things and 4A was lightning quick. So that's I just want to make sure I've said that on the record is that I think there are a multitude

192of factors we will talk about. We're going to give you a lot of, I would hope, input about criteria and process moving forward, but I think that the Mckinstry was illuminating and it was very helpful to us to figure out and triage what the health of our buildings are districtwide. I don't think it's fair to to to signal to those communities or the community at large that just because a decision was made with 4A funds or whatever that that means that you have any other condition in comparison to others before we even know what we're talking about. That's my piece on it. >> I'm gonna asterize that because we did have a say because they can't spend the four the 4A dollars in large amounts without our input. We have to approve it. So, >>

193no, that's not what I meant. What I meant was but in connecting the dots to what he's asking about because that was not the decision. If we if the vote would put to us, hey, on consent, we've got three or four things Dave's pitching and he's done all this work. We bid it out. These schools are up because of XYZ. Oh, and by the way, those will absolutely not be in this conversation the next four years because of that. That would have impacted our votes wildly differently. So, >> I understand what you're saying now. Thank you for that clarity. >> I I think we're getting a little ahead of ourselves. So, Scott and I being on the committee and this report out is specifically on utilization. uh conversations around criterion and then facilities later on

194and then potentially boundaries and transformation will come later. I think from a board perspective and I'll speak for myself here um the committee is going to do a robust job in the next five months something like that >> u something like that on criterion once they have that criterion set then we will hear from them again and we will be able to provide feedback and say well maybe we don't like criterion A or criterion B for us to start front running that process without giving the committee time to come up with their own list. I think is not the best use of our time this evening. >> Sure, please. >> I think what's being asked is one of the things that have been mentioned is that the committee was 100% in agreement with this recommendation.

195What about the voice? I know we've heard about principles. You know, I'm thinking about teachers and then I think what we're trying to say is even the community. So, what what what support do we have from the community in terms of this as well? And to me that doesn't fall into criteria. It's just saying as we make this decision to move forward. Is there some consensus that this is the process that needs to take place? You know, I think we even have to consider our community may even have a different perspective and may be even able to offer pathways or suggestions or ideas on how that comes to together. So I think that's what it is not criteria but just where do we have agreement where do we have consensus and from a change process

196having that on the front end makes that change far more effective on the back end and so speaking for myself I wanted to clarify that that is what um I would like for us to consider is a more broad perspective before we arrive at this final recommendation that is inclusive of all voices not just just a select few who happen to have the opportunity to be on the committee, have the flexibility to be on the committee, the access to be on the committee that we are considering everybody and leaning into that. Thank you. >> So I just want to clarify that it's not criteria. I think it's just whose voices is engaged in this process because the same voices that are being left out will be the voices that will be impacted by the decisions

197of a few by not considering the perspective of the whole. >> Corona clarifying on that are are you suggesting that with this specific slide deck that we have here that we should take that to community engagement sessions? um I don't know PTO's the that type of roll out to the community. Is that what you like to see? Because I see some validity in that as well. >> Yes. I think the community perspective needs to be a part of this. Absolutely. >> But that's just me. I'm just speaking for me. I yield the floor. We won't say nothing. We ain't want nothing. I'm just saying y'all just thinking that to summarize what everybody was saying, it feels like we should have more voices in this process. That's all >> I would say too that some of

198the voices that Kiranda's I think inferring can't make community comment. They can't make PTO meetings. That's not a part of their world and the decisions we're making are going to affect them inherently. So I think I I don't know how we access all of those voices or make sure that they're heard. Um, I imagine that um through services that we already have in place um through our counselors and um integrated services, maybe we can lean into those spaces a little bit more. >> I think I'm hoping we're ready to continue with the rest of your presentation and maybe we'll get more clarity for you. >> Okay. Um this is all helpful feedback. Thank you very much. Uh and and helpful stuff that we can take into our next level discussions. Uh what we're going to

199be looking for is essentially just getting a check on the board is do you agree with that core conclusion from the committee? And along with that, do you agree that that should be the plan we should start working on? And do you support us now engaging with the community in making that plan and making that discussion? Um, so I I I don't know the protocol who who who wants to run it. Jessica, that's you uh to to kind of check with us. And this is an official vote. I I I just a check kind of a heat check. >> It's a value statement. Um I'm happy to go first, but I'm also happy to let anyone else make a statement. I feel like I'm just getting stairs of like, no, you do it. >> It's

200fair. Thanks for that. Always go first. >> You're welcome, Andrew, to go first. By all means. I I think when I look at this particular slide and then of course the next one as well um I I would agree to me that that this slide is fairly obvious. We we have a lot of open seats and that creates stressors to provide a high quality frankly equitable outcome for education for our students. You know, equity has to be used for solving the problem, but we already recognize we don't have equity right now. When you have schools that have different levels of resources at the same grade levels, that's not equitable. When we have difficulty getting all the transportation options that we might want and getting, you know, whatever it is we need to provide, we're we

201are under stress. to to me this this slide is is I'd want to call it self-evident because it takes strong data analysis and input and you've and you've done a lot of that great work already and we've built on you know what we had with the the steering committee two years ago which I know I was a part of and we were struggling with the data and trying to understand the the the shape and scope of the problem and it certainly has become worse in those inter intervening what two years almost now Having said that, I I think leans into that next slide absolutely is essential for that community piece of it. I think the one thing I would I would uh amend here is to make sure that we are are are looking at

202everything we possibly can because I I think we're facing not just a just just look at consolidation and that solves the problem. It has to be sort of an all hands- on deck kind of how can we do everything we possibly can with every avenue up to an including consolidation and closure uh to make sure we are getting to the district that we need to be to provide the education that we all desire that is equitable that is community focused uh that serves our our students and gets them the outputs that we need and so I I am in alignment with with what you were suggesting here as statements and also next steps especially the engagement of the community had a great discussion with the pea last night and yes they have some representation but

203they absolutely want to be more involved you know more broadly I would dare say I haven't talked to Joanie but or I'm sure you guys probably have people saying the same thing for your unions more involvement community wants to be involved they understand that we have problems and that we are facing and they want to be part of the process in creating the solutions question. >> That's That's the That's the point. It's going to be a lot. Um, does anyone else want to go or I can take a stab at it? >> Don't be longwinded. I'm just gonna preempt it. >> Okay. Do you want to go now or do you want me to go first? >> I'll go first. Um, I would say generally speaking with this uh statement, I also agree. I think

204you know we had hope that our numbers would rebound or we could see a different picture but the projections seem to be holding um and some of our financial picture while I don't want to make a decision only for the financial pieces or the resources but that really does mean the resources that students are getting and so if it means that we're consolidating schools so that we're infusing students with what they really need for a high quality education that we are um giving a reprieve to our teachers who are burnt out or heading towards burnout. And now with a more robust school full of resources that resources that they're getting um maybe not a not exactly a break but less on their plate I think would be valuable. I also think that would lead to

205uh better outcomes for staff, students, community at large. Um, I don't know if we're trying to answer both questions at the moment. So, I'm gonna look at the next page just for now. Uh, let's see. Sorry, I'm not reading it. The specific discussion we wish to have with the community. Yes, I think the community has to be involved. I think we have to include as many voices as we possibly can. I think that making this as human- centered as possible is the right pathway and ensuring that the questions that we're asking I think are really important and making sure we're formulating those in a way that we're getting high quality feedback and understanding the needs of our community. Um so I yes go to go with a process and making sure we're having those discussions.

206I think how we have those discussions and how we have those conversations is also really important. I will defer to your long-windedness now >> real quick. Can we >> Oh, please. >> Jessica, can we ask a clarifying question from >> I'm sorry. I just want to like especially if we're talking about this on Monday to just really >> understand maybe what I've heard from a couple of the board members is that we definitely want community voices. And I'm also hearing a lot of the members saying I also agree with your statement. So are we asking the community members to have input on criteria or are we asking to say community members do you have other ideas other than this proposed idea of consolidation? Because I hear what you were saying about maybe the community has

207other ideas. So I guess I just want to know what the board is thinking in terms of actual community voices. Is it about criteria? Is it just having their voices be heard? Is it being like, "Do you have other solutions?" What does our community need? >> If I if I can offer this, I want to make sure again before I speak, everyone gets a chance to answer each one of these because I think that's important. I was talking to Jess about how to do this. Should we just let every board director go for all of them? Um, so that you've got the feedback you need. I know that Brian is taking scrupulous notes here. Um I if if it's I think we're going to get to that because I've got some I've got more questions

208about that from my fellow board directors on the next one, but can we pause that until we've at least had this? Is that okay? Because that's a that's a valid question. I have the same questions. Does anyone else want to go on this slide? Because I'm going to go I'm doing and Dr. Ziggler taught me a good trick. I'm gonna I'm gonna do a timer and I'm gonna go I'm gonna try to talk fast. Um okay. So I echo what President Zamora said regrettably yes is um I agree with that assessment though for different reasons that overlap um I did for the last two years since we were having this conversation last time it was exactly almost two years ago where I was on this day and we were wrestling with some similar thoughts and

209I had I've echoed very similar sentiments uh in my own process I've done school visits I've met with leadership various uh labor groups of all the labor groups, had lots of conversations with exec uh I've met with parents in different parts of this town. We've all gone to community engagement sessions uh that we put up. I've looked at surveys, evaluations of licensed staff, unlicensed staff. Um so I' I've examined as about as much of this as I can and resoundingly my conclusion is the same. But I want to go immediately to what Dr. Dr. Ze was talking about for equity because I think this is an important point and this is kind of I was framing this too because in the last round of this I was not comfortable with the disparity and equity and

210the outcomes that have been proposed and I still am not okay with those. So my definition you asked uh Karan and I think this is a fair one is give the definition of equity and I'm trying to apply it to a school system. I've always said or I've always learned that equity is equity is not giving everyone the same thing. It's giving everyone what they need. So from my own investigation, this is my thoughts. I don't think we as a district are doing either of those things. And I think if we continue on this trend, we are going to not also not be fair, but we're also going to not be equitable in the decisions that are made. Um my own conclusions, I'm looking at data from pair professionals. They're feeling overwhelmed. They're reporting their

211spread too thin, high case load, need additional support, and at times have feared for their safety when conducting child restraints. And we're concerned about our attention, our retention rate and attrition rate for these members of our district. When we're failing them, they in turn, the students that are relying on them are being failed. That's unacceptable. Um, our AMP, our special teachers. Um, we've heard it. We we were at a community engagement session where we heard the story of a a special teacher who was dividing his time between schools. And the other thing that wasn't put in the room was he was saying that the val the relationships that students have that may confide him that may have that spark in music. He has to divide his time with those students which is not fair and

212that's not every school. So I think what people are coming to accept as normal within their own universe should not be acceptable across our district. Principles are making impossible decisions. We heard about it multiple times tonight about budgeting. Do I have to hire a pair this year or a license? having these fixed cost impossible decisions to make not knowing where the fluctuation of students are going to be and what decisions in in the how that works with next year's cycle and it's just an impossible position to be in. So that's unacceptable. Teachers are being asked to do more and more and more and more and more with less resources and less funding who are already spread too thin and now we're saying ah just take another shift doing this thing because we need it and

213we can't pay you. Not a fair request, not equitable one. I conclude that's unacceptable. And so when we look when I'm looking at all these things, I for me our students are paying the cost. Not the district or the system as a whole, but it's students who depend on us to make the decisions on their behalf that to ensure that they're achieving um in terms of, you know, in in our hallways every single day. And so if our district strategic plan is literacy, mental health, and well-being, and graduating options is to mean anything other than lip service, in my humble opinion, we need to reassess where we are as a district and make some difficult decisions. Otherwise, in in my view, we should choose a different strategic plan and sacrifice either mental health and well-being,

214literacy, and/or graduating with options and focus our our efforts and our resources on one or two, but not all. And to me, that is unacceptable. So, that's where I come out today and I say that I agree with the statement begrudgingly, regrettably, painstakingly, I agree with the statement. So, I'm more interested in the conversation of what we should do next. That was pretty good. I'll give you that. I think that was pretty good. >> You were great. Who would like to share since this is a core piece of their presentation? Do you have thoughts, wonderings? Do you agree, disagree? Please. >> I agree. I was at every meeting. So, I agree. Um um and that's also not to say that anybody here if you don't like in the future you can also disagree later on.

215We've done that once already. All right. So it's tonight's agreement or disagreement isn't the end- all beall. This is just as I was saying earlier this is just the foundation of this process is the utilization and data. like we've got to all agree on that first before we start getting into criterion and and whatnot. So, I definitely agree and I support the committee going forward and looking at the criterion because that's actually a harder lift. >> Well, this feels like an unofficial vote on something, but just want to put that out there. And so I am just going to honestly say that I am not in alignment with the conclusion of consolidation because it's not inclusive of our community voices. It's the inclusion of a few select people who ask access to make that decision

216on behalf of everyone. So with that being said, since we're all saying how we feel, um I'm not in alignment with the committee's conclusion. follow. >> First, I want to say I really appreciate your questions about equity. Um, but really started us off on a really good conversation. Um, and to some of the other points that have been made. I think equity is absolutely has to be at the center of these decisions. Um, and I I truly do believe, and I'm speaking for myself, not the committee, um, that in order to provide a more equitable experience for students, these are the hard decisions that I I think that we just we we're at the point of making. Um my clarifying question though for you is what would need to shift in this statement to feel

217like maybe you don't have full alignment but that you're moving towards alignment. Um, does BO does the BOE have alignment with the committee continuing our work to include multiple voices throughout the community in addition to the ones who had access to serve on the committee. So when I look at the charter, it seems this is part of your process is to do community and get voices and get input and get feedback. And so I'm not ne I'm bringing up equity want to make it clear that my concern is about the process and the process feels like it has narrowed and we have decided upon something and just just me you're asking me how I feel about alignment that before we arrive this place where we are considering consolidation the fact that we are even kneing

218it tonight has already started that process even if no work has taken place I cannot imagine Imagine that people were going to read the Colorado or watch a board meeting or hear anything and see consolidation and just say, "Oh, that's okay. You know what? Right now, they just gathering information and feedback. We good." The conversation itself is not neutral and has impact. And so for me, if we are going to lead to that part, then the community needs to be a part of us with it. Transparency, and I've said this to others before, is not telling people about a decision after the fact. Transparency is bringing people along throughout that process so they're involved in the decision. Yeah. And I know that's asking for a lot, but I think that's the hard work is being

219willing to do that extra because I guess the question is we're going to pay we're going to address it one way or the other. And it feels like, at least in my opinion, since you're asking, it would be a more robust process to do it on the front end than on the back end. Um, because we could account for people's different perspectives. And that's just a different way of approaching things. And I know not everyone leans into that, but again, serving on the board, that's a perspective that I want to introduce into this process to make sure that we're really thinking about that because that was a real messy process last time and we have a responsibility not to do that again. So that's what would make sense for me. Does that answer your question?

220Thank you, >> Corona. On that on that point again, um I I think it's definitely valid. Um getting input is is always good. How do you, as I said before, how do you envision and other board members, how do you envision us rolling this out to the community? Are you suggesting that with this slide deck, we have community engagement? Do you want to have um because I don't know how that happens, right? Um do you want us to start the process over again and invite the community for everybody to do a brainstorming session together to get more input? Um, do you want us to roll have engagement sessions where we just talk about this very thing utilization numbers trying to bring the community along about the situation that we are in with declining enrollment? Because

221I I think your point is is valid. I just don't know how we do that. I think all of those options are viable. I think it's um a matter of doing those things to make sure that the voice is included. To me, it's not saying, "Hey, our recommendation is consolidation. How do you feel about like the question is being presented to us?" And I don't want to like take a space, but it's like the question is already there's already conclusion. It's like we're going to do consolidation. Should we move forward with this process? And we're also going to get community feedback. So, I think yeah, how do you talk about the process? How do they understand the realities that you all understand? Right? Like that like I just think that that to me would be

222important to me a a a good process would include that on the front end u instead of on the back end. So whether it be the community listening sessions or what Carla said, what are the multiple ways that we can get information from people um and how will we do that? I mean we can do amazing things in a short amount of time. And I also recognize I want to own this I'm not the one, right? And I know everyone else has all kind of other jobs and duties. We all do 24 hours a day. Um, and I also just wonder how we make time for that. So, I think all the things you said and others could be viable options. How do we partner with the community? What what things are already in place

223that we could get feedback and stuff from um that already exists? Who are our community partners? Who's our partners in the schools? Right? How do we get that information out there and say we want to be intentional in this and collect it? Um, so that's what I would offer Connor is the effort and energy around it and I'm an end of one but I think it's important >> and actually I appreciate what you're you're saying because we we shouldn't automatically say again reiterate that this is not a foregone conclusion. So I I actually appreciate you re-emphasizing that point, Kar. And and I I think if I mean I can't speak for everyone here, but if we if we had an option where we could do things in in some different creative ways, I think that's

224absolutely where the community should be helping us understand different options. Uh it's difficult to see how we can get there given what we're seeing numbers wise. I totally get that. uh and and we've got to navigate that with the community and figure out where we can as a community come together to solve this problem. >> Go Scott. >> So, I kind of said all my stuff early, but it's along these same lines. Um so, I I really appreciate the conversation. I think Karan is on to something in terms of, you know, Connor and I have had the fortune of being in these conversations in the in the um planning committee meetings. So, we've seen the data. I think it's important for the community to also see the data and like understand the problem and know

225that the the work that we've done so far on that committee and that that the community members have done is to agree on the data. That was a big problem last time around. We had conflicting data. So, I I think it's important to kind of lay that out, be transparent about that so people can start to make their own conclusions about it. Um, I think this problem has been something that has been brought up for several years. So, going back to the crock-pot analogy, we've had time as a community to really simmer on this and like know that there is a lingering problem that needs to be addressed and we've done things as a community to address it. Um, and there's more that can be done with creative solutions. But the other reality is that

226at the state and federal level, there are dollars that we can't count on anymore. So that's why the urgency is coming up more. Um I will also say that we need to make sure we're clear tonight as to what we're saying to people watching the meeting uh or that will hear about it tomorrow. Um we are, you know, earlier on we talked about the criteria that some of our schools would fit in in Boulder or Thompson. And there were some pretty scary numbers. You know, 10, 12, 14 schools that would fit in that criteria. That doesn't necessarily mean we're saying that that's how many would need to be consolidated. So, we have to be very careful about that kind of information. Um, again, this is this is just I think a lot of people want

227us to have a plan to analyze and that's all we're doing in this meeting is agreeing that we would like to explore our options further given that we agree on this base level of data. So with that in mind, I I do agree we do need to look at a plan of a hybrid plan of consolidation with other factors. And I think we get those other factors from the community discussion. Lay the data out. What are people's values? What are their community? What what are their values? what they want to get out of PSD schools and how do we mesh those things together? It's messy and it's the hard work, but we need to do the work. We're the ones. It's been kicked down for years and years and years. It's on this board right

228now. We're the ones that need to do it. And we're going to do it. And you know, we may be the mo the least popular people in town, but for the sake of the future of PSD, we need to make the hard decisions, but we need to do it in a deliberate, transparent manner that people will trust and understand. It's not always easy being the heavy, but sometimes we have to have to do that. And again, we're not making final decisions or anything like that, but we I I think we do need to uh at least explore and get details on what it would take to address this problem and with the transforming of schools and buildings basically. And I like what Carla had to say. It's about the students and spending our resources on

229the students, not necessarily on the buildings. And so I think that's something to keep in mind. So I don't know if I'm any clearer, but >> heard a thought. One thought I had too Scott brought up was this. I think the reason I'm so frustrated with my agreement is that in the last two years the conversation, there's so many things that feed into this narrative about that that at least that I have reached the conclusion that I've I've reached tonight. Um, again without in any way committing to any kind of process or or this is the end result that's that's comes next. But I think there are so many external forces that dictate this situation that we're in that we have zero control. And that's what's frustrating to me. I mean I know that we're

230this is not final, but they're talking about I feel like every year at budget level they're doing something else that will make it that much more difficult for us to fund our schools. Uh eliminating averaging is is is one that's got my attention. Um, I'm not going to go doom and gloom with some others that we've been hearing about because I think there's plenty to worry about in the current sense right now. So, I think about the stewardship and I think Brian aptly put it as far as investments and protect protecting. I call it stewardship because our job as electeds too is to be dialed into these conversations and not know exactly what the tea leaves are saying, but to do the best we can for our community and to include them in the conversation

231and say here's here's what we're seeing and just shoot it to them straight and be honest. And so I think we're we're going to have difference of opinions about where our point of entries are on this board, which I think is helpful and somewhat messy. But I think the conversation we're having is really important and I'd rather air on the side of being honest with my neighbors and my friends and my the the staff that I interact with every single day and say, "Here's what I'm seeing." And if you're seeing the same things and I'm I'm hearing from principles that are seeing the same things that do this work every single day, it may be inconvenient. It may not be what I want. I may want to ideulate but we also might not have the

232commodity of time. And so this is where I want to talk to about next as far as where do we go from here? Um and again I don't want to I want the community's engagement but I want it to be intentional and purposeful and be respectful of their time. I don't want them to say what do you think I should do and then have them learn the problem that I've been immersed with for two years that you guys have been immersed with for the last year and a half. I don't think that's fair or respectful either. So, I think we need we do need to be thoughtful about how we curate that engagement so that we can be educational to our community and let them know kind of what we're thinking. That doesn't eliminate other

233possibilities or or transformation or ideas, but I do think being honest with where we're at and that it's not getting better at least is a good place to start. And I think that's my take away from our conversation that we're having tonight. >> Director Herald, I want to just add a point to something that you just mentioned. the the change is already here. So like our discussion tonight is about an approach to a change. We already have to change based on our projections for next year. So principles are already having to talk to their staff about the reductions that they'll make next year. They'll already have to cut programs. They'll already have to eliminate services that they're currently providing. that's going to happen regardless of whether we come out of here tonight with alignment on

234a conclusion. So I think the community conversation is that we must accept that there will be change in our schools and it's going to be difficult and it is incredibly challenging for all of us who are parents and educators and community members to think that our kids would get less than. And that's where we're at right now. And so that's why this conclusion and this recommendation didn't come too lightly. It's because it's already happening. We're just not being as transparent about it because it's happening through the budget. So, if I'm hearing correctly, if we don't make some drastic changes, we'll continue to erode the quality of education, mental health, access, sense of belonging, all of the reasons that I'm sitting in this chair. Um, and that's why I'm here. And so, I think, um, that's

235why we're all here. Uh, and I think we just need to be really clear with that. Um, I think what I think that the horse that or the cart that we're putting before the horse is, um, we don't want anyone to take it personally when we make really big sweeping decisions. And so, um, again, I just ask for clarity when we're moving forward with criterion with, um, how we're communicating. I also agree with Karana that we do need to be accessing parts of our community that don't have access to um broader conversations that can't come here on a Tuesday night and make community comment that can't come to community listening sessions. Um but we can do hard things and we have access to our community because that's who we are. Um we can host town

236halls. I mean, I I I would like to um you know, help to lead that charge when we decide that we're going to start getting folks together. Um I think that we really we really need to be offering broader opportunities there. Um but I digress. I'm supposed to answer this question and I um I think that I think that I have to agree. Um, and like Kevin, I don't it's really a challenging thing for me to say, especially being new. Um, but the conversations that I've had with folks that are making those really hard decisions already, um, make me feel like we need to, um, start thinking about what's next in this consolidation plan. Do we collectively feel like we're ready to keep going? >> Okay, I think we've spoken our piece. >> Okay. Uh

237just to make sure I'm hearing and interpreting that the the general board consensus is the board members feel in general I know there's there's some concerns about some of the specifics but in general we have alignment on this conclusion that this is a process that needs to be the next thing the next discussion that we are having as a committee and with the community. So if somebody if I said something terribly wrong make sure to to yell or throw something at me. Um the next point uh last question that we wanted to ask and there's this has been brought up a little bit uh in our charter our initial instructions were we were to bring a recommendation to the board no sooner than spring of 2027 a specific recommendation. Um I've heard there are concerns

238from board members about the timetable and maybe I'll turn this over to to Mr. Kingsley to kind of lay the table for the for this discussion here. >> Thank you, Brett. And I want to thank everybody from the committee as well as the members of the board. This is a very thoughtful conversation that's happening tonight, but also a very difficult one that's not lost on any of us. Um, a couple comments before providing context to Brett's question around this timing reality that I would love to have you weigh in on is, and just to be clear from the onset, you know, there is not one person that's a part of the Pter school district that wants to even think about considering closing or consolidating a school. Uh, our schools, as we know, are anchors in

239our community. There's a deep emotional attachment that people from our respective communities, whether they're currently attending, sending children, or they're alum, uh, and just proud to be a part of this district in different ways. And the decisions that affect them carry real emotional weight for our families, our employees, staff, uh, our neighborhoods, too. And so as I'm listening to you talk, a couple of things that I think we have to acknowledge is the history and the sensitivity of not just what may have transpired two, three years ago, but these conversations have surfaced 10, 15, 20 years ago, too. Um, and there's some pain and there's lived experiences that we have to continue to be empathetic and compassionate towards. I think we are modeling uh in the best way that we possibly can and emphasizing the

240importance of fiscal stewardship and our collective responsibility to lead in this really difficult time. And it's hard while doing that to not provide preferential kind of not treatment but wondering around particular schools rather than the collective. And I think that's a tension that we continue to hold and speak about and I think we have to position this work as careful planning moving forward. That's a charge that I hear you saying explicitly that this is about careful planning, not about predetermined outcomes. That this is what's going to happen. So I take away from the conversation that's already transpired that in partnership with a comprehensive planning committee, staff has to plan a robust community engagement effort. And when I say community, that means employees and members of our community. I want to be really clear about that.

241That talks about, as Dr. Guy mentioned like the readiness for change. I think we have to if you think about even like my recent community engagement session up at Wellington, Carla, I want to thank you again for attending with me. It's very present day focused on what people are experiencing now. I believe as a governance team in partnership with the comprehensive planning committee and staff, the future engagement sessions that we have like starting tomorrow need to have a future focused lens around helping people navigate and create a readiness for change. Um because Carla, you named it exactly how it is. If if we don't come to alignment on this particular process, that's okay. But what is going to end up ultimately happening is that change happens somewhere else because the money is the money. That's

242a finite set of resources. And going back to Brett's charge of me teeing this up, there is this duality in this tension that not only are we going to experience our principles are starting to understand what's about to transpire as we're getting more signals from the state regarding our budget. And ultimately then it's going to be a cascading effect to all of our employees and ultimately to our students. And as we think about wanting to have an equity and access lens and mindset and value around this work, it needs to come to a realization that many of you have already named. We don't have that now. Doesn't mean we don't take that as a value around how we create it. That's the opportunity in my opinion. How do we navigate this difficult set of circumstances

243to make sure people whose voices aren't represented that their kids don't end up losing out because we couldn't make a decision? Because inaction is a choice too that members of, you know, just talking to Bud recently is a is a real thing. And when we think about who's not here, our entire strategic plan is focused on disrupting disproportionality. Those who don't already have the equitable resources to achieve at high levels. The cuts and the reductions that would have to happen in this system are only going to further move those students away from the success that we're demanding that we figure out creative solutions for them to achieve. This tension that we are experiencing right now is very real and it's it's it's hard. It's hard and it's not just about what we want to see

244happen in the school community or school district community two years from now, three years from now. What's being signaled to us out of Denver, these challenges and reductions that we have to just to balance our budget going into next year are sobering. We talked about in this presentation tonight, the loss of another 500 students equates to a $6 million reduction in revenue. So, we're going to have fewer students. Director Havlla, you mentioned uh the potential loss of averaging that's being discussed amongst the legislature, moving from a the state legislature already in the school finance formula moved from a five-year averaging model in the school finance act to a four-year formula. The governor last year proposed eliminating it alto together. PSD to this year is benefiting from the the about $7 million as a result of

245averaging being in place. So when you think of the true loss of 500 students, a loss of $6 million in revenue, the potential loss of averaging, which would be another $7 million in revenue. There's conversations that are happening in the legislature around changing our tax structures to increase the local contribution for that we would make from property tax and specific ownership tax which would reduce the equalization effort from the state that could have an impact just to PSD alone upwards of almost $9 million. Now you think about those big numbers that I just mentioned that's almost 80 teaching positions in this district. That doesn't hurt the child that has all of the resources coming into their school and is already on grade level and trying to figure out how they can access access extracurricular activity.

246It impacts the students who are on the margins most and I know that's where your heart is. So, as we wrestle with this decision point, it's not a decision, it's just asking you to weigh in the existing charter for the comprehensive planning committee, as Brett and Tracy alluded to, Dr. G, excuse me, suggested that I believe they're not even talking about scenarios for a whole another year. I just want to ask you to think about I don't think any of us want to talk about that ever. But the reality is we enter into this budget season that is not looking very positive and everything that I suggested that is all subject to change too. Like we just I need to be really clear and explicit about that. But the signals that we're getting and I

247haven't even talked about the federal signals. So I share that with you not to make a firm decision around this is when we need a date, but this feedback that they're asking you for would adjust their charter and their timing of meetings and cadence of meetings to make sure they're working alongside us in the budget development process, not just for this year, but for years in the future, 27 and 28. So I would like for you to strongly consider adjusting that timeline. That doesn't mean a decision needs to be made by a certain date. That's not the signal here. I'm not telling you when that look needs to look like. But if they don't have a signal from us that their cadence should be more frequent, and I don't want to say more aggressive, that's

248not the right word, but just working in alignment with these various factors that we're contemplating. I think we're going to have a missed opportunity where the kids who need us most are going to experience more harm. And I know that we don't have a value around that. we're protectors of those students, all of our students. So, I'm hopeful that that helps set the context regarding the need to ask for their input on timing. It's not necessarily about naming a specific school. It's more around just working in alignment with some of these budget challenges and pressures that we are they're not future facing as Brett mentioned. They're here now. They're and we must deal with them. And your feedback here would be super helpful to the committee as well as to staff. So, I appreciate you

249listening and thanks for your consideration. We're gonna >> Here's I think some some Let me back up too, Brian. I think you made some really good comments, but I want to I think this is important point as far as timing and decision points because we've been wrestling this too. If we have to do something when and why and and where and so again my own thinking I think this is going to go into what you want to do next. So where do you want the committee to go? I think I would prefer to know with clarity when decision points need to be made from us in order to do whatever it may be. Again, not committing that we're going to do it, but if it's spring of next year and that will give us X

250to do Y, that would be helpful. What I'm hearing you say and what I'm my own research, we didn't even talk about the voucher program that was talked about in the community comment, which also has gotten me very nervous about enrollment decline being further exacerbated within the next calendar year. um is presuming a decision has to be made. What does a roll out look like of anything? And I'm talking anything meaning if we repurpose something for a community center and we allow nonprofits to be to be a hub in one of our buildings that we get to keep as our assets. If we're talking about um some sort of transformational sitebased thing where we can make better use of a of a a site that also serves as a community hub, what are we talking

251about as far as the logistics roll out? because I think that also informs what we're doing because the analogy I like to use as a litigator when people are weighing, you know, do I settle at mediation and I I don't really like the result, but do I take the risk of going to trial? The council is usually the same is it's it may not be the best thing you want, but it's a ch a future of your choosing versus the uncertainty of trial. Now, I know that this is we're we're talking about kids lives here, so that the stakes are even higher for me. So, I would rather go for a future of our own choosing to the extent that we can. So, can we talk about timing of when we need to even be

252considering this? Because I'm hearing a couple different things, but I think our community would benefit in knowing what's next if we have to. >> So, I think that is the question we're we're posing to you is would you like us to work in such a way that we uh essentially develop a plan and a recommendation and community outreach over the next nine months or over the next 13 to 14 months? as our original charter would say spring of 2027. That'd be we'll say 14 months from now. Or do you want something in nine or 10 months? That that that's essentially the either or question I think we're we're presenting to the board. >> I'm going to really ask a question. Um what do you think? Do you think that nine or 10 months is enough

253time to gather enough data to give the families in our district the confidence that we've done all the work we could to come to the decisions that we have to share with them? >> I do and I'll and I'll even open that up to my committee members. Do you do you agree Britney and Sarah? Do do you feel like nine ten months is enough? I think >> I think we're incredibly diligent in how we navigate not just the next hour of this meeting, but the next nine months. I I agree. I think there's that's ample time. Um I do think that it would require a significant investment from the people in this room to support it and to help move it forward. Um but I think we could do it. What do you think? >>

254I would agree with that and I do think right now and something I will bring up on Monday is that the the committee currently meets by monthly and I think if we accelerate this then we are going to need to meet monthly and I do think that that would give us enough time. Um and again we do need the support of the board. We do need the support of the staff especially when it comes to the community involvement and engagement. >> Thanks. >> The other part of your question was what do we get out of doing a 9 or 10 month versus 13 14. >> So I think the virtue of accelerating a decision point is you allow more time for families to absorb that change. allows you to beat school choice deadlines. Uh it

255allows some discussions to happen on timeline of a how a consolidation process might actually be executed. Uh that would be the benefit. Um in addition to trying to mitigate some of these impacts that have been described as far as what is going on in the classrooms to the people to the kids and I want to emphasize that we're all on the same page there. um the the longer it takes to get to a decision point and an execution point, the the longer those impacts will will continue to be felt and and increase. So, I think the cadence can be increased to once a month and most likely um have a recommendation to the board um late in the fall. Um, however, I think um that transformation piece, that last sentence on there, we need to

256be very careful about on timing because if we make a decision to consolidate schools without having an exact plan and partners for how we are going to transform each and every one of our buildings into repurposed entities for the community, we risk losing those assets to other schools that come in which will exasperate this problem exponentially. And we will lose kids in the district and we will be right back in this conversation again in two years. And we're not talking about 500 students. We're talking and this has happened in other states. The superintendent has mentioned this before. It's corporate entities that are doing this. They've done it time and time again in other states and it's 2,000 students, 3,000 students uh because they can get their hands legally by Colorado state statute on our buildings.

257So, I like increasing the cadence and I agree with it. I think you should go forward with it, but that last lynch pin, we as a board need to be able to pump the brakes right at the last minute or so to make sure that we've got that risk mitigated. I'm going to ask how you define recommendation. And I know that sounds like maybe the most basic of questions, but given that we did not have nowhere near enough time last time, recognizing you've already done a lot of work, so I don't want to to to pull that out as well. But if the recommendation, as you see, as you define it, is bringing a consolidation plan, I would I would dare say that predisposes exactly what Konda was bringing up. We've already said it's going

258to happen. There's a singular definition. The track the train's already rolling down the tracks. It as we engage the community, there are possibilities for other recommendations to become part of a comprehensive puzzle. So that then layers on. Time is that much more of a challenge. So I wonder what how you would describe what you are expecting to create as a recommendation. So the I think the answer to that would be yes. We are recommending that a consolidation process is the plan that we would be generating and a recommendation would be schools boundaries. How is that implemented along with implementing community feedback into that process? If the board is wanting a to explore more creative solutions then then that is that is the root of the discussion we're having today and the root of that initial

259core conclusion is are we on the same page that that is a process we need that our role is to plan or is there other work that's being done that should be taken into account. Um >> well speaking to what Connor was saying, if the recommendation is going to include alternative uses, that implies engaging with other partners, >> identifying possible uses and things like that. That actually is a really extensive process and that's why I'm slightly stressed about the shorter timelines because it it's not a once a month thing now. It's more than that for you all plus so many other people probably having to get involved with that process from the staff side from you know obviously for the board side. I think we're all committed to doing things such as all the community

260outreach we possibly can. I I don't think that's that's the challenge. The challenge is getting far enough that there's a meaningful this is what an alternative use a transformation use transformational use like Connor used the term what that might look like and actually be tangible when it may take years based on what we've seen in other places. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of expediting that timeline is simply providing recommendations at an earlier date, not necessarily mandating an execution of those recommendations immediately. And so, that does expediting that timeline gives us about a six-month runway that currently doesn't exist. Um, you know, to use the crockpot analogy, all of our liquid in the crockpot has dried up. And so, wherever we can get some runway, we should probably take that runway if

261that makes sense. So just because we have recommendations provided at the end of this calendar year doesn't mean that those recommendations have to go into effect 2027 2028 academic year. It gives us that extra six months to have those conversations that are going to take longer to really flush out. I want to put one thought into the room uh as we continue. So, at the moment, given all of our resource constraints, budget constraints that are potentially coming down the pipeline that we'll have more solid understanding of by the end of this school year, we can charge them with moving up their timeline. And then if by the end of this year we were to find a different end point, like if our finances did not end up as dire as we thought they were, we

262don't have to have them actually give us recommendations next fall. What we're doing right now is planning for kind of a worst case scenario. planning for if we don't have robust options, planning for if we want to make the decision to consolidate schools versus reducing resources at our current sites. So, I feel the concern that by setting this goal of fall of 26 that we're setting ourselves in stone, which I can understand that that reality. I think for right now, for the rest of this school year, the goal would be to collect criteria, collect community values, collect community input, so that if we need a solution by next fall, we have what we need to build those solutions. And then if by the end of this school year, we determine we can actually give ourselves

263more time, then we can make that decision and change their charge again if we so choose. Yeah, I I concur on that in the sense that if we think about the presentation tonight, this is just the utilization. Let's just focus on the next step which is the criterion. They can do that at a quicker pace, I believe. And then when we have that report out, if we need to slow down the cadence because this board is uncomfortable with the level of community engagement, we have problems with the criterion, we get other kind of feedbacks, we can always pull off and go back to a slower cadence again. Just because we're saying let's move forward faster now, doesn't mean that we can't slow down in the future. I guess if we're asking them to speed up,

264they can do can we can can they not have work? Like so I guess I'm just like if we're asking them for spring or whatever the deadline is, couldn't they just do the work sooner and present it to us without us making it formal or not? Well, here's what actually >> I think I'm just kind of like, and again, maybe because things aren't clear for me, but like I'm kind of confused why we have to vote on this where they could just do the work earlier and present it. Couldn't they like be done in like July and be like, "Hey y'all, we met a whole lot and we worked really hard and when we thought we were going to be done in January, we're actually done in July. So, can we get on a schedule

265in August and catch y'all up? Like, is that not possible?" >> It's in our charter that spring of 2027. Well, hang on. >> That is the rules you've given us. >> But can we not I guess I'm saying like but if they did get done earlier, >> couldn't we just at that time >> change when they're going to bring it to us or no? Like >> can I do that? Like just help me out because this feels very confusing. >> So there's two reasons. You made a good one which is the charter which I think we can reconstitute. We can revise. But let me take a step back and lessons learned from last time and I'm going to put a lot of ownership on myself on this one. We sat in a work session before

266that the the first iteration of long longterm plan. I can't talk. It's 9:30. I'm losing words. Before they started their work, Rhonda and Carla and Andrew, we sat around in a conversation and gave them guiding principles as a board, which was the that was that version of Criterion. And what was it was great. It was a great exercise. We did our best. But to your point earlier though, it had zero community engagement before we set the guard rails of what they were going to box in to do. I do not want to make the same mistake for the same reason you want community engagement where I think humbly we're going to need community engagement in a purposeful manner is what the criterion ought to be. I think you've got a good start. I don't think

267it should be all up to you. >> Personally, I I think you're going to take bullets. I think you're going to take hits that are strays really intended for us. I think we've got to do the hard work of engaging our community and say, "What do you think matters to you? Here's the box that we're that we're doing. What are we missing?" >> I think to that's personally that's how I feel. That's what feels right to me based on the mistake that I myself made in this room two and a half years ago. >> So, are you suggesting that they do not speed up the cadence for 2026 or you're saying give it more time and keep the charter at 2027? I don't think they're going to have a polished product by spring if we

268want to have which I believe we do want to have purposeful community engagement on the input that's going to make the decision of how we go about it because it will not be a transparent process. It will not be one that is that that I again I'll make my own perspective on this. I don't think our community is going to find it legitimate or that they can get behind it if they didn't have any input into how the the scenarios were determined. So in in my view, I think not slowing down, I think speeding up is going to be a problem. And so I think I'd rather be we be efficient with the end goal of giving us something that is not just to your point, Connor, not just well, here's a criteria. Now, let's

269spend another year figuring out, you know, let's not make this abstract. I think we got to do both at the same time. So I think on one parallel path I see criterion, iterations, board input, because we're going to have two of us cycle into those meetings each time, right? That's how we've decided to do it. So then we've got our job is to relay that information to the board but also engage with our community at the same time. Here's what they're talking about. Here's what they're deliberating about. What do you think about these inputs? What do you think about these criterion? So then what I would propose, which I know is unpopular, is putting the board to a vote on the criterion that's going to be final as of spring or early summer. at which

270point I think the heavy lifting of this year and I think the heavy lifting will have been done as far as objective and qualitative and quantitative metrices that we need to put in so that we're we're talking about implementing or what the recommendation is for the fall if we're trying to hit a 10-month cadence. That feels right to me. It's a it's a crazy amount of work to do and but I also think we're going to need to engage the community but not traumatize them for three years. That's my feeling. I agree and we already know from COVID what one year does to set our kids back and I'm very concerned. Dr. Guile made me have a visceral response to leaving these kiddos without what they need. So, I'm I'm on board with you, Kevin.

271I think that we need to we need to be all hands on deck. Um, I I I think there's a couple other things that need to be considered because there's mission creep that I'm sensing that we might be giving to them as a scope of work. And every extra thing we give to you all makes any date much more difficult. And so if we're looking strictly keeping you to roughly your original charter, that's that's one thing. You know, what what's the building utilization? Some of the more, you know, things you've already started to work on, that's that's one thing that makes me feel like it's critical for us to have this really proactive lines of communication with you all. uh as as we're working under a sense of urgency uh I I don't think anyone

272is disputing that we have a big problem and and you know that that we've got to figure out some solutions because as we if we can find other creative solutions that creates complexities for which wings anything you might recommend timing and all those sorts of things. So, I I I struggle with when I look at these two questions. It's like fall of 2026 sounds great, but it sounds it does sound fast. It it it is possible. Um, but with very constrained things and and I'm more interested in engaging in a in a sense of building that the lines of communication with you all, with the community, building an understanding of why this is urgent. I think a lot of people already really understand that frankly but making sure we don't want to assume you know

273just again we we've heard assumption can get us in trouble many many times and and having that deliberate process so that way we are creating that together that those good outcomes I think that's that's where I'm my response with this I'm struggling to answer a hard yes or even a hard no on on these two questions here I think there's absolutely about engagement absolutely about urgency but I don't want to force a timeline and create a too rapid outcome and things like that and that's where we have to hear from you all. >> Would it be would you align to the first step to strive to complete the first step by spring early summer of criterion? >> I think that >> as long as they have the permission to come back and say, "Wow, this

274proved far more difficult. We need more time." Because I again arbitrary deadlines >> when they're doing that trench work especially if we start bringing back value propositions and start adding hey we just heard these other things that oh now you got a another iteration of consideration that I I get a little concerned with that but I' I'd love I'd love to have that as the first step and with again urgency but appropriateness um again that realization that it's people we're talking and I think everybody's right Grande, go ahead. >> I guess I'm curious, do you already have this like so when you do when you do a process, right? Like if I like you work backwards. So if we knew that y'all if you knew you were going to come spring 2027, let's say May,

275do you already have that mapped out like a whole timeline of all the activities and things that you're supposed to be doing? Because to me, I guess my concern if you don't have that mapped out from now until May 2027, then how do you know where you need to adjust the time frame? So that's my question. I is is those steps mapped out? Do you have a plan so that you can know where you need to make adjustments? Does that exist? >> So what we have was an agreement on what the plan should be and what plans should be made at the committee leadership level. We have worked out a road mapap that we want to present to the committee at our next meeting. We want to touch base with the board of should that

276it be the plan before we flesh out every single detail of the next 14 months or 11 months. But yes, we do have a plan laid out that will then get community input, get committee input, get community input and it is in our plan for when we come to the board in May uh about four months from now. We've engaged with the community on the criteria. We've had criteria discussions. We've worked to uh lay out the criteria that will guide the the steps from there. That is what's in our immediate plan for the next four months. >> After that, it depends on how quick you want us to work. >> I want to name something because I don't know how this is how everyone operates. I know that I operate. If I have a deadline,

277I'm going to meet a deadline. So, I think it's important and what I'm hearing is that if you get through these first few months and you're striving to collect criteria, I would rather and I I don't want to speak for everybody, but I would love your feedback. If you agree or don't agree, if by May you don't feel like you have what you need to give high quality criterion and feedback, I want there to be permission to say we need to slow down because we need to have different engagement. So I just want to say that now so that we all can be on somewhat of the same page of we are presenting potential differences in timeline. That does not mean that these changes in timeline have to be set in stone. I appreciate that

278and I can't remember your name but I appreciate the question you posed to me earlier about like what would need to shift I guess like what's the accountability mechanisms to make certain that that takes place >> right because like once we say something it's just like hey okay we going to hope that it all works out right so what what where's the mechanisms for accountability so in terms of like me what I would need is mechanism for accountability to make certain there is some level of check-in some level of accountability that if things are off track >> that they are coming saying we need more time and so forth. So um yeah >> so what so where does that exist I guess in this process is is my overall question >> that I I had

279almost the identical question when I was thinking through this about the way I phrase it I think was arbitrary deadlines. I don't want to operate under a frenetic pace for you guys or for us under an arbitrary deadline. And so that's why I'm asking very clearly what our decision points are. Here's what I learned and I think are valid. Um I think October feels right because of the choice deadline because if we're making that kind of seismic decision that's going to impact people's lives and where they're going to send their kids to school, they ought to know that with enough lead time where they can research and at least absorb what we're doing so that they can make an informed decision. On that note, I talked to Dr. 2. I want to know what parameters

280we've got to extend the choice deadline to slide it to give them more time. Now, that also sounds great. Comes at a cost because right now we are firming up a sitebased budgeting model for all of our schools for their budget for next year. So, there's no there's there's no way we can do this where there is a net zero impact based on one thing. We're going to have to just be informed about that as a board and make decisions that we think are in the best interest of our community so they've got the most information, but also enough for principles and lead time to actually know what they're doing or we figure out a way to hold them harmless for a year based on the SBB model because we'll see what happens. So that's

281I don't know if that was I went rogue on that uh Dr. Ziggler, but that's I was thinking about the same thing as far as if we're working to an end, I need to understand the end and understand what happens if we don't make decisions. So I think that's kind of where I came out. I'll just quickly chime in. I I think we do need to set that fall deadline September October of 2026 to have to give you some guidance, but I really like Jessica's suggestion on if things change at the state level, which is what I'm very concerned about, then we can adjust. If it's not as dire as we think it is, then we can kind of back off. But, um, I'd like to pace it up. I've been thinking that we need

282to do a monthly meeting, not the bimonthly. So, uh I like I like that idea. So, I am in favor of of that fall deadline. >> Is there any other feedback or input? I'm was not tracking who answered these questions, so I'm unsure if anyone did not have an opportunity yet to answer these questions. Do you feel like you got anything you need at least for the >> So what we will be doing is we will shift to a monthly meeting with the plan of having community outreach and criteria developed alongside the community for to present to you in that May meeting. We will also attempt to present a timeline of how that criteria will be implemented into a plan for the fall. we can touch base then we're talking about accountability and things like

283that. We can see if everybody's satisfied with the plan and the criteria at that point. That that is what I'm taking. So again, throw something at me if if I said something you disagree with or or whatever. So >> what's your what's idealic to you, Brett, for community outreach? What does that look like? >> I I don't really want to get ahead of the the committee on that. We we we have again Tracy and myself we have we have ideas we've come up with of working both through school networks and utilizing those school networks to reach through to the individuals but we we need to touch base as a committee. So it's not as Kevin said it's not just me it's not just Dr. Guile it's it's it's our whole committee and then onwards to

284the whole committee. my my comment was probably related to the engagement piece as well and um adding on to what Kevin's concern was earlier because right off the bat you're not making the decisions. Not everyone may perceive it that way. How can we partner with you to keep you out of that situation? If they're if they're going to be upset that should come to us. I know I will commit to being by your whoever is going out on your part to sit next to you and we can all have the great discussions together whatever again I'm sure others will do the same here on this on on this desk and and whatever we need to do I just want to make sure you are hearing that we want to support you with this and also

285we're ready to keep you from being in >> the places where you shouldn't be you should be getting appropriate respectful you know conversations and and if and as the committee decides this is where they want to lean into, great. But the rest sits here. >> Let me get a short response to that and I'll give it to you, Brian. Um, what we need is basically what we're doing here tonight is we need clear direction and and support from the board. And for example, is is the consolidation conversation the one we should be having? We from what I've heard, we said yes. If you did not want us to have that conversation, we would not have that conversation. when we bring the criteria to you and we say this is the criteria we need you to

286uh after discussion we need you to support it and and so that this is a board directed process and doesn't look like the committee is going rogue in any way but that that is the point of this of this meeting like this and ones we'll be having in the future so Brian did you have some >> yeah thank you Brad and Dr. I want to say thank you for expressing the value around just trying to keep staff and community members who are focused on the work in a space where they can do the work. Um, and try to figure out how the board can help. I think a commitment that board leadership and myself in partnership with staff have made is to once the comprehensive planning committee has their next conversation around some of the

287thoughts that Brett and Dr. Guy co-authored is to then engage the leadership of our three labor groups as well as uh you all in some capacity to be able to react to that straw design to make it better. Um so we can identify opportunities where the board can come alongside where the board can stand in front. So trying to figure out how to do that. But I think it's really important as Brett mentioned not to get in front of the committee uh to allow them uh based on their charge to do that heavy lifting and and to grapple with that but know that we need other voices who are seeking more representation to be able to do that to allow that to be an iterative process. And I think as you all just really gave

288permission is to continue to iterate based upon the feedback that we're gleaning. This is going to be a conversation that we're having in this space every month. uh you know I I can't imagine a dinner session moving forward where we're not talking about what we're seeing what we're feeling what we're you know wanting to cons reconsider speed up slow down um and so I just welcome those conversations in lot of spaces as the accountability check this is this shouldn't be like milestones where we're three months from now we're wondering whether we're on target we should be having those continuously in my opinion uh because you are all uh representatives of your of our in lots of different ways. So, your feedback in terms of what you're gleaning as a temperature check paired with staff, uh,

289I think will be really helpful for us to make this the best possible engagement >> that everybody's seeking. So, thank you again. >> I'm going to say one more thing and then if anyone else has something to share, I'd love to hear it. Um, but going off of the commentary, I am concerned that if the board isn't sufficiently involved, whether that's participating alongside you, as Andrew mentioned, um, that we'll get to May, you'll have criteria. I don't really want to be giving you robust critiques of that criteria. At that point, if we're alongside you throughout the process, by the time you're giving us that criteria, it shouldn't be a surprise to any of us. we should be pretty much aligned already and if there's anything that we're changing it's tweaking not you know say nope

290start over. Um I don't think that would be a good use of anyone's time and I think if we're alongside you we can also help kind of provide the context because we do have a lot of educational background. We've been around. We kind of understand some pieces of the district that our everyday uh families maybe don't. and we can also probably speak to some of the financial decisions that we're having to make and some of the challenges. Um, so we can take some of those pieces off of your plate so you don't have to be responsible for everything, but also that way if you're hearing something and we're hearing something and we're coming to the same conclusion, then by the time we get to May, we're probably already pretty aligned and we're not having to

291restart or um cause different frustration with the community. Please. >> And this is why last piece is why it makes sense. Connor Scott, thank you so much for your efforts of being there throughout the last year to make sure that it would it got off the ground. We got to this point. Can't thank you enough for your time commitment, but this is now a collective board problem and board decision. So, we all have a lot of skin in the game. So, what we've decided to do, at least for this committee, is to have two of us, but one stay on for consecutive terms and then fall off. So, there is some continuity. So, a staggered approach. So if it was I think do you know who's going me and Carla and Carla and I are

292going the next one. So one of us will likely probably you will stay on and then the next board member will be a part of that conversation. So you've been a part of at least two meetings. So as we're reporting back to our group and we're getting data points that we could then share with you guys again that two at a time because for sunshine laws etc. I I like the idea of having those conversations in dinner sessions so we're not hiding anything um but we're having frank conversations about what we're seeing and can give you some feedback. So that was kind of the thinking too. >> I I'm just really so confused right now y'all. What criterion? Criterion for what? For consolidation like what like what's the criterion they bringing to us? Like I'm

293really confused >> on what we're doing. We're discussing identifying criteria that would then be used in a consolidation process to come up with a recommendation. >> Uh whether it's utilization or whether it's equity principles of some kind or we don't have any criterion today. >> We're talking developing criterion for a consolid for consolidation process. >> That is correct. That is >> I just wanted to make it clear so people know. >> Yes. >> Where I didn't think we were agreeing on that. Okay. And then the last point I want to just make is just I want to go back to what Connor said and that is our current reality. If we don't do this process right, there are other ed we have to think about an educational environment here within the community and I would

294say that choice is important to our community and um as a district how we choose to do certain things will shape and influence the choices that families make. So, I just want to make sure we name that in this process that we may find ourselves having a different conversation in terms of um what the district look like um depending upon how we do this process. I'm not saying it's true. I just want to acknowledge what Connor said and I think that this aligns with choice and the future and opportunities for others to come in and shape and influence what PSD looks like in the future. That was all. Thank you. Is there any other last comments? Go for >> I guess I'm curious. Do we not need to take a like I guess I'm confused

295like wouldn't we need to >> vote if we're moving forward for a consolidation process or no? >> But we're not yet consolidating. Oh, did you? >> Sorry. >> Well, I guess I'm confused on like what the criterion is for. Like the criteria it feels like they're bringing us criterion back for consolidation process. >> We are involving wrong. I guess I'm confused. What am I missing? >> We are involving you at the very beginning of the discussion. >> Right. >> We don't have a plan or a consolidation process or criteria today. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Well, they're continuing to work. They're continuing to work. That's why we're talking about decision points for us in October. >> So, they're ideulating right now. >> Okay. >> With the possibility that we have to do that. So, we're

296ready to go with criterion with criteria, excuse me, because it's plural. um with having done the engagement iterative loops and as well as what the scenarios could be. Um it's a good point, Connor. Again, my read of the statute for it's worth is that if we have as a district identified the purpose for a building that will be decommissioned or etc. Again, not the board's lawyer, but my read of it is that if we have a predetermined uh purpose for that building, that is not a right of first refusal. We we have to do that. So, that's why I think that is important so we have the full picture if we're going to do it. But no, we're not voting on things tonight. We're telling them to keep doing what you're doing in the event

297that we and that's why the conversation from my understanding was when do you need us to give you a vote or a decision on what we're going to do? And I think we've settled on September October for all the reasons we already said. It's late. I'm also bad at repeating people. So if I've screwed that up, please let me know. >> Okay. So I just want to put on record that I am not in support of a consolidation process right now. But since we're not voting on it, it's irrelevant. But I do want to put it on record that I don't believe that a consolidation process should be talked about at this point. That we should be gathering community feedback in order to decide if consolidation is actually the path we need to move forward

298to make sure that we have covered all of our bases and been inclusive in the process. My interpretation is that and so because of that I want to go on record that I do not support a consolidation process at this point. Um, and I recognize that others seem think that that is important. So, I have nothing else to say. I know it's late, but I just wanted to make sure we had that in the record. Thank you. >> I think that concludes this part of our meeting. Thank you very much for being here. I appreciate it. Yes. All right. Right. So, the very last item, um, we just did our retreat, so I'm not sure what I anticipate, but I just want to since it is an ongoing item now for board forecasting, this agenda

299item is an opportunity for board members to discuss or add topics to that list um, as needed. The nice thing is if we going forward if we're able to add things to that list, we can clarify what we mean in the space to each other versus making the list by ourselves and then we don't necessarily know what each other means. It also gives staff the opportunity to uh identify a time frame or get clarity from us if they need it before we have to make any future prioritizations. So if anyone has anything that they would like to add to that list right now, that's fine. If not, that's also okay. All right. Okay, I'm currently not seeing any, so that's fine. And then that will be the end of our meeting. So our meeting is

300now adjourned at what are we at?