001You began high school as you shared under circumstances that no one could have predicted. goes first. Connor, we're about to start. All right. Thank you so much for joining the board of education this evening. Um, please go ahead and mute your cell phones or anything else that beeps or buzzes as we begin this meeting. Today is Tuesday, June 10th, 2025, and this meeting is now called to order at 5:33 p.m. For those attending this meeting in person, live captions are available on the TV, in the boardroom, and in the lobby. To access the live captions on 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
002available in English and Spanish on YouTube. For links to these live streams, please visit the board of education page of the PSD website or PSDV on demand on YouTube. And would you now please join me for the pledge of allegiance. Thank you. Would any board members like to make changes to the agenda? Okay. Uh seeing none, um we will go ahead and Oh, sorry. Yep. We will we're all good there. So, now we're moving on to recognitions and reports. All right. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. It's great to be in community with all of you tonight. Uh today we are honored to celebrate the exceptional performance by multiple Colorado Department of Education award-winning schools in our district. Leading the celebration is our executive director of communications, John Cop. Welcome, John. Good evening, President Draper, Superintendent
003Kingsley, and board directors. We welcome everyone joining us tonight in person and online. This evening, we're proud to recognize 14 of our outstanding schools for earning awards from the Colorado Department of Education over the past two years. To our principles and school representatives being honored, please remain in the room following this recognition so we can gather for a group photo. The awards we are celebrating tonight include the John Irwin Schools of Excellence Award. This award is presented to schools that demonstrate exceptional academic achievement over time. Honores exceed expectations on the academic achievement indicator of the school performance frameworks reflecting outstanding performance in English language arts, math, and science. The governor's distinguished improvement award. This award honors schools that show exceptional student academic growth. These schools exceed expectations on the longitudinal academic growth indicator of the
004state school performance frameworks, meaning students are making consistent and meaningful progress across grade levels. And the centers of excellence award. This award recognizes schools that serve a student population with at least 5% identified as at risk and that demonstrate the highest rates of academic growth as measured by the Colorado Growth Model. This award was established in 2009 through the Education Accountability Act. Now, please join me in celebrating the following schools for their achievements. Bouter Elementary 2024 Governor's Distinguished Improvement Award. We're pleased to have Steven Bose with us this evening representing Bouter Elementary. Batty Elementary, the 2024 Governor's Distinguished Improvement Award. Joining us tonight on behalf of Batty Elementary is Kale Wicker. Bethki Elementary 2023 and 2024 John Irwin Award and 2024 Governor's Distinguished Improvement Award. We're grateful to have Annne Alfonso here this evening on
005behalf of Beth Elementary. Cash Luda Middle School. The 2023 John Irwin Award representing CLP Middle School is Matt Ellis. [Applause] Dun Elementary 2023 and 2024 John Irvin Award. Dun Elementary is led by Principal Abby Henley. [Applause] Fossil Ridge High School 2023 and 2024 John Irwin Award. We're pleased to welcome Mark Barry here tonight representing Fossil Ridge High School Canard Core Knowledge Middle School 2023 and 2024 John Urban Award. Lindsay Matkins, the principal at Canard Mcraw Elementary 2023 and 2024 Governor's Distinguished Improvement Award and 2023 and 2024 John Irwin Award. Representing McGro Elementary tonight is Amy Smith. [Applause] Putnham Elementary 2024 Centers of Excellence Award. The principal at Putnham Elementary is Steve Apadaka. Riffenberg Elementary 2023 John Irwin Award. We're pleased to welcome Melanie Mirwa here representing Riffenberg [Applause] Shepardson Elementary 2023 John Irwin Award. Joining
006us tonight on behalf of Shepardson are Wayne Thorns and Laura Sutton. [Applause] Trout Elementary 2023 and 2024 Governor's Distinguished Improvement Award and 2023 and 2024 John Irwin Award. Alyssa Kendall is the principal at Trout and we're honored to have AP Katie Sahimi here with us this evening. [Applause] Wernern Elementary 2023 and 2024 John Irwin Award. Principal of Warner Elementary is Hayden Camp. Zach Elementary 2023 Governor's Distinguished Improvement Award, 2023 and 2024 John Irwin Award. Zach Elementary's principal is Angel Herrick. Please join me in congratulating these remarkable schools for their hard work and commitment to student success. This concludes our recognitions. I'd like to ask everyone that's received an award to please join us along with the superintendent and board of education for a group photo. probably seems like hello. Congratulations. This one's going to be
007Squeeze in a little tall. One, two, three. One, two, three. [Applause] Yeah. All right. Thank you all so much for joining us. That was amazing. So, yes, very fun. What a great way to end the year. Um, we're going to move on to 5.0 action items. Um, 5.1 resolution in support of Junth. Can I get a motion, please? I move that the board approve the resolution in support of Junth as presented in at the meeting. Can I get a second? Thank Kevin. Thank you, Kevin. All right. And then, um, yes, we have a special guest. Yes. This is a beautiful moment, but also Oh, hold on. It's a beautiful moment, but also a bittersweet one. I'm so grateful that joining us this evening to introduce our resolution is our diversity, equity, and inclusion coordinator, Delia
008Mahaney. I want to welcome Deia to the podium while also recognizing that uh this will be Delia's last meeting as a result of her brave decision to enter retirement. And I I don't want to take away from the very important resolution that you are about to read on behalf of our school district. But I just want to say thank you on behalf of our community, our staff, our governance team. The work that you have led in our community across our schools has truly been centered in partnership, humanity, dignity, and belonging. And I just want to say thank you for all the things that you've done to make us better in so many different ways. Thank you, Dia. Thank you. You weren't supposed to make me cry. Um, so thank you, Superintendent Kingsley, Board of Education,
009members of cabinet. It's an honor to be here. And as Ryan said, it's bittersweet. The Juneenth resolution was the first time I was before this board in the role as diversity, equity, inclusion coordinator. So, I guess it's fitting that it's also the last. And it is also my pleasure to say you are in good hands. My successor, Dr. Jenna Altar is here and she's been hanging out and doing some things and she is going to just take everything we've already built and done and make it that much better. So, thank you for being here tonight, Jenna. So I would like to share with you that the resolution in honor of Junth continues PSD's commitment to recognizing Junth not only as a historical moment but as a symbol of black resilience, excellence, and the ongoing fight
010for true liberation and dignity. It reflects our duty as a public education system to teach history in a way that is truthful, inclusive, and affirming for all students, especially those whose stories have been historically excluded or misrepresented. You might have noticed that the resolution's been updated since it was entered in the board packet probably yesterday or a few days ago. And that's because in PSD, when we know better, we do better. The original resolution used widely accepted but simplified language. The revised version more accurately describes the systemic resistance to emancipation and the f the failure to enforce federal law in places like Texas. It clarifies that the Emancipation Proclamation applied only to states rebelling states and territories. And the resolution now acknowledges the deeper historical context, including the continued oppression that followed emancipation through mechanisms
011like sharecropping, sundown towns, and Jim Crow laws. As is tradition, I would like to center this evening in the comments about the resolution around student voice. I was able to visit with students at the cultural enrichment center of Fort Collins where they shel shared powerful feedback about their experiences in PSD and what they hope superintendent Kingsley the board and cabinet hears. They emphasized for all students the need for more in-depth black history education beyond slavery in the civil rights movement such as learning about self-emancipation, the free African society, and black excellence across centuries. They advocate for the inclusion of guest speakers and community voices to enrich learning and support deeper understanding. They would like to see ongoing reminders for teachers and students on how we show up for each other with dignity and respect, not
012just during the times where we engage in district-wide learning of bystander lessons for fourth and sixth graders and required training for employees. They would also like us to ensure that coaches and activity sponsors and extracurricular sponsors, especially those not employed full-time in PSD, are also trained in how to respond to harassment and discrimination in the moment, consistent with state law. That is also something just so you know that we are going to be communicating with CHASSA directly about as Chassa has been very responsive to like our inclusive calendar and not scheduling playoffs during those times. So we're hoping they will go ahead and be responsive to this. Students would love to see the board of education cabinet and PSD staff attend Junth festivities that are happening in the next couple of weeks. They invite you
013to visit the cultural enrichment center to engage in meaningful dialogue about their lived experiences and they also would love it if you would commit to learning more about this on your own time. I would like to take a moment to thank people who contributed their voices and helped us revise this resolution. Dr. Bla Ray Black of CSU and Jamal Skinner at the Cultural Enrichment Center. And I especially want to thank the students who lend their voices to me, not just today, but throughout the year to help inform change in PSD board, superintendent, cabinet. You now have three years of valuable information and student voice during resolutions. three years of things that you can go back and watch to decide what we're doing well and what we need to improve. I hope those of you who
014are new to the board and haven't been here during my tenure and those who may have just forgotten will go back and look at those and really think about what we need to recognize, respond to, redress, cultivate, and sustain when it comes to our student experiences. especially for those we have traditionally und underserved. Thank you. It's been an honor and a pleasure to serve you and all these people out here. I'm going to be really good at being retired, by the way. Um and you won't completely get rid of me. I'll still be around to help out. But I also have for the board of education um one of the copies of the mural um one of the prints from the mural. So, I'm hoping we can get a frame and there's someplace you can
015put it. My gift to you for your continued support in this work and making sure that I was safe and that our students were safe and that this work continues to be valued as we passed the torch on to um Dr. Well, to Jenna because I'm going to mess up your last name. I also real quick I have to say my partner in crime Shaina. I don't know if I would have done it without you. So, thank you very much. That's all. Dia, I just have to tell you how impactful your work is and also I'm just I'm so proud of what you do and even today, you know, this is your last one. And you could have just said, "You know what? You guys can fix it next year." But no, that's not who
016you are. And it comes through in everything that you do. You are true to yourself. You are true to our students. And we are going to miss you. I am going to miss you so deeply. So, thank you for all that you have done. Would anybody like to speak to the resolution? I appreciate the charge to go back and rewatch all the past year's videos. We've been doing this a while and you've moved us mountains already, but we obviously still have a lot of work to do. And I appreciate that you have pushed us to do better, pushed us to learn. Um, you've made us better as a system, as individuals, and I've got homework. Anyone else? All right. All right. Well, thank you. We will see you at June at Junth. Joe, can you
017call the vote? Jim Brogish. Hi. Kristen Draper. I. Connor Duffy. I. Kevin Havlla. Hi. Scott Shoenbower. Hi. Jessica Zamora. Hi. Motion passes 6. [Applause] Thank you all so much. Uh, moving on to 5.2. 2 resolution in support of Pride Month. Can I get a motion, please? Go ahead, Kevin. I move that the board approve the resolution in support of Pride Month, June 2025. Can I get a second? Thank you, Jessica. Good. So, this evening, we look forward to hearing about Pride Month from Compliance Prevention and Response Coordinator Shaina SciK. Welcome, Shaya. [Applause] Hi, thank you. Um, I am actually going to, um, introduce who will be speaking to it, which is Kristen Draper, who is heading up here. So, um, I appreciate you introducing her resolution. [Applause] Thank you so much. Oh, it looks different
018over here. So, I'm sure some of you are wondering why I'm speaking to this. Um, and I just thought I'd start off with that. Um, I'm a parent of kids who are in the in in the pride community, our community. When I didn't find what my kids needed, I became the now former but president of P Flag. I got to see firsthand with my own kids and now with all the other kids that I get to see every day in schools and at the library about belonging and what get that can do for a child. What it means to be able to be yourself. As board president, I want to make sure that all of our staff, students, and community feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to school as it is the only way to
019educate every child every day. And I encourage our community to celebrate the joy of Pride Month, but not just in June. So, I'll get to some events that are happening soon. But some of us probably have a question of what does it mean to bring my whole self, my authentic self to work, to school. What does that mean? Well, for PSD, it means that we are welcoming to all students, families, teachers, and staff, no matter their background, where they come from, or who they love. We teach, lead, and grow when we are open-hearted, joyful, and allow each other to be who we are. We encourage students not just to use their voice, but to know they truly belong and that their words matter. In turn, our students grow up to be community leaders, teachers, plumbers,
020school counselors, electricians, doctors. They go on to create joy in our community. So, what can we as a community do? Well, there are many activities that celebrate the joy of pride. Um, Fort Collins, the city of Fort Collins just celebrated with a proclamation last Tuesday. Thank you, city of Fort Collins. Um, we had some former PSD students create the first FOCO pride at Library Park, which was a huge success. Um, we have, um, the billboards that are throughout the city, um, proclaiming you are loved, and that is in part thanks to the Suicide Alliance. You can learn how to become a better ally at the safe space training um, on Saturday, June 21st at the library. You can have fun at the Pride Picnic at Roland Moore Park on Friday, June 20th. You can test
021your skills at Sam's Rainbow Run 5K on June 14th. Or you could head down to Denver for Denver Pridefest, one of the biggest in the nation on June 28th and 29th. But most of all, what we can do is we can be kind, caring, and openhearted. I know that that is what PSD staff do every day with each other and with our students. And I believe that is what our entire community wants and needs at this moment. So remember, joy is resistance and love always wins. Happy Pride. Thank you, Kristen. Uh, does anyone have any remarks? Thank you, President Draper. That was a nice surprise. Um, I was thinking about this resolution on the way to the board meeting this evening and my typical route from downtown um will take me mostly towards directly to
022Leaport and straight down but portion of Leaport like I feel like 60% of our city is closed currently. Um, so somewhat mildly annoyed at the inconvenience, I did a detour on house on a strip of house I haven't seen before. I never I had a reason to to go down there and there is a a a rainbow crosswalk and I just thought I'm really glad I had this serendipitous detour especially as I'm thinking about the resolutions tonight and it just reminded me I just got back from a a family trip not to be confused with vacation but a family trip in a in a different state and towards the end of every trip I kind of get this itch I'm longing for home and um when I got back to Fort Collins got back to
023Lmer County I just thought it's so nice to be here in this little little moment tonight when I was driving here on this little detour and saw literally on the ground beneath our feet as a commemoration of who we are as a community. I love that and I love this this resolution that this is foundational for how we're impacting our children and our schools, not just with the academic lessons they learn in our classrooms each and every day, but how to be human beings that are going to navigate into this society because this this community is worth protecting. It's worth celebrating with a little joy. And so I want to say that little anecdote on the way here was serendipitous, but I love where we live. Well, Kristen, thanks for speaking this evening. It's not
024often that board members get to put a personal touch to comments made and uh they were wonderful and thank you for stepping up. I see where all of our students get their good oratory skills. Kristen, I just want to say thanks. Thanks for bringing us joy. Thank you for showing us what I think you've been like aggressively kind. I don't and that sounds weird like but it's what keeps playing in my mind like you're you show us what being kind is especially in this space and there is never an apology. There is never a standing down. It is fortitude of kindness. and I really appreciate that that's what you've brought to our board and that we should be charged with continuing that going forward. Thank you, Kristen. I I also want to say thank you.
025You know what what you do, what we do matters. And as the president of our governance team, I want to thank you for modeling exemplary leadership. In your speech, you referenced kind, caring, and openhearted. I know that I am really proud to be a superintendent of a school district that shares those values. And just in the start of this meeting, we've talked about all the ways that our district is creatively accelerating learning from a lot of our students, work to be done, but we're also doubling down on ensuring everybody belongs. So, thank you again for your statement. Thank you all so much. Jill, can we call the vote? Jim Brokish. Hi. Kristen Draper. Hi. Connor Duffy. Hi. Kevin Havda. Hi. Scott Shoenbower. Hi. Jessica Zamora. I. Motion passes. 6. All right. Thank you. We're going
026to move on to 6.0, the superintendent report. So, Superintendent Kingsley will now make remarks to the board of education and the community. Welcome. Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate the opportunity uh to make some brief remarks. I cannot believe that the school year is over. Um it's not lost on probably any of us that we just had a couple of weeks ago the opportunity to celebrate over 2,000 graduates and we had an opportunity earlier tonight to celebrate 14 of our schools who are showing exemplary student outcomes which was phenomenal. I as the superintendent had the luxury of attending an event two two weeks ago I think it was at the CSU Spur campus in Denver. All of the superintendents across the state were invited and we were allowed to bring two guests and I chose two
027of our uh elementary school principles um Bethy's principal Ann Alfonso and Putnham Elementary School's principal Steve Apadaka. And I could tell you it was a point of privilege and pride for all three of us to represent PSD at that event as many districts had the opportunity to be celebrated at the front of the room. Uh it was very common for one school in a district, two schools in a district, but to have 14 of our 49 traditional public schools, I think it made some of the other attendees a little uncomfortable that there was so much PSD, but I was it was a very proud moment uh for me as the superintendent and for our colleagues who are still here. Thank you for your leadership. uh this it's not easy work and it takes an entire
028community parents trust teachers to buy into a big bold vision and for those of you that are still here and those who have left uh and just really really proud to represent everybody uh as a part of this school district. I am hopeful that as we transition into summer that not just our leaders but our teachers, our parents, you as members of the board all get a chance to recharge, relax. Uh, but let's take a brief moment to celebrate this week's quick win because I want to just show a little bit of highlight of all of our recent graduation ceremonies. You began high school, as you shared, under circumstances that no one could have predicted, stepping into ninth grade just after a global pandemic had upended the world. You are living proof of what it
029means to be resilient. And today you walk across this stage not just as graduates but as leaders shaped by challenge, bonded by experience, and prepared for whatever comes next. Some of you already have a clear path. Others of you may still be figuring it out and that's okay. But what's clear is that all of you want to make a difference and every single one of you wants to be happy. Let that be your guide. As you move forward, don't forget the advice that you gave me to share with those who are coming behind you. Be kind. Be curious. Take time to listen. And remember that being open to new ideas, even when they're different from your own, can change your entire outlook. Class of 2025, let me be honest. Our world, it needs you. It
030needs your voice, your curiosity, and your heart. From the bottom of my heart, congratulations to all of you. Yeah, I really wish I watched that video before tonight because I didn't know that that was what that was going to be. So, yeah, to the communications team, thank you for helping us celebrate our incredible uh GL class of 2025. We all know that the class of 2024 was the highest graduation rate in our district's history. I really uh believe in my heart of hearts and speaking with our incredible principles and teachers that I think 2025 uh we're going to get some good information uh in the year ahead. But I'm just really excited to celebrate and thank you for celebrating with us on stage in partnership in community. Each of those graduations are unique to the
031school culture which make them really special and our teachers, principles and community leaders just make that just a joyful exercise in it's what we do. It's our core business, right? though tonight's going to be no different. Uh we're going to celebrate throughout the course of our meeting uh not just our students but other partners. I'm excited that the PSD Foundation uh which is currently celebrating its 25th year anniversary will provide us an update on the work that's supporting our school district. We are so grateful for the partnership that we have with the foundation and the support that they provide to our students and to our teachers. We also have the opportunity to hear from a representative of the debtfree mill levy oversight committee which launched this spring and is monitoring the implementation of the mill
032program. I want to reiterate a huge thanks to the community. I'm so proud of the work that we're doing to support our schools and our students, but this not would not be possible without our voter support. So, thank you to our broader community. I also want to say special thanks to our partners of all three of our employee associations. Tonight on the consent agenda is our final negotiated agreement which was achieved through collaboration with each of our respective associations. Joanie, Candace, and Kristen and your respective teams. It was an absolute honor and pleasure to negotiate with you in good faith. I think we did it with incredible professionalism, and I'm super excited of what we've been able to accomplish together in partnership for all of our employees. So, I'd like to give you a round
033of applause for your leadership. what was made possible in this room uh has really set many of our employees what I believe is the most talented workforce in northern Colorado so set up for success and so it's really and we have more work to do uh but doing that in partnership was really really important. We're also going to have uh ask the board to approve our final budget this evening. This is the last step in our annual budget process which we will complete every year by before June 30th. We will not have a presentation on the budget tonight because it remains unchanged from the last time it was presented to the board on May 27th, but Dave and Brian are here to answer any questions that may arise that uh have percolated in our minds
034over the last couple of weeks. So, please ask them if you have them. But thank you for giving me the opportunity and the space to address the community. I'm super grateful. Thank you so much. We will now go ahead and move into our 7.0 community comment. Um this opportunity for public comment is from members uh of the community who registered to speak by the designated deadline. Um those people will be called on to make remarks in the order that they are signed up and each speaker will be allowed three minutes to address the board. So uh the board desires to hear the viewpoints of all stakeholders including students, employees, parents, guardians and community members. Public comment is designed to address issues, not personalities or personnel matters. Please keep your concerns and comments focused upon the
035district and appropriate for a K12 audience. Please note that the board does not generally respond to remarks made during community comment. Our lack of response should not be construed to me that we agree or disagree with what is said or the description or interpretation of events are as presented by any speaker. Further, even if some remarks may be factually inaccurate, we generally choose not to respond or correct the record here because formal board meetings are not the time or place for back and forth dialogue. As we begin this community comment session, let us model for our entire community how to listen and how to interact respectfully, even with those with whom we disagree, for we all have the students best interests at heart. So, tonight we will start off with welcoming Tom Griggs. Welcome Good
036evening, Superintendent Kingsley, school board members, and the Pter School District public. I'm Dr. Tom Griggs. I'm seeking the district D seat on the Pter school board in November's election. One of the fundamental questions any candidate is asked is, why do you want to run for school board? It turns out that however straightforward a question it is, it's a great first one because you need to know how to answer it well and concisely. I'm running for school board because I want to contribute to resolving some of the critical challenges this board and our district face at this point in time. questions of possible school closures and consolidation, how mill levy dollars are spent, and the seemingly perpetual question of how best to provide educational diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is what every child in our district
037deserves. There's plenty of literature in the study of education to guide us in making these decisions about such matters. I know this because such questions have been at the very heart of my work as a teacher of teachers for most of the last 35 years. But of course there's a gap between theory and practice that must be bridged as well. This is precisely my area of expertise if I have one at all. I have taught teachers about teaching for a quarter of a century. My students, many of whom now teach in Pter School District, can attest to these practical difficulties and yes, the rewards of solving the theory to practice riddle. I have seen evidence of this often myself. First as a field supervisor of both pre-ervice and inservice educators and for the last four
038years plus as a substitute teacher in Fort Collins and Loveland area schools. At the board level, supporting these teachers and their students requires a willingness to ask and answer some very pressing and difficult questions. I consider myself fortunate to be in a position to assist them in many ways if I am elected to serve on the board. But addressing the institutional, leadership, fiscal, and political obstacles in a balanced way to achieving optimal results results, excuse me, must be the focus of a PSD board member. As board members, we must be willing to ask the tough questions to arrive at the right answers. My leadership experience in many different domains has shown that I have no fear of asking these tough questions. They are ones which which provoke much debate, result in many difficult decisions, and
039often split votes among board members. There's no rational need to fear such splits. They are a healthy sign of democracy at work if we are careful to approach them with due respect and careful consideration of varying points of view. In this way, our challenges can truly be made in the best interest of every child every day. I am Dr. Tom Griggs, candidate for the district D as in David seat on the PSD school board. Thank you. Next up, we have Eric Sutherland. Welcome. Before we get get started here, I wanted to double check something. For years now, the district has been stating, including recent statements, that I was responsible for a lengthy delay in the sale of bonds after the 2016 election and that this delay cost the taxpayers a large sum of money. I
040just wanted to check and see that this is still the case. Yeah, looking around the room, I see Yeah. nodding heads. Okay, there. What do you do with an executive on the job for four years who does not even know that 5% of all the enterprise revenues are being diverted someplace and then once the fact has been made known along with the fact that the majority of the diversions are unlawful, corrupt, and abusive, the executive does absolutely nothing to address the situation. you fire him or her. Plain and simple, that should happen here. Now, the situation here is made far more offensive to every single stakeholder in the school district because the revenues that are being illegally diverted are tax dollars provided voluntarily or otherwise by the property owners in the district who sacrificed to
041make this essential public enterprise happen. And it would not happen without them. I think you guys forget about that sometimes. We often hear Brian Kingsley thank the voters for passage of 4A. He just did it earlier this evening. Well, he could thank the voters by taking easy steps, easy steps to asssure that all the money attributable to 4A is used for public education. In other words, he could put the interests of the stakeholders of the district over and above the interests of the grifters out in Timnith. They got $1.8 8 million this year from taxes attributable to 4A alone. But he won't. He should be fired. I wonder people out in Timoth city hall, do they thank the voters much? Kind of interesting question there. That diversion of PSSE tax revenue to Timoth is completely
042unlawful at this point. And I gotta stop here and laugh. I can only imagine that the previous superintendent, Sandra Smiser, must have seriously worried that she wouldn't be able to get herself fired so she could collect the half a million dollar seance she walked out the door with. Such is the culture of complacency, an absence of leadership that has been characteristic of this board for as long as I can remember. It really would be foolish of me or anyone else including candidates for the school district to look to this board for governance. We have a system that creates a space for governance and this public enterprise by elected repres by elected representatives but that space is completely vacant at this point. Thank you. Next up we have Danny Lawrence. Welcome. Thank you for the opportunity.
043My comments this evening are more directed toward the PSC community rather than the board of education tonight. Over the summer and in the coming weeks, our community will hear that the pea or the teachers union has chosen their schoolboard candidates for endorsement in the November election, which is unheard of a full six months before an actual vote. And I want members of the public to understand that the process of that selection was politically driven and perhaps not in the best interest of both staff and more importantly the children of our school district. In a meeting that I attended nine days to the pri prior to the interview of half of the candidates by the pea, the now endorsed candidate for district C declared that she already had the endorsement in full support of the union
044despite still today not being registered with the secretary of state's office as a candidate. What was the point of interviewing any candidate if it was already determined? In February, when I attended the combined board and pea school board interest forum, I was specifically told by Miss Samura that there were no rain makers here. And I call BS to that. It's clear that there is. You all know that there is. And the community deserves to know that political allies determine who sits on this school board. When you run a school district with the moral ethics of politicians, it's no wonder that transparency is a nightmare and money spent is questionable. When the PEA doesn't endorse its own duespaying, highly experienced members or teachers with vast resumes of professional expertise, it's a sign that something is very
045wrong. In the past decade, one single board member here has been elected to serve that wasn't picked by the pea. And I am grateful for the scrutiny brought by Mr. Shoenbower. But let's be honest, Scott, had your opponent not arrogantly thought that he was a shoein and forgotten to fill out his paperwork, you wouldn't be on the board. A lot of people in this community are being passed over because they don't suck up to local and state political leadership and they shouldn't have to. So hearing that a candidate is endorsed by the pea should be taken with the understanding that the pea is a political organization whose sole focus is on educators jobs and not the actual needs and health of the 29,000 students they are employed to serve. We are facing a national crisis
046and emergency because we've all been doing the same thing nationally. We elect people who are in it to advance themselves their futures to become mayors, judges, council members, state representatives. It's divisive politics and a growing cancer in public education. If you care about the children in our community, I suggest that we start changing the value proposition of what's important in determining our vote. The numbers don't lie. And there are a lot of students who need more help than will be coming from these political games. And for the candidate that was and for the candidates that were not selected by the political machine, I want to say congratulations to you. It makes me want to vote for you and I hope that you stay in the race even though the board and the pea are pressuring
047you to leave when we need you. We need your passion and your expertise and your ideas now more than ever. In a democracy, voters deserve the choice of candidates and the right to vote for them. And these folks are hellbent on limiting your options to do both. Group think is dangerous and the school board was never intended to be molested by partisan politics. Thank you for considering my words. Thank you. We will now move on to 8.0 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 anything they would like to report? Go ahead, Scott. I just wanted to thank Brian for talking about the graduation and really thank Kristen for attending all the
048grad events. Uh it's a tall task for sure. Uh this was a particularly special year for me as you guys witnessed. My son, my youngest, graduated from Rocky and I had the honor of giving him his diploma. So I really appreciate you guys giving me that that opportunity and I'm just blown away by our district watching these kids in all the different schools, the alternative high schools as well as the traditional. Um really really impressive community members and and uh I think we have a bright future. Well said, Scott. Anyone else? Thank you. So, we'll move on to the consent agenda. Um, would any board members like to pull an item from consent? Go ahead, Kevin. Uh, I would like to pull a consent item 9.13 from the consent agenda. Thank you. 9.13. And we
049will make this 11.4. item 11.4. So, all right. Um, anything else? Can I get a motion then? Go ahead, Jess. I move that the board approve and adopt the recommended actions for the items remaining on the consent agenda. Can I get a second? Thank you, Jim. All right, Angel, can you call the vote? Jim Brokish, I. Kristen Draper, I. Connor Duffy, hi. Kevin Havda, I. Scott Shoenbower. Hi. Jessica Zamora, I. Motion passes 6. All right. Thank you. That brings us to 10.0formational items. And we will go to 10.1. Revising GPA and class ranking system. Yes. So, thank you. With us tonight to present the revising GPA and class ranking system is our counselor coordinator for K12, Beth Green, Chris Savage, our counselor, one of our counselors at Fossil Ridge, uh, and Jennifer Smeila, counselor at
050Boltz Middle School. Welcome to all of you. All of our graduates. Um so tonight we are presenting to you um about a pivotal change that's not just about a policy update but a cultural shift. Um one that centers our students futures well-being and equity. This policy revision is truly a step forward and it better reflects who our students are, honors what they've achieved, and it best supports them as they graduate. This revision supports our district priority areas around mental health and belonging and graduating with options all while disrupting disproportionality. When we consider our connection survey, we see that our students rate them lower in their connections to their interests. Through this revision, we're taking that step forward and expanding the options students can take in high school to better align with their IAP, increasing access,
051and helping them truly connect to their interests, as well as setting them up to take that next step after high school. all while maintaining that high rigor. Hi everybody, I'm Jen Smela. You're probably wondering why a middle school counselor is up here talking about this. Um I have been at Boltz for two years, but prior to that I was at Fossil um for a long time. And um as part of my um I was the lead high school counselor for several years at Fossil and um and with the district. And this work goes back to at least 2017 um when we as a group of lead high school counselors started talking about um just some inconsistencies that were happening in our use of um the various GPA that we have on our transcript here in
052Pter School District and also how we were um looking at class rank. Um, so I'm going to give a little bit of a historical perspective and then um I'm just grateful to be here and um I know that the last two years they've done some amazing work um as I've been in the middle school. So this is um a slide about what um students are asked to fill out on the common common application as well as school counselors. So they are asked to fill out how we report GPA and how we report class rank. Um as you know um well you may not know but on our on our transcript um Pter school district lists three GPA. Um the first one that's listed is the adjusted GPA and that is the official GPA of Pter
053school district. However, we also list just the regular cumulative GPA and then we list a weighted GPA. Um, that hasn't always been the case. Um, probably I would imagine maybe six or seven years ago, the weighted GPA was added um to the transcript because there were there was a scholarship at CU Boulder that students who had over a 4.0 um could qualify for. and we were realizing that a lot of our students um would qualify for that scholarship if they could report a weighted GPA. Um so there was a lot of hand calculating of GPA and writing of letters to CU Boulder and things like that just to advocate for our students. And then we decided um with the help of it and some folks at a pay grade higher than mine um that we
054really needed to have that weighted GPA on the transcript. Um, it wasn't always called the weighted GPA. It was a five-point GPA. Um, and so we had we we did some work over the couple years to clarify was it a five-point GPA or are we doing a true weighted GPA? Um, you can ask questions on that later if you would like. Um, but this is what we're asked. We're asked to report a class rank and a GPA. Um, if you look at um the different GPA, you'll notice the discrepancies. um of the class rank for each one of those GPA for a student who has an adjusted GPA of a 4.02. Um a lot of the schools really will report um the regular adjusted Pter school district GPA. Um but we don't know if the
055weight is ranked or if the rank is weighted or not weighted. Um, also with the adjusted cumulative GPA, um, it's not a true weighted GPA, but it's not not weighted. So, there's a lot of confusion. Um, and when we go ask to, you know, when we ask who, you know, what's the correct one to to report, it really depends on who you talk to because you will get a different answer from whoever you talk to. Um so as a result of kind of all these questions we came together as a group of counselors and really tried to flesh out um some consistencies among the schools and um so that you know we're kind of trying to make sure that between schools we're reporting an accurate GPA. Um however I think it also depends on who
056you talk to um that kind of what GPA they use. So all of that to say since 2017 we've started this conversation. Um we've kind of changed we have almost a whole brand new cabinet. Um we have a lot of new principles. Um we have um new directors at different levels, new director of student services curriculum. So this work has been continued by counselors but we really have had to reset several times just with new folks that have come on board. So, we're grateful to finally be here because it's been a marathon to advocate for finding something that we can do to be consistent um and figuring out how to report um from Pter School District a consistent rank and a consistent GPA. And I'm Chris Savage. I'm counselor at Fossil Ridge High School. Um,
057so we have we have an opportunity uh with this with with the confusion of the GPA and the class rank and all that stuff. We have an opportunity to um make some revisions and and make things better for our students. Uh one of the ways um we can do that like Miss Smela mentioned is is make sure that all the schools are on on the same page. Um literally I mean we our team has consisted of um counselors from from different high schools and if you ask one of us how we report GPA, it's different. um than the other schools. So, uh making sure that we're all on the same page um in terms of access, uh making sure that our students are are looked at in the same light as students from other districts
058in the state and also even from other states. Um when our kids are using that adjusted GPA, it's lower. It's lower. And so, they're they're being overlooked by students from California or other places where their their GPA is going to look a lot higher. If someone doesn't super familiar with our adjusted GPA, they won't know that and they'll just say, "Oh, this student has a 4.4, you know, PSD. This student only has a 4.2." Um, so just just making sure that there's consistency there. Um, also with with access, um, as we talk about exact rank, we we have the validictorian, we have the saludiatoran. The top top two slots um, at each school received those awards. And what we found as counselors, as educators, is that a lot of times those students in order to
059get to those highest levels, um, are taking classes that cost money that can be expensive. They're taking those outside of school. Um, they're they're paying they they have means and they can access these courses to try to get um weighted classes to boost their GPA above their peers who may not have uh means or access to do that. Uh, so we feel like that that that removing that exact rank um would make things more equitable um for all students and give us the opportunity to to celebrate more students than just two. Um with rigger, our many of our our high achieving students are taking those those AP and and college classes not because they necessarily want to, but because they're they want to get ahead. They want to be ahead of the student next to
060them. They want to rise to the top of that class and and get that high rank. and what they're missing out on is opportunities to pursue their interests. Um like Beth said, um our students are not are not connecting with their interests. Um if you if a student is uh given the decision, hey, I'm really interested in business. I want to take this business class. Oh, but it's not weighted. They're they're not going to take that business class or that art class or that music class. They're going to stick to those weighted classes so that they can try to keep that that high rank. And in turn, they're missing out. They're missing out on those opportunities, especially in in these high schools where we have so many um amazing classes and and offerings. Um they're
061just not taking taking advantage of those. Uh the mental health we see um in the in the valadictorian, the saludiatoran race every year. Um so much stress, so much pressure, not just for our seniors. Um this year I've I I' I've been talking to some teachers and sophomores, our 10th graders are stressed out about their about their grades and um things like that because their class rank, you know, they're they're going to slip if they get a B and um things like that. Um I even just a couple weeks ago uh in a meeting with our principal um we we learned we were told about a situation where um a student had offered monetary compensation to another student to for that student to fail a test to bomb a test so that they would dip
062down in rank and this student would would overtake them which is just it just uh boggles the mind um that that things like that are are happening and I think it's uh it's not just at fossil it's Uh it's a district-wide concern just the stress that these students are feeling to try to get try to get to number one and and try to outdo their peers. Um as I mentioned uh this would also give us the opportunity instead of honoring just two students u from each school uh to consider opportunities to honor more students um whether it's you know through our through a decile ranking or perhaps just like a GPA cutoff but we can have awards um at graduation for for many many more students. um instead of just just a couple. Okay. So,
063we're not alone in the race to the top. Um there are a lot of um school districts that are having these similar conversations to us and um really they have been having these conversations since we started um gosh almost like seven or eight nine years ago. um most recently um and when you think about it um the GPA and the class rank really do go hand inand um so we're h we have two different concepts but we really are they kind of are the peanut butter and jelly um for each other um but Cherry Creek School District um beginning next year they will no longer recognize a validictorian um they are moving to a U Magna Sumakum laudy um and I I was just at a school counselor association meeting over the weekend and um
064Cherry Creek um you know they have like the biggest high schools in the state and they were really worried about too the the competition and the inconsistent practices as well. Um down in PBLO district 60 they're doing the same thing. So, this really is starting to become um people want to be recognized and colleges and students want they want to admit students based on the merit of their transcript and the classes that they take, not necessarily um just one number, you know, that's that's a snapshot of their, you know, of their one time in high school. So, we really are um in good company with a lot of amazing school districts in the state that are having these conversations that are contending with how do we fairly represent and consistently represent what a transcript and
065a diploma means from our district, but also um the true fair representation of the work of our students. So in this in this work that we've been doing um we've got a lot of questions have have come up and and concerns and things and um one of the concerns that that has been brought up is you know if we get rid of that exact rank that that Val and S um will our students be less competitive for both admissions um as well as for scholarships? So we we talked with the horse's mouth. We reached out to a bunch of uh highly selective colleges and got their feedback. Um what you see here is a is a summary um of their responses which is basically no um our students won't be at a disadvantage either for
066admissions or um for scholarships. So we have some uh just some quotes here from some of the colleges. So this is Oberlin basically saying they recognize school districts all over have different things. Some use decile ranks or cortile ranks. Some don't have any rank at all. Um like LA USD. Um I'm from Los Angeles and they're they don't they don't have a class rank at all. Basically they say that colleges they they work with what they're given. So um our students wouldn't be at a disadvantage in that way. West Point uh no longer uses class rank. We know West Point is very selective um institution. Um, you Chicago. Um, again, it's just they just talk about it's just not that important. Um, they like the the decile, possibly going to like a decile rank. Um,
067and but that the specific, you know, if you're eight versus seven, it's just not not that big of a not that big of a deal for them. And then, uh, even Brown um, they they said that they do use class rank somewhat, but it's it's not it's not very important uh, to them. um and even just a a cortile or a decile rank um would be uh good information for them. So we've had um the opportunity to speak with academic cabinet, a district advisory board, district accountability committee, student advisory committee um and then with cabinet and superintendent Kingsley um and have had um support for this work moving it forward and we've thoughtfully looked at all the revisions and the feedback um in order to make sure that this moving forward is the best thing
068for our students. Um, and we've also had ongoing communication and feedback loops with our external partners in higher ed as well as in with our staff um, across a variety of settings with counselors, admin, um, teachers from a variety of classes. So, our gifted and talented teachers, we've talked with our AP and IB as well and have had the support to continue moving this forward. Some even saying, can we start it now? Um, so we felt really um, really good bringing this to you all. Um and we'd like to highlight a little bit of that feedback now that we've received um from some of them. So yeah, when we you could tell we were on tour. Um we were visiting all these different uh different organizations and then we we decided that we would talk
069to some teachers individually and a little uncertain. Uh we wanted to talk to some teachers that work with um those really high achieving um high academically achieving students and get their feedback and we're uncertain if they were going to no we need we need this. Um but they were very very much in support of um of of what we were discussing. Um you can see there that Fort Collins teacher in the middle um talking about a student on the on the lower end. Um we've been talking about the the high achieving students and when we have those low achieving students and they can see their exact rank and they're 499 out of 500. Um like that's that's that can't feel good. Um um and then also um I I I spoke with one our math
070department uh chair at Fossil um works with really really high achieving students. As soon as as soon as I mentioned it, he's like, "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much." Um he used that word unhealthy probably six or seven times in our in our conversation. just the unhealthy nature of the students um you know secretly taking classes on the side, not telling their friends so that you know at the at the right moment they're they get that GPA bump and and and bump ahead. Um but we had a lot of uh a lot of strong support from uh the teachers throughout the district. Um we also got feedback from uh students. We mentioned the the stack. We talked to the stack um and there was one student uh in particular we had
071we had asked we tal talked about um we invited her to come to this meeting and she was super excited uh she's not able she she decided she's not able to make it um flying back from a a soccer tournament but she did write a statement and so if it's okay I'd like to read um her statement um this is from E Martuchi who's one of our she'll be a rising junior at Fossil Ridge High School. Hello everyone. I would like to start by saying that I truly wish I could be here with you tonight. Although I am not physically present, I did not want to miss the opportunity to share a few words tonight about my experience through my past two years of high school. To provide some background, I am a current student
072entering my junior year at Fossil Ridge High School. I participate in numerous activities such as National Honor Society, Ambassadors, and soccer. I plan to become either a neurosurgeon, a cardiovascular surgeon, or a psychiatrist one day. While I take advantage of all these incredible opportunities, I maintain above a 4.0 GPA. Throughout my high school career, I have been striving to find different ways to raise my GPA and class rank. So, I chose courses that would help me achieve this goal. I prioritize my class choices by focusing on those that are either part of the Front Range Community College dual enrollment or the advanced placement curriculum. Each time I pick one of these classes, it raises my weighted and adjusted cumulative GPA. I decided to prioritize taking these classes over pursuing my passions in other areas such
073as painting, drawing, and pottery. Last year, I took 3D design, and this year I took pottery. I had wanted to take these classes since middle school, but did not have room in my schedule before, so I chose to take them in high school. I now view this choice with some regret because this class did not improve my GPA. This standard is imposed on students across the district, creating a sense of pressure to achieve a certain number rather than exploring various areas of interest. People are always looking to be better than the next, but not in a friendly competition, but in a constant war of comparison. When I push myself to be at the top of my class and reach a certain number, it takes a toll on my mental health. Sometimes there is a constant
074pressure to perform in every assignment, every test, every essay, and every grade. This always makes me feel as if I carry an extra weight on my shoulders that I can never not think about. It is exhausting to always strive for perfection, especially when it feels that a number determines my worth. This also leads me to take classes over the summer. Instead of taking a break from school, I use this time to improve my overall GPA in other ways. As a student, I would have done many things differently if this change had occurred earlier. I would have spent more time exploring different areas that were not focused on GPA. I would spend more time volunteering, creating new friendships, and learning more about myself. There would be no regret in strengthening all my interests, even if they
075did not align with raising my grades. I hope my experience sheds light on a student experience in Pter School District. If this discussion continues, I would value the opport the ability to speak in person at a future meeting. Thank you. Um so this is this is what we're proposing. Um, we would we would propose these changes to start with the class of 2029, which is the the current eighth graders that just finished eighth grade that will be uh moving into high school this coming year. Uh, we would propose that the cumulative GPA um would remain the same. That's just a standard unweighted GPA. That adjusted cumulative GPA, which is sort of weighted but sort of not weighted. Um we would we would propose to just uh get rid of that uh remove that one. Um
076we would propose to uh have that weighted GPA become board policy whereas now it it's a it's indicated on the transcript but unofficially. So we would like that to become a a board policy with that fully weighted um point uh grade point scale that you see there. Uh we propose moving from an exact rank based on that adjusted GPA to move to a decile rank um based on the weighted GPA. Um Pter High School currently has two class ranks. They have an IB Yeah. To add add more fun um they have an IB GPA and a yeah all kinds of stuff. Um so they would like to move uh to just the one class rank system uh with the other schools in the district. Um and then whereas now we have those those two students
077the val and s that get recognized we would like uh we would propose that high schools be able to recognize a broader range of students um whether through a you know kumasum lad um it could be a GPA cutoff um we think that um the the district could definitely uh come up with with uh plans for that to make that uh more effective and and recognize more students. any questions or can help clarify? Thank you so much. Yeah, questions. Go ahead, Kevin. Um, I was very excited about this presentation all day. Um, nerding out a little bit. Um, I've got a specific question with one of the last slides where it was the current versus proposed and I've been teeing this up in my head. Um, so the second bullet, the proposed change would be
078to remove the adjusted cumulative GPA altogether. Can you speak to what you I think you've you touched on this a bit, but what's the virtue of that one thing in connection with what we're talking more globally because I've got some gentle and respectful push back that I've been thinking about. So, if you could tell me what you think the virtue is to that one element. Do you want to speak to it? I It's very much a PSD thing. Um, it's not a common practice that other districts to have the adjusted GPA. We put it into place to help with some of when we started having more of those weighted credits of AB, IB, postsecary. That's what got put into place. But now if with the weighted that helps take care of that. Um, and especially
079with our pter who has four GPA that show up um because they had to do it with their IB courses as well that they could remove that too because it's no longer needed. Um, but I'll let there Chris, you have more that you want to say to it. It's just confusing like coming from from another Yeah, I think it's just uh it's just confusing. Um, coming from another school district, another state, I'm coming from California, uh, this is my sixth year in in PSD. Um, I've never heard of this. Uh, it's it's weighted 0.002 for each credit, which most classes are five credits. So, it's basically at a 01 on top of the GPA. Um, so whereas other other districts are waiting based on that weighted GPA, that five, you know, so you get a
080full point. So if you took a an AP class and you get an A, instead of four points, you get five points. With the adjusted, instead of five points, you get 4.01. Um, so our our our GPA are lower than students from other districts that don't have an adjusted GPA. respectful push back. Sure. So, I I grew up in a district where we did a weighted GPA for AP credits primarily. Um, in the school where I went, they didn't offer a I think it was a US history, no, it was a world history AP course. And so, my best friend found out there was a different high school that he could he figured out transportation through that school to pick him up during the day to go take that one course. And he he jumped
081through a lot of hoops to do that. But unfortunately, the registars's office of the our high school said they were only going to give him honors level credit for that course when they did his GPA. And when pressed and they he asked why, you know, I thought the effort that this this kid showed to go and get a better education and get something that couldn't offer at his current school, the response was, well, we don't want to incentivize people to go to a different school to get their education. And to this day, that really bothered me because I think one respectful push back I've got is that I also think in education and in any kind of schooling, we should also be trying to incentivize effort, you know, malleable intelligence and growth models, which we
082do resoundingly in this district. So, I also want I'm curious to know if there's space to honor the kids who want to go the extra mile because they truly want not just for the ranking, not just for the the myopic focus getting into a better college and having this element, but the fact that you are challenging yourself in high school with additional courses that are by nature more difficult um than that. I think there there may be something to that. So I don't know if you if that came up in some of your theoration feedback circles, but that's my gentle and respectful push back on that one. Yeah, I really appreciate that so much because we have talked about that over the years and I believe this is just from my own perspective. I have
083a senior a student that just graduated this year as well. Um, I believe that the weighted GPA is a better reflection of the students um, drive and motivation to take the class. The adjusted GPA um, is really that they took the class. Um, and everybody gets the same boost. So, the weighted is more reflective of the individual student's grade of the class. Go ahead, Scott. Yeah, thank you guys very much for presenting this. This has been one of those hard ones for me to kind of wrap my head head around. Um I using Kevin's word about virtue. I think there's virtue in the pursuit of excellence. And so the traditionalist and I in my head comes out against getting rid of val s type of of situations. But I spoke to my wife who is
084really much wiser than I and we talked about this and she feels the same. But then she brought something up um during convocation at uh Rocky. That's where the students are recognized by uh the staff and their peers at the high schools before graduation. Um the amount of awards is amazing. Um and it's not just a participation trophy. It's recognizing kids in their specialty, their passions, whether it's science or English or arts and and things like that. And she brought that up. She said, "If you are only going for two spots, where is the pursuit of excellence in what you want to do and where is the self-worth if you see by sophomore year that you're you're done? You don't have a shot or junior year you don't have a shot at those one or
085two spots." Um, I thought that was that meant a lot to me and made sense to me where if you can get into the top 10%, that's the pursuit. That's the I really encourage us to think about Magna and Suma. think that's fantastic and and probably the right way to go because that's I think perceived by most people and recognized people know what that means um as almost as as important as validictorian or saludiatoran. So I I'm I've changed my mind on this and that's a hard thing to do. So um credit my wife on that one but uh but I I think this is really good. I think what EB Marti said speaks to that tremendously and um I think it's it's a good move. Thank you. Yeah, Connor. What's the drive to delay
086so long in implementation? Um when we started working through this, we thought it would line up with the new grad requirements. And so just fitting in with that, um we have had people who have asked, could we start sooner? Um, but we also felt that we want to be very intentional about our communication with it and just support along the way and build up to how are we going to best honor. Um, but I think that there's also room discussion around that. Yeah. Go ahead. Thank you for that comment. Um, everything what Beth just shared is true. I think another the spirit of this shift is to not take anything away from anybody either. there are current rules of engagement that have meant a lot to people who have been involved with the current approach
087and to have that taken away from them without being brought along in that process just didn't feel right to the majority of staff. So, you know, I think not only is it serendipitous with our revised guidelines or guidelines for graduation requirements that go into effect starting with this cohort, um, but just really, as you were hearing, like people are having these conversations probably is middle school like going in thinking about the schedules they're taking. So, just really wanting to have a little bit of finesse with the transition was really the spirit in which we're coming here tonight. Hi, can I add one more thing? I just would also add into context that when we are already have students within their four-year high school career and then we're changing how they how we calculate their GPA
088and we're had one platform and now we're changing to a different platform that becomes a real big challenge for making sure it's accurate and aligned and then again it could impact students that are looking for scholarships and how they're applying and the things that they're already looking to do um as sophomores and juniors are definitely already making plans that way. So changing that within the four-year track would could have some really unintentional impacts for kids. So it's easier to start fresh with a clean transcript. Thank you for that. Yeah, go ahead Kevin. Oh, go ahead Jesse. On that note, um I just want to make sure it's crystal clear in my head. So the cumulative unweighted GPA, that's the same as something we do now. The weighted GPA, that is the same as something we
089do now. The only thing that changes in the GP options is we just no longer have this weighted form. Okay. The adjusted I'm sorry, the adjusted kind of sort of weighted option. Great. Um, in this conversation about like, you know, why delay? Have we considered doing a hybrid option for maybe freshman, sophomores? I guess sophomore, juniors because freshman are going to get it next year. um where they still have the val but we also have desiles just so that we're honoring more people maybe helping some folks off the chasing of GPA train um giving them a way to honor their academic achievement while also honoring their passions and if maybe that eliminates some because I'm I'm still concerned that we have sophomores and juniors who are like well I'm still going to chase and I
090would rather protect the mental health and well-being of the number of students that aren't going to achieve that goal and still give them something to grasp and feel proud of. So, I'm just going to throw that in the room. Thank you for that, Jim. Like Scott, like Kevin, I also believe that it's important to reward excellence and um that's how it should work in school. That's certainly how it works in life. So, we have a I think that's pretty much true across the board. When I hear though on the student letter about a constant war that that really spoke to me and so I think uh I I can totally picture this situation where these students are at a constant war and they're, you know, one's off trying to squeeze this out, you know, squeeze
091this 01% out on the other one and it's it that is just not healthy and that's what you've told us. And so I love the uh a kind of system that gives them more of the flexibility to take things that they're truly interested in. Uh I think that's great. And I think for what you've proposed is going to result in fewer of those pathological behaviors. We're not going to fix them all, but I think it's going to make things better. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead, Kevin. one some semi- granular question that may may be fair may not be but you were talking about this idea that especially with the variances of uh how we're calculating GPA and being it you know trying to have a more streamlined more coherent way of doing it I
092go back to my own days when I was teaching we would give quarterly assessments and writing and we were trying to get kids up to grade level on various metrices and so what I found illuminating was when we were we did a briefing or we did a a strategy session on how we were going to apply the rubric. The rubric was this this this and this but even amongst the the network that I was in was uncommon at the time how we were going to assign certain things for and I I it was I guess it was it shows a little bit of hubris nativity on all our parts that we were wildly divergent on how we were going to actually grade. So my big question for you is this is that have you explored
093or gotten any feedback as to this this idea to try to standardize the waiting versus standardizing of grading? And I know that's a large question because I also think that we can fix one and peel back another onion layer and the grading is so wildly divergent amongst our high schools that it may it may you know moot any of the the benefits gained from that standardization efforts. I don't know if that's come up and if it's not a fair question I'll just shut up. I'm really excited about this topic clearly, but I think that maybe we'll address that on behalf of the counselors. So absolutely we agree that um and we we refer to these as equitable grading practices and so how do we work with teachers um to really look at what are the
094essential standards um what are the sequencing of the curriculum what are common assessments formative and summitative um and then how are they then using rubrics so that students understand what they need to do to earn the grade. they can reflect on that and then they can set their own goals and then teachers also align on how things are graded, what they're grading. Um because you're right, um you know, we haven't had a a concerted um district-wide effort in that. And so grade books across the district look very very different for the same exact course titles. That is um some work that that is work we have begun. Ensun has been doing that with middle school at sixth grade um over the last two years. And so, but this is again like everything else we're doing
095that's systematic, a five to sevenyear at least process um that really we we we envision going through 10th grade um with all of that alignment being um more common course driven and then 11th and 12th grade gets a little bit more tricky because of the diversity of courses that are h being offered. However, as we adopt new curriculum, that's part of that new process. So when we adopt a new curriculum such as the new world history social studies standards, part of that is what is our common sequencing? What are our essential standards? Um and then how do our de our district curriculum teams work together to create some of these form and common assessments and rubrics and things of that nature. So currently there are sites doing that individually, but we'd like to continue that
096work so it's across the system and not just in pockets. Thank you so much for that. Yes, Scott, go ahead. Just a couple last comments. Um, first off, I really like Jess uh your idea on the bringing the sum loud magnum loud earlier if it could be handinand with the val. I think that would be good. I don't know if that's possible to do but um but that would Yeah. So that you say it. Yeah. So that's actually that perfectly ties into my other question. Is the programming flexibility in place that you can have ninth graders getting one type of transcript with this new system where the rest of the high school are differently? I I can I work for our counselors? Yeah. Yes, we can. And um they Yeah. And we'll have it takes
097some work, but we'll have to do that anyways just because there are different graduation requirements. So courses that are taken will count towards different what we call buckets um within our system but um it takes it takes work um but it's I think from an IT perspective just speaking on your behalf is much better than trying to take the current transcripts and then have this hybrid of of of the of the hybrid. So that that is a real challenge um that I think we definitely could not pull off by fall. I'd like so I agree with what Dr. Chaplain is saying, but I do believe that there's some shared energy around trying to take a step forward to accomplish both and I know I've heard explicitly from Jess and now Scott. So, I would like
098to invite invite the board to see if you have a an opinion on that, but I also wonder like we have some logistics to kind of go back to with staff and I'd love to be able to come back with what may be possible, but I think there's opportunity there and I appreciate the spirit of the suggestion. And if I can, don't some of the um principles at some of the high schools have their um top percentages stand um so can we continue but encourage all schools to do that um for the while we do the both and and then the while we figure out what exactly the desile is. Um but we could have I'm trying to remember they all kind of blur in my head at this point but which ones um they
099have the 10% stand up. Yeah. So you are right. I think we all just observe there's different ways of celebrating students. Some of it's based on academic prowess, some of it's on character. I think the spirit and Chris you nailed this coming out of the the gate with the presentation is we have an opportunity to choose consistency here. Um and I'm super proud of that and I think Dr. Chaplan as she was talking about to director Havda your question about grading practices. We started with district policy now we're moving towards superintendent policy then we have to think about professional development implications. So it's a cascading effect that will be a multi-year effort of getting consistency. But I do think there are opportunities that we have now uh to be able maybe not on the transcript,
100right? But be able to think about how we honor more students while still honoring Val South for the next four years. I think we can accomplish that goal. So yeah, as far as the timing goes, my since it was asked, my preference is to go slower. Um I think for the reason it's been articulated but uh slow is smooth, smooth is fast, right? And I think not only do we need to wrap our heads around standardization, then we have to respect the choices of people in our community that have already made it and made plans based on that. And so I again I'm I'm not a big fan of huge seismic changes happening in a whiplash whiplash effect. I do think targeting an incoming freshman class so that we can communicate that to our community
101and say this is what we're doing now, this aligns with for all these great reasons um that to me feels better. This is just my own individual uh standpoint, but I I think stepping back and going a little bit slower. Of course, there's an urgency to folks that want to take advantage of this now, but I think we're talking about systemic changes. We need a little bit more breathing room so we can evaluate, assess, and honor the choice of people that have already made choices. So that's why that's why I come up. Anyone else? If I may, I actually have a question that kind of falls towards um yours there, Kevin, which is um if if we're going to, you know, slow roll this, which I think is, you know, um a good idea, too.
102Um two questions. One, when do we need to need need to change the policy? Because that is the one thing that does need to happen there. Um is the weighted GPA needs to become policy. So, um when should we look at making that um adjustment? And then my second question, um is also about timing. And that is when do we let students and parents know that we're doing this? Particularly in middle school. Um I think that it's very clear that in middle school, people are already like, okay, I'm going to take the advanced math class so that then I can be ahead when I get to high school. and um we want to make sure that they are able to take the pottery classes and take the art drawing classes and the music classes um
103to make a well-rounded student. Um so I just want when are we going to be able to do that? This has been a superintendent policy I believe since 2019. So we have the ability we're not here tonight to do anything other than gather your feedback and insight to inform any decision that I make in you know partnership with staff. This has been a really healthy conversation. So, thank you for that. We are going to need a lot of robust communications on this because it determines how people choose their courses. Um, there is going to be potential criticism that, you know, we are lowering our standards and we know that's not true. So, we need to be able to continue to equip our community with the right information that we are expanding the number of students
104that are taking college courses in this district. We have a thousand more high school students taking college courses this year than two years ago. We are expanding career and technical education pathways. We had 741 additional high school students take CTE coursework this year than two years ago. We as a district have a lot of integrity in our diploma. We are not going to meddle with that. uh so much integrity that our graduating classes have the highest GPA in their freshman year in college comparative to all of the other districts that we compete with ourselves according to last year's district monitoring report. So I want to go back to some of the talking points uh that the team brought up is that this is really about system consistency. We have a mechanism in place today with
105the adjusted GPA that is actually hindering some of our students from being globally competitive because it's confusing and admissions officers uh do not understand it in many many instances and I've learned a long time ago from some communications teams that when you're explaining you're losing and maybe I'm doing that right now wish I shouldn't have said that but I think it's important to have these talking points because they're important. We've heard of the the mental health aspect of this, but I would also go back to our district ends, like what we stand for and what we're aspiring to accomplish, especially the one that's called above and beyond. One of the things that's super significant about our district is we measure connection. We measure connection to students to students, their peers, students to the adults in
106the building, and connections to their interests. and where we need to propel ourselves forward is in all three of them, but especially the interests. And so, it's really important that we listen to the stories that our students are telling us that the current system is focused on gamesmanship more than them pursuing their interests. I would also tell you that 10 years ago this year, which is kind of fascinating to me, I had this very same conversation in the research triangle in the center of North Carolina, surrounded by people who wanted to send their children to Duke or University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, or Wake Forest or NC State. Hope I didn't leave any of them out. But what mattered and resonated most with that community, and this our community is different, but what matters
107is our higher ed institutions no longer have the value set around Valau that they may have 10, 15, 20 years ago. And I think the work that you all have done to research what that means locally, globally, that message needs to be a leading message. Um because if that mattered, if we were going to put students in a position to lose scholarships, that's not the case. This is not everybody getting a trophy. This is making sure that when we have a student who comes in third, that we're valuing them at the same level that they came in first or second. This is still built on a meritocracy. But it's important that we recognize uh that this provides more fairness. It stops the gamesmanship. It breathes life into the mental health of our students so they
108can pursue their personal interest without feeling it's at the expense of something. And I just think the work that we're doing, but this is the communication. It starts today, but it's going to need to be robust and repetitive, and it's going to need to be targeted, especially with the incoming freshmen, but then the current high schoolers are going to need to know whether the landscape's changing for them or not. So, that's why this conversation uh is healthy. I would want to before making any commitments about what's possible for the next four years to go back and do some great work with the team, listen to their ideas, what's possible, and come back early in the fall. But tonight was about setting intention that it with what's going to be in place for next year's freshman
109cohort that is in full alignment with our revised district guidelines for graduation requirements. I'm hopeful that's helpful. I'm sorry for talking so much. So I guess my just my one question on that then is do we need to have the policy revised for that? I will invite cabinet members that the superintendent policy would be revised in service of making this forward but it would not require board action. Excellent. That's thank you for that. Um okay sorry. No that's quite all right. Can I invite before we move on? I spent a lot of time on this. Uh Dwayne Penny for your thoughts if I'm allowed to ask your thoughts. I'm honored. I'll keep it brief. The case that our counselors have made is solid and they have done the background work of talking to lots of
110different stakeholders in our community. So I'm 100% in favor of simplifying our system. I want to echo what Scott Shonbower brought forward into the room which is I actually see this as increasing um in a healthy way the uh the number of students who I think will continue to pursue excellence because you don't only have two spots, you have many spots. I also will just say real quickly with my few moments with the mic, you know, I'm a father of two and they and the two or three, sorry. And the two That's that was crazy, right? Sorry, Kai. Um Kai's still in high school, so his story is unwritten. But the older two going off to college, you know, one went to what you would call more of like an engineering kind of a rigorous
111kind of thing like that, mathematical. The other one's in an art school. And it was pretty clear to us at a pretty young age that they had those different kind of interests and pathways and stuff. And I'm so thankful to Pter School District and the schools that they were in that they those both of my kids that are the older two were able to develop those skills and really pursue that. And they're both highf flyers. They're really um they really are excellent students as well as kids. And so they've both gone off to college and done great things. And I just want that for all of our kids in our community that they're focused on their interest and their passions. And yes, we push them to high levels of excellence, even higher levels than they
112might initially think they're capable of. But I believe that happens and I think the changes that you all are bringing forward makes that more available for more students. So that's that's two my my two cents. Go ahead, Scott. Dwayne, thanks a lot for bringing that up. And when Dwayne says that, he's not kidding. We're talking SCAD for his daughter, right? That's one of the the probably top art school. And then am I right? MIT. Yeah. That's amazing. And and as a board, I just want to tell Kai Schmidz that we see you here. Good save. Good save. Any other questions on this? We go ahead. I did have one. Hopefully, it's relatively quick. Uh the decile 10% rank, how far are we ranking? Is it 10 slots? Is it two slots? It would be So
113it would be like the first 10, second 10. So the 10th Yeah. First decile, second decile. The 10th decile. Yeah. Has there been any push back on that to stop it at some point in the Yeah, sorry. Um, we did get we did get a question about that or an idea of maybe, you know, only the top half um the top 50. Um, I think that I think that might be part of that is it. I think that would be really difficult. Um, I also think the other piece I mean at fossil uh 50% would be like a 3.7 you know so you'd have a a 3.6 and then if if you're in the you know no man's land like you don't get a rank I think I think that could be kind of um
114kind of a mental blow I think you know if you're in the top 50 hey cool I know where I am and then it's you're kind of in the other category. I think that that could be kind of tough. So it it has come up. We we've talked about that a little bit. Yeah. Can I speak the It was interesting too. We had the student feedback on that. Um and the students felt like if they were knew that they might be in the 10th decile, they had hope that they could move to the ninth, but if they knew they weren't ranked at all, they weren't in the top 50, they just felt like, well, why why should I try? So, it still left them with that feeling. So, we felt like this still honors that.
115I really appreciate the answer. Thank you so much. Yeah. Last but uh not least, Chris, would you like to introduce your two compatriots here who are very well behaved? Sure. This is my son Topher uh who's nine and my daughter Arya. Thanks for thanks for being here and hanging out with me guys. Arya and Kofheer, I know that these can be arduous. Thank you for your behavior. All right, so I did you all get what you needed because Sure. Thank you so much. Excellent, excellent work on this. Thank you so much for bringing it to us. All right, we're going to move on to 10.2 PSD Foundation update. Yeah. Joining us this evening to provide the update is PSD Foundation Executive Director Summer Schaefer. Welcome, Summer. Hello everyone. Thank you for having me here tonight.
116Um, I'm excited to talk tonight because this is commemorating our 25th anniversary. So 2025, it makes things super easy for us moving forward, right? Uh, the foundation was founded in 2000 and this is our 25th anniversary year. And so I'm thrilled to give an update. I've done some what I thought were fun things tonight to help us move this conversation um in the 25th way. So, I have uh five slides with 25 facts about the PSD Foundation. Um and just wanted to start things off. Uh the PSD Foundation, our mission, our strategic goal, our vision is all based around supporting the PSD district as a whole. um to making sure that every child is able to be educated every day. And we know that there are some spaces, whoops, my middle finger touched down there.
117Um there are some spaces that unfortunately with funding gaps can't normally be filled through school budgets. And so we are grateful for the opportunity to really leverage the public, to leverage our community, to leverage the support that we have within our community um in order to make those things possible. Um, I always say that I have the best job in the district. I'm sorry to everyone else because um, I get to go out and talk about all the great things that this district is accomplishing and it is vast and it is many and I get the opportunity to meet with people who are really deeply excited to know how they fit into the picture of support for the district. And so I can't get much better than that because then the result is helping all
118of our kids succeed. Um the foundation has four funding focus areas. That's always very fun for me to say. So um we have literacy, mental health and belonging, graduation with options, and the compassion fund. Now three of those four areas sh sound very familiar to everyone here. um because in 2022 and I'll go into this in a little bit here uh the foundation aligned with the strategic priorities of the district and uh the compassion fund is the unique priority for a funding focus area that the foundation has that was also founded during co and has continued to move forward and I'm going to share a little bit more about each of these areas as I go through each of the points tonight. Uh none of this would be possible without our incredible board of directors.
119So this is a volunteer group. Um I always say to them, I don't know why you volunteer because this is a lot. Um but they gladly give up their time and or at least gladly most of the time I think you know. Um and they are amazing members of our community. Many of which are current PSD parents. Some of them are previous PSD parents. Um, and then we also have some that are just now emerging PSD parents. Uh, so our board consists of Tracy Katz, um, who has kids at Dunn and will soon have a child at Leher. We have our vice president, Rebecca Harvey, who has raised her kids in PSD, um, since about six years ago. And, uh, she is a current student at um, at Fossil Ridge. And then we have Jackie
120with kids at Dunn and soon to be Lashwell. And then we have um Angela Frierson who's with Colorado State University and she is currently raising kids at Riffenberg. And then we have Katie Braden also from CSU, different department, different area of specialty. Um and her kids are at Shepharddson, Carly Makabe who has kids at Fossil Ridge and at Canard. And then Kathy Feifer. and uh she always says that her kids um that she's as old as dirt, but she's not. Um her kids are proud BSD alums from K through 12 and they graduated from Pter High School. And then we have Connor Duffy as our exeicio officer um from the board of uh education. All right, so this is it. The 25 highlights in five slides. So get ready to go on a journey with
121me. So, as I mentioned, we started back in the year 2000, and this is really wild and crazy. For anybody who is a numbers nut, you're going to be really impressed with how many 25s you're going to see come up in this presentation. Um, so really fun fact, we were founded by 25 community members. Um, some of those members were members uh that worked within the district, some were parents, many were community um and business leaders within our area. and they came together in the year 2000 which if you look across the whole nation you're going to see a lot of foundations that were founded in the year 2000 largely based on how federal funding around education had shifted in that time period. So we are in really good company with a lot of other
122foundations across the nation being founded in the year 2000 1999 to about 2001. Um, our strategic goal, as I mentioned earlier, is to advance our community and business and philanthropic partnerships to really help engage and demonstrate all of the amazing benefits to being engaged within the Pter School District fabric and to really help impress upon our community how they can have a personal impact or an organizational impact within the fabric and success of PSD students. Um, in 2022, I came on board. Prior to my onboarding, uh, we had our brand new superintendent at the time, and I've heard this story because I wasn't here yet. Um, but our amazing board leadership at for the foundation board, um, combined and got together with our administration in the district and really saw that it would med benefit
123us as well as the district for both of our organizations to align funding priority areas. Um so our priorities are funding and then we align those with the district priorities um as I just shared. So over the past 25 years we have been able to see significant and steady growth. There have been periods of time where there has been no staff member whatsoever with the foundation and then there's been others where there has been staff members. Um and altogether when you look across the fabric of success that the foundation has had there has been consistent programmatic impact that has been made by the foundation within the district as a whole uh since the year 2000 collectively through inspiring community donations. We have been able to give back $2.51 million to the district. And we are
124super proud of this because that is a combined total of support offered by our students. We've had many students um donate. We have alum that donate. We have teachers. We have uh organizations. And altogether this support has been able to directly impact our students, our teachers, our programs as a district whole. um with that 2 point or $2.51 million of funding support. Um throughout the 25 years, we have not always offered classroom grants, but the years in which classroom grants have been offered, which they currently are, we have been able to fund 425 classroom grants, which directly impacted 17,230 students, which is really incredible. um those may not be unique students. So, just note that some of those students have had the privilege to be impacted um multiple times throughout classroom projects that have been
125supported through grant funding. Uh some of you may be familiar with SPY grants, which was the original PSD Foundation grant program. It then transitioned to being called the impact grant program and it is now called the Ignite Grant Program. And I'm clarifying that for a reason, which I'll get to in just a moment. Uh we act as the 501c3 arm of the district and as such we have had the privilege of working with over 80 corporations and organizations which have structured either matching gift programs or giving programs for their employees. This is accomplished through a variety of different platforms and interactions. But we are really thrilled to be that arm that can reach out and really build those bridges and relationships across the community with organizations and corporate giving programs. uh through the 25 years.
126I wish I got asked was this just the last three years and I said oh geez I really wish it was but we will get there in the next 25 years uh where when three per threeyear period we could boast this same number but over the last 25 years we have been able to give $310,000 to purchase books and materials directly to classroom spaces to help student success. And then also too, we've had 271 student recipients of foundation held scholarship funds. Um, and that includes the recent 19 students that we are able to celebrate at the end of April this year. Um, these scholarships are incredible and I'll share a little bit more about them in just a moment. But the reason I clarified about the grant program is because we are ready to unveil
127a brand new grant program and we already have the first recipient of it. So, we're super excited about that. And um I am going to share a little bit more about that in just one second. Um before moving on, I did want to share that we have the compassion fund. As I mentioned, this was a fund that grew out of COVID and the board again I was not working here at that time got together via teams or zoom at that time and they saw an opportunity to really make an impact uh for our most vulnerable families within the district. um they were hearing stories of families that where kids, you know, really didn't have access to materials beyond what school was able to provide to them. They were hearing stories of students being in transitional
128home housing or potentially being unhoused and they acted really quickly to establish the compassion fund. Now we're three years in um to me working here and very quickly after starting um I worked uh with the administration to establish a strong relationship and partnership with the McKin Vento team at the district level. The McKini Vento team has been an incredible partner to us because they are able to identify families and PSD students who have limiting access to education. So, that could be a variety of things such as transportation. That could be uh becoming unhoused or being unhoused. That could be um not being able to pay a gas bill to warm their water to have a bath. Um, and the McKenna Vento team has been a great partner in identifying these families which remain anonymous to
129the foundation board and uh, we are able to provide one-time financial assistance to help these families gain back that freedom to access education. Um, in the past few years, we've been able to help 102 families. Um, and as of two weeks ago, that went up to 106. So, this is an ongoing thing that we are um very happy and grateful that we get to be part of. All right. So, I wanted to give you a little bit of an idea of what this district's energy that I'm talking about looks like this year through IMP ignite grants, excuse me. Uh we were able to fund the very first district uh wide unified track and field day. Maybe some of you attended that, but we were super excited to be able to fund that and make that
130district-wide project a reality this year. We also were able to fund specific programs such as the Journey program. Um, they applied for an Ignite grant wanting to be able to incentivize and help their students see a path forward and they knew that they were going to need additional supports in order to do this. um this program has already boasted an increase in attendance dayto day to the program and the outcomes are still being posted but they have shared with me that they were so thrilled with the outcomes of this program that the PSD Foundation was able to fund that they were like we want you to come and we want you to see all of the impact of this which is super exciting and I'm looking forward to getting all of their statistics after uh
131June 30th and then also too this is over the last 15 years. So, the geometry and construction program may be a program that some of you are very familiar with and others this might be the very first time hearing about it, but we have been able to fund over $65,000 into the geometry and construction program in Pter High School chiefly and then also this year we were able to leverage corporate partnerships to fund an Ignite grant to start the geometry and construction program at Rocky, which we're super excited to see the outcome of. A large portion of that donation that we have been able to give back to those two schools has come from a single donor who is really committed to this program and it just speaks to the power of individuals who are
132committed to the education of our students. Uh we also have been thrilled to be partners with the district in making PSD celebrates possible by proid providing the financial backing for that event which celebrates all of our staff and all of our teachers um in one common space which has been exciting to be part of. And then this is the unveiling of our new grant program. We are thrilled to be unveiling a brand new district-wide grant which we will be awarding to only programs that have a district-wide impact. So this will be different than our Ignite grants which are basically classroom based or school-based. But this will be a program which will allow for departments or for entire programs to apply for funding for a grant um to actually make a district-wide program possible. Uh, as
133I mentioned, the board already selected our very first recipient of this new grant program, and they are very excited to be funding Lays Rob this summer, which will be happening at the end of July. Uh, and they have awarded a $35,000 grant to help make that musical possible. um which is super exciting in our 25th anniversary year because this particular production is not only encompassing all of our high schools, but it's also encompassing several middle school students and even elementary school students um in the cast. So excited to see that executed. And then as I've mentioned, none of this would be possible without a community of supporters. We have over 5400 individual donors. So, an individual donor is measured as one person, but this could also be representative of a family or a teen unit.
134Um, but it is not representative of community donors such as corporations or organizations giving to the foundation. Um, this number is super something I'm super proud of because this really does show that our community wants a way to help. And this is a number made up of donors that may donate as little as a dollar or may donate as much as $50,000. Um, but nonetheless, we have 5,400 plus donors who individually donate. Uh, 48 uh community partners, and that's over the last 25 years. I would love to see this grow even more, and that's currently working on uh who really want to demonstrate philanthropic synergy within our community. They see both the immediate impact but also the long-term impact of becoming engaged as a community or excuse me not a community donor but also an
135organizational donor. And then as I mentioned we have 11 scholarship funds which we directly hold either through an endowment fund or through an annual scholarship fund. And this year and last year we were able to award $91,000 to students within the district. These scholarships range for scholarships that support trade school, uh that support two-year community college, and also that support four-year university education. Uh we have several other pending scholarships which will take a life event to occur um for them to become active and those are new. Um all of our pending scholarships are brand new scholarships. Every single one of them has been thoughtfully programmed and planned with the donor. And I'm really excited to say that after this discussion tonight about class rank that we have gotten our donors to really recognize for those
136pending scholarships particularly and our newest established scholarships that GPA is not everything that that's not the only measure of a student's success and to really have um our donors be more open-minded to uh giving scholarship dollars to trade schools to two-year schools in addition to the traditional four-year university education. And then three out of five of our individual donors is a recurring donor. This is a number that we always keep our eye on. We've seen this grow pretty significantly from around 1.25 when I very first started three years ago to now three out of five being a recurring donor. What qualifies someone as a recurring donor is that they give more than one donation in a calendar year. And this is a super important step because it shows that people aren't just a one-time engaged
137donor, but they are coming back to say, "Hey, I want to give again." And so we want to get five out of five donors being reoccurring donors, giving twice or more during a calendar year. Um, and really awesome, a third of those recurring donors are donating between 100 to $500 for each of their donations, which is another measure of success and commitment from our community. We have had a significant impact or increase, excuse me, in gifts over $5,000 over the past three years. Um, we've seen a 375% increase in gifts over $5,000. And the reason why you see this astronomical growth is because we've been really strategic in aligning priorities with donors when we are in conversation with them about how their donation can have a specific impact. Um, prior to this, we had no
138recurring donors that were of record that had provided over $3,000 or more than one time. And I'm super excited to say that several of our 5,000 plus individual donors, so this is not organizations, have donated more than one time. And that is our true marker of success for engaging our public and individuals. and we have raised 200 or our goal is to raise $250,000 this year. So, it's kind of funny because like the school district, our fiscal year ends at the end of this month. Um, but our 25th anniversary doesn't end until December 31st. And so, we have set a goal to raise $250,000 um in our 25th anniversary year, marking 10% of the overall funds we've been able to give back to the district over the past 25 years. We're doing this by inspiring
139community investment, really reaching out to individuals, helping them understand how they fit within the fabric. And this is also non-traditional donors to our education or to our education to our foundation. Um, we are really trying to broaden the scope of who we see and who we engage as a donor and a prospective donor. Um, we are also growing our scholarship funds. As I mentioned, we've onboarded several new scholarship funds. Some have become active, some are pending a life occurrence. Um, and so once those all become active, we will definitely see an increase, but we look to forward to increase in the total overall impact of scholarships um, over the next year, but also into the next decade and beyond. And then we're looking to also expand our donor opportunities. So, not just having the same
140opportunities uh that are visible and available to our donors, but really looking for unique ways to engage those donors to get them more engaged in that reoccurring space where they see that they are needed as a donor because we are only as great as our community is, right? And vice versa. Our community is only as great as our public school district is. And so, really helping people see that we need to be in involved with one another. um regardless if you are a parent in the district or you are not. And then we are looking to increase our organizational giving from 63% to 65%. The reason why this is an important marker is because as we have volatile uh economic times come and go. Um our markets change, we always want to make sure that
141a huge chunk of our giving is from organizations that we can look forward to having a little bit more sustainable largescale funding. And so we're looking to increase that to 65% this year. And then we want to continue to partner really closely with the administration. Um it's one of the my favorite parts of my job is really meeting with folks in the district, whether that's a teacher, whether that is a member of a department. Um I was talking with Liz earlier, she was here. Um about the incredible benefits of having that interwoven relationship with a foundation. Um, I got a call from a large corporate sponsor who has given a collective total of over $120,000 over the last three years and they said, "Summer, I need your help. We have to do an impact report
142and it's due today and we'd really like to highlight PSD. Do you have any success stories you can share?" And I was like, "Well, I could make one, but I don't know." And so I reached out to Liz and her team, and within probably two hours, they had an incredible, really beautiful success story to share. and that spoke volumes to our community partner. They were like, "This is awesome." So, um, looking to do more of that and build those relationships even stronger. So, you just endured 25 facts about the foundation. Thank you for hanging in there with me uh to celebrate our 25th year. What questions do you have or any comments you'd like to share? Thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it. And I I do want to take you up.
143you had mentioned um last time we spoke about being having board members be part of that joyous um occasion when you get to talk to people about all the wonderful things and so yeah I think I love that. Yeah, I think we need to to take you up on that as well. So um but are there any questions? Yeah, go ahead. I just had one. Um do donors have a choice when they donate to spe like to a specific grant? Like I would like my money to go to classrooms or the district-wide initiative or to the staff initiatives? like how does that work? Is it? Yes. And this is a great question. So um when I first started there was a list of over 37 options for a donor to choose on our website. So
144we have really distilled that down. It also depends on where you click give now on our website as to what you're being directed towards. So, if a visitor of our website or a donor as I'm meeting with them is really particularly interested in classroom impact grants or ignite grants, then that is where I will direct their gift and I will show them where to donate on that page. Um, however, if you click on our give now page, you'll see a variety of options of where to give. Um, and the reason for that is is that I really want to help drive donations to what we call our priority fund because what we had also when I very first started was a really interesting situation. And I'm not really sure what led to it because I
145wasn't here. Um, I mean, I kind of could pick apart what happened, but we had raised a ridiculously high amount of money that year for literacy, but that also coincided with the new literacy curriculum coming on board. And so, there wasn't as much need for classroom books and things like that that we have traditionally funded in the past. However, because those dollars were do donor designated, we can't move them. We can't say, "Oh, the district doesn't need literacy this year. They really needed mental health and belonging supports." And so, we've tried to make most of our donations priority fund donations. Um, however, if a donor does access those pages or if they specifically request, hey, I want to donate to XYZ, and we have donors designate dollars um largely that don't talk to me first,
146and that's okay. um to things that really we they that aren't needed, right? Um but if that's where a donor's passion is, we're always going to encourage that and then take note of that and then hopefully help them see that they can also fit in in other spaces that may have a higher need. Go ahead, Scott. Thank you very much for the update. This is really good. Um, I am curious. I'm not sure how close you are to your goal of the 250,000 for this year, but you have thousands of people watching right now. And so, can you can you let people know how they can donate? Like what? I feel very famous right now. So, I know, right? So, on that slide there, um, they can donate at our website, which is psdfoundation.org. And
147if you want to go to our giving page directly, you just hit that back slashgiving and that will take you to our giving page so that they can see all the different opportunities to give. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. This is wonderful. Thank you. Thanks for the time. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and move on to 10.3, our 2024 debtfree mill levy oversight committee update. Thank you. Tonight, we look forward to hearing an update on the 2024 debtfree mill levy oversight committee from our chief of staff Dr. Lauren Hooton, lead assistant superintendent Dr. Tracy Guile, chief finance officer Dave Mononttoya, and committee co-chair Jeff Linquist. Welcome everyone. Thank you all for the opportunity to provide an update tonight on the debtfree mill levy oversight committee. I'm going to
148start out just by reorienting us to the ballot language and how the the funding in the mil levy is being allocated. At this point I'm going to turn it over to Jeff who will talk through the committee's first meeting and then we are here to answer questions after we go through this overview. So just as a highlevel reminder, the 2024 debtfree mill levy is dedicated to supporting facilities maintenance, small and neighborhood schools, supporting and the programming in those schools, high quality instruction and replacement cycles, and competitive wages for all staff. What that means in more specific terms in the space of competitive wages for staff, as the board may recall, we were able to offer staff a one-time 5% payment in January of this year. and we are infusing $15 million into the salary schedules
149of all employee groups going into the 2025 2026 school year. We are also in the process of executing more than 20 facilities projects this summer. You can see a list here of the various different types of projects that are underway. I will also say there are uh some nice new signs that just went up that say your mill dollars at work and you'll see those around town in projects that are being funded by the mill levy and are being worked on this summer. We also have allocated $4 million of the mil levy for specifically stabilization of small neighborhood schools. Uh this is schools with fewer than 200 students or schools that need additional financial support to ensure they have the uh sufficient amount of staffing necessary to operate. This also goes to the stabilization of
150the size factor which supports many of our schools and then allows us as a central organization to fund assistant principal support in schools. That then allows schools to use that additional funding in their school-based budget to hire classified and licensed staff. We are also dedicating $2.5 million annually to instructional materials and the replacement thereof. That includes $ 1.5 million to fund curriculum adoption cycles as well as a million dollars uh to fund equipment purchases specifically. So at this time that's going to CTE, career and technical education equipment, visual arts, physical education and health equipment as well as musical instruments. uh which is a really big step forward for us in terms of being able to actually refresh these kind of things in our system. So the debtfree mil levy oversight committee was convened in the
151spring uh earlier this year. Uh it consists of 20 members who are su serving two-year terms. That includes nine appointed members. Six of those nine are representatives of all three of our employee associations. Uh we also have 11 lottery lottery selected members. If you are interested in who those members are, they are listed on the mil levy web page on our website. So if you just go to our website and search for mil levy, that'll pop up. Uh you can also find their information about the the meeting minutes from the first meeting that this committee held as well. And we'll be posting updates regularly on how funding is being spent to that page of the PSD website. Uh this committee is not a decision-making committee. This is really an oversight committee that is intended to
152look really closely at how the district is spending the MI levy funding and provide input to us based on that. Uh and the committee itself is meeting twice a year. So their next meeting will be in the fall and then we'll schedule another in the spring. And it is the intention to bring an update to the board at least once annually as we go forward. So with that said, I'm going to turn it over to Jeff. Great. Thank you. Uh, congratulations. U, I don't I hope a lot of people tell you that. Uh, I was very skeptical. Connor will remember. Uh, I think I said something like, "Are you out of your mind?" Um, it's wonderful. We have $49 million we didn't have. Um, let's let's not forget that. Lauren runs a tight ship. Uh,
153she said 90 seconds. I'm like, well, you're going to have to come get the microphone. Um, it it says in here that uh I was selected by lottery. uh I think short straw uh to be the the chair. I say that because I don't we haven't met and discussed uh these things yet. So right now I I think of what we did as an orientation meeting. So please know tonight I'm not representing the committee yet. Uh we haven't had that that opportunity uh other than meeting at 7:30 in the morning. I thought it was a great meeting. Um I'm not sure who chose that, but we'll talk about that going forward. Um it was very helpful. We went through the charter again. Um, you know, again, I think Lauren said it well. We're not decision-making.
154Uh, some of you are old enough to remember when a former president said trust but verify. Uh, this is not going to be a rubber stamp. Um, the the group was very serious, very focused. Uh, had a lot of really good questions. Again, more orientation. I thought it was excellent. You answered really good questions. Some of the things we'll I'm certain talk about. Hey, how'd you get to the list of facilities? Um, it says in here it went to all staff. Um, okay. Didn't go to didn't go to uh substitute teachers like we want to know certain things like again trust but verify. Um, and and it was it was very helpful. Um, ballot language, you know, that's you're very aware well aware small neighborhood schools uh the intersection of this committee and the other
155uh planning committee. I think it's really comprehensive. It's it's excellent. Uh I'm very grateful that you're doing this. There are a lot of school districts that pass these types of things and they don't think to come back and form this kind of a committee uh to get the word out. So I'm I'm hopeful that everyone listening will know that we're going to do our work. Um we met in March. You know, one of the challenges with this is you haven't had a chance as a district to show us yet. You haven't done your budget. So uh again, we don't have information yet for for you going forward. We'll meet in the fall. Um the timing is always going to be tough for however long this happens because you know we could be meeting in June
156or even early July. We're not decision- making. But if we come back to you and say, "Hey, well, we have some questions here." We're going to be into that budget year. So, um and of course, you know, monitoring our our future funding. So, very excited. Again, congratulations and thanks to staff because I really did think it was very helpful. Thank you. I did not say that for the record. Are there any questions we can answer? All right. Go ahead. Go ahead, Connor. Just a kind of follow up on what Jeff was saying. Um, do we have any idea around the intersection between the comprehensive planning committee as well as the oversight committee? Is there any kind of thoughts around that um going forward in the future? You know what? That's a great question. Um, not
157yet because we've only had one meeting of the comprehensive planning committee. The second meeting will be on Friday. And so as far as you know some of the charges that were um in front of the debtfree mill levy oversight and what they were funding I think that's going to come into the comprehensive planning committee eventually as a way of looking at like how did that address some of the things that the comprehensive planning committee is is trying to study as far as going forward into the future. So I think it will eventually but probably um not this fall but potentially in the spring. Thank you others. Nothing. Jeeoff, I just want to thank you for stepping up or drawing the short straw, whichever you want to, however you want to call it. Um, but no,
158thank you so much. This is um it's a worthy undertaking and um it it you know, it's a lot of time and we really appreciate it and making sure that we are doing right by our taxpayers. So, thank you. Yeah, Scott, I just wanted to to mention this. We probably most people remember this, but I think it's important to recognize. I think um during the arduous year last year, uh we had lots of community comment and lots of uh interaction with the uh the public. And I want to recognize Jeff for bringing up the idea to do the mill levy. we were talking about doing it, but uh as a part of saving our schools and and uh you know, finding ways, creative ways to uh to keep schools open. So, I I really glad
159that you're on this committee. Thank you for all you're doing. Okay. Thank you so much. Really appreciate all the work that y'all are doing. Yeah. Thank you. [Applause] Okay, that means we are moving on to 11.0 action items. 11.1 monitoring and policy review EL 2.1 treatment of students, parents, guardians, and gener and general public. Can I get a motion? Go ahead, Jim. I move that the board determine that the superintendent has reasonably interpreted board of education policy EL2.1 in his internal monitoring report dated June 10th, 1925 and that the evidence presented supports the superintendent's conclusions stated in the internal monitoring report. Can I get a second? Thank you, Connor. And is there any discussion on this? Okay, seeing seeing none, Joe, can you call the vote? Jim Brogish. Hi Christian Draper. I Connor Duffy. Hi.
160Kevin Havda. Hi. Scott Shenbower. Hi. Jessica Zamora. I. Motion passes. 6. Thank you. We'll move on to monitoring policy review EL 2.2 treatment of staff. Can I get a motion? Jim, you want to go again? You bet. I move that the board determine that the superintendent has reasonably interpreted board of education policy EL2.2 in his internal monitoring report dated June 10th, 1925 and that the evidence presented supports the superintendent's conclusions stated in the internal monitoring report. Can I get a second? Thank you, Jess. And is there any discussion on this? All right, seeing none, can we call the vote? Jim Brokish. Hi. Kristen Draper. Hi. Connor Duffy. Hi. Kevin Havda. Hi. Scott Shoenbower. Hi. Jessica Zamora. I. Motion passes. 6. Thank you. Moving on to 11.3. Proposed budget for fiscal year 2025 2026. Can I
161get a motion? Come on now. We can't make Jim do them all. I can do it. Uh, yeah. I move that the board adopt the following resolution. Be it resolved that by the board of education of Pter School District R1 in Lamar County that the amounts shown in the schedule as presented be appropriated to each fund as specified in the adopted budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1st, 2025 and ending June 30th, 2026. Can I get a second? All right. Thank you, Connor. And any questions here? Go ahead. Go ahead. No questions, just a comment. Um, I think this should be a pretty simple vote because of the intense work that you and your entire department have put forward. Um, I never feel comfortable about anything up here. Um, I don't think that's due
162to you or anybody that's presenting, but I think I feel about as comfortable with this budget. Um, at least immersed in the understanding and the the process and the adjustments and the reconciliations as I as I ever have. So, I just want to credit you for all the hard work. And just because this is a quick item on our agenda does not in any way reduce the amount of effort and attention to detail and sophistication that was required to get to this point. So I just want to say thank you. Thank you very much. You're here. Oh, I was going for ditto. No, thank you. Thank you all. Um the work that you put into this um especially in it's crunch time. You know, you have to sit and wait and wait and wait and
163then you have to jump in and plug the numbers in and it's tough. So we thank you very much for doing this and for making it so easy for someone like me to be able to understand it. So really appreciate that. Yeah. So with that, can we call the vote? Jim Brogish. Hi. Kristen Draper. Hi. Connor Duffy. Hi. Kevin Havlla. I. Scott Shoenbower. Hi. Jessica Zamora. I. Motion passes 6. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Thank you team. [Applause] All right. And then um 11.4 approval of cumulative expenditures of $250,000 or more for fiscal year 2025 2026. Can I get a motion? Go ahead, Connor. I move that the board approve the estimated cumulative expenditures in excess of $250,000 for the 2025 2026 school year as presented in the agenda item and authorize the appropriate district
164staff to execute the agreements and any associated amendments to make the authorized expenditures. Okay. Can I get a second? Thank you, Jess. All right. And um I believe uh Kevin, you pulled the item. Uh yeah, I'm required to state the reason I pulled. Um it's due to uh I need to recuse myself from this vote due to a current conflict of interest concerning a current client representative matter. Excellent. Thank you. Any other discussion on this item? All right, Joel, can you call the vote? Jim Brokish. Hi. Kristen Draper. I. Connor Duffy. Hi. Scott Shoenbower. Hi, Jessica Zamora. I motion passes 5. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. And then our last is 12.0 executive session. Can I get a motion? I move that the board enter executive session to discuss a personnel matter
165specifically to provide the superintendent feedback on his job performance as authorized by CRS 24-6-424FI. Individuals invited to join the board in all or part of the executive session are Superintendent Brian Kingsley and board secretary Jill Burner. Can I get a second? Thank you, Kevin. Um, and Jill, can you call the vote? Jim Brokish, hi. Kristen Draper, hi. Connor Duffy, I. Kevin Havda, I. Scott Shenbower, I. Jessica Zamora, I. Motion passes 6. Thank you so much. So we will now convene in a closed session. This is the last agenda item before adjournment. At the conclusion of the executive session, we will adjourn the meeting and the adjournment will be recorded. Thank you all and have a great evening.