001all like the support she's put in the speech and my fourth grade teacher too, Miss Wickcom for all like the support she's put in and of course like my parents and everybody else who supported me. [Applause] Next, we'd like to congratulate the visual arts program. Within the program, we had multiple award-winning students and staff. I'd like to invite Allison Alter to the podium. [Applause] Good evening everybody. I'm Allison Alter, the visual arts curriculum facilitator and I'm here tonight to recognize Scholastic's art and writing award winners and their teachers. Will Chelsea Mer, Becca Black, Sydney Lambie from Fossil Ridge, Rebecca Park from Rocky, and Wade Faulner from Rocky please join us up on the by the podium. [Applause] The National Scholastics Art and Writing Awards was established in 1923. It's our nation's longestr running and most
002prestigious recognition program for visual arts students. The awards have a notable history with previous winners including Andy Warhol, Truman Capot, Sil Sylvia Pla, Steven King, Amanda Gorman, Ken Burns, and Robert Redford, just to name a few. It's pretty good company. The winners here with us tonight were recognized at the state level ceremony and had their artwork displayed at the Denver Art Museum and additional galleries throughout the month of March. The total number of award winners in PSD for 2025 are 10 awards at the state level for Pter High School, four from Rocky Mountain High School, six from Fossil Ridge High School, and that includes three students who won Gold Keys, which is the highest honor at the state level. So, congratulations to our winning artists, their teachers, and their families for their continued commitment and
003support for the visual arts. [Applause] Say it again. Congratulations. Great job all. Our final recognition of the night will be for Fossil Ridge High School. We would like to congratulate Sydney Ovesen for her two-time championship at the 3A state diving competition and Fossil Ridg's relay team for winning the Chessa 5A 200 free relay state championship. At this time, I'd like to invite David Walk to the podium. Can I ask the athletes to come to the stage, please? My name is uh Dave Walk and I'm the assistant principal athletic director at Fossil Ridge High School. It's my great honor and privilege to be here tonight to help the board board of education, the district administration, and the PSD community celebrate these fine athletes. Standing to my left are athletes that have a lot of state medals.
004We're going to recognize two tonight. First of all, Sydney Overson, who is a senior. It is very difficult to win a state title, and when someone does, it's a remarkable achievement. But to do it back-to-back years with your target on your back the second time isn't even incred more incredible and I'm very proud of what she's done. Next to her is Gracie Thornton. She's a junior. She's part of the state championship. They're all at the 5A classification state championship 200 free relay. Herself, Ella Gayil, uh Maddie Arnold and Paige Win. These athletes, Paige is a junior, Mattiey's a senior. L's a junior. These athletes not only exemplify athleticism, talent, work ethic, and uh character. They are tremendous students and getting the privilege to get to see them in in the light of day human. Paige
005was just at the boys uh swimming tonight taking pictures. Mattiey's constantly organizing things to make our school better. Sydney has grown from point A to point B and as an educator, it makes you incredibly proud. Gracie's always got a smile on her face and Ella is a ferocious competitor and people are scared of her and I love that. So, um, honestly, thank you. Thank you for the time to celebrate these student athletes and what they do and I'll turn it over to them to share some thoughts if they would like to. Um, I'm Sydney Overson. Um, I just want to thank everyone for all the hard like for supporting me through everything, especially my coaches who have been there, especially in the times I've been struggling. And they know I'm struggling and they pull me
006aside and they say, "Hey, what's going on?" And they get me through that. And they are the people who coached me into these incredible achievements over the last two years, winning my second state title, breaking the records at the school, becoming the Chassa Diver of the Year. I would never have imagined this possible without them. So, I would just like to thank them for everything that they've done for me. [Applause] Thank you so much. We'd like to thank the parents and the coaches as well. We're pleased with them for their time and commitment. PSD congratulates all of those who are honored here tonight. This concludes our recognitions and I want to invite everyone recognized and our board directors and superintendent to please join us for a group photo. I'm incredibly tall. Congratulations. Congratulations. There you
007go. smile. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] How old school? Nice to meet you. All right, we're going to continue our celebrations here in our action items. We're going to move on to 5.1, resolution in support of the week of the exceptional child. Could I get a motion, please? Go ahead, Connor. I move that the board approve the resolution in support of the week of the exceptional child, April 14th through 18th, 2025. Can I get a second, Kevin? Thank you. All right. And we have a special guest today. Yes, we do. Joining us this evening to speak about the week of the exceptional child is Dr. Jod Raml, director of integrated services. Welcome, Jody. Thank you. Good evening, President Draper, board director, Superintendent Kingsley, and the PSD community. My name is Dr. Jody Raml, and I'm
008the proud director of integrated services for PSD. This year, integrated services has been working diligently on improving student outcomes and communication with families. I'm grateful for this opportunity to be given the time and the platform to celebrate our students as we honor the week of the exceptional child. Previously, we acknowledged specific disabilities at board meetings, but in an effort to become more inclusive, we're shifting to honoring all exceptional students during this week and twice a year. I'm excited to introduce the staff that are our students champions. First up, we have uh Miss Trish Van Horson from Rocky Mountain High School. Trish is an experienced social worker in our effective needs program. She is respected and loved by all. She's joined by, well, really Ashley's entourage. She's a lot of people supporting her tonight. Her biggest
009fans, um, another social worker, Blake Mclofflin, and two effective needs teachers, Shannon Wakeake and Casey Tumbo. Come on up. [Applause] Thank you. Hi, thanks for having us. Um, I am here to introduce an exceptional student, Ashley Hulk, who's an 11th grader at Rocky Mountain High School, and she's going to share um a few words. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Ashley Hulk, and I'm a junior at Rocky Mountain High School. I'm here tonight not just as a student, but as someone with an invisible disability, something you can't always see when you look at me. Living with a disability like mine, whether it's depression, anxiety, social anxiety, or for some people, ADHD, a learning difference, or something else, can be confusing and exhausting. People may assume I'm lazy, distant, distracted, or just not
010trying hard enough. But the truth is students like me may be hurt working twice as hard to do what might seem easy to others. That's why I want to recognize and celebrate the Council for Exceptional Children. This is the reason I have support at school. Um, as well as the IDA act and it's the reason why students like me get accommodations that help me learn, grow, and feel like I belong. Without IDA and CEC, I don't know where I'd be. It's not always easy to speak up when you're struggling, especially when no one can see it. But these make sure students like me aren't overlooked. It gives us a voice and it gives us a chance to succeed. It's what led me to be in the positive youth development class at Rocky and I'm so
011glad this district lets us have this class. It helped me enter a new school with an amazing support system and continues to help me and students like me every single day. And this class is able to happen because of some amazing people such as Miss Wick, Miss Trumbo Trumbo, and our social workers Trish and Blake along with all of our paras. So, thank you for supporting this law and believing in inclusion and for making sure students with invisible disabilities have what they need to succeed. We may be hard to see, but we're here and we're capable of so much, especially when we're understood and seen. Thank you, Ashley. Next, I'd like to introduce Dr. Deb Contino, who will introduce her students from Irish Elementary. Deb is a veteran special education teacher and a mom of
012four adult children, one who was born with a genetic syndrome. She truly believes all students are capable. Come on [Applause] up. Ladies and gentlemen of the board, uh my name is Deb Contino and um I'm new to Irish. This is only my second year, but it didn't take me long to find out that Irish is in a magical place where amazing things happen for kids. When I think about celebrating the exceptional child, I think about high expectations for all. And we at Irish are a neighborhood school with the lofty goal of biiteracy for all students prek through six through fifth grade. I have the pleasure of working with students who are three years or more behind in their learning journey. We're all about inclusion at Iris. Just like our goal of getting all kids to
013be biiterate, we're also all about inclusion for students with learning challenges and disabilities. One of our latest efforts at Irish is our haguarees and axion program which seeks to bring out leadership in all kids regardless of language dominance, gender or special education or general education status. You'll hear a little bit about it from the girls in a second. So, you're really in for a treat tonight because our students will be sharing with you in English and in Spanish. And since they are, we thought we'd do it in an interview format. So, without any further ado, I'm going to turn it over to two amazing young ladies um Fernandanda Sanchez and Lizzie Schultz. And um so you can see for yourself this week where we're celebrating the exceptional child what is truly exceptionable exceptional about these
014girls and Irish. Take it away Lizzy and Fernanda. [Applause] What is your name and tell us a little bit of yourself. Hi, my name is Lucy. I'm 10 years old. I go to Irish Elementary. I've been going to Irish Elementary for 4 years. I love learning at Irish Elementary. It makes me so happy. [Music] What do you love about Irish? What I love about Irish is they help me learn so much. The teachers are so kind and they are so helpful. I love our school mirror which is on the screen. One other thing I love about Irish is I get to do the leadership group. It's called Jaguars in Action. Jaguars is a group for leaders and each month we have a new character trait. We write scripts and we video two people in English
015and two people in Spanish to ask them how they have shown the character trait in their life. Justin [Music] How does Irish help you in a areas? are real when you struggle. One way Irish helps me learn and sound out the words together. In my reading and math classes, we each when each student meets a goal, we celebrate them in a with a cheer. When we all meet a goal, we bring a treat. We cheer and celebrate together. [Music] is talk about how you feel about learning Spanish. I love to learn Spanish. It is hard, but I love to do it. I love Spanish English bridging time in class every day. That's when we practice writing words with the same or similar in Spanish and English. [Music] Do you have any questions for us in
016English or Spanish? They're inviting you. Do you have any questions that either in English or Spanish? I don't have any questions for you, but I do want to say thank you so much for sharing with us and for doing it in both English and Spanish. And I just love the um the way that you talk about um inclusion and leadership um when you talked about how you cheer each other and celebrate each other um in your Jaguar club. I think that's just fantastic. So, thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you so much. Thank you. Do others have anything they want to share? All right. And I So, I think with that we can um Jill, can we call the vote? Jim Brokish. Hi. Kristen Draper. I. Connor Duffy. Hi. Kevin Havda. I Carolyn
017Reed I Jessica Zamora I motion passes 6. [Applause] All right. And if we could uh wait to at the end of all the resolutions do a photo uh for that as well would be wonderful. Um so now we're going to go on to 5.2 resolution in support of ArabAmerican Heritage Month. Can I get a motion? Go ahead. Thank you Kevin. I move that the board approve the resolution in support of ArabAmerican Heritage Month, April 2025. Can I get a second, Jim? Thank you. Thank you. All right. [Music] Scott, is that you? Scott, are you on? Good. Nope. It's better. It's better. But we're still hearing an echo. But at least it's just one. screen. Yeah, it looks like it's coming off of the television. Oh, is it coming off the screen? Maybe on the on
018the actual monitor. So, sorry about this technology. When it works, it's great. And when it doesn't, I think you're having fun. I am having fun. Oh, do we have the echo now? Oh, we still do. Okay, Scott, can you hear us? Is he on? That sounds good. Yeah. Should we give that a try? Beautiful. Thank you. All right. So, just to recap, we had a resolution in support of ArabAmerican Heritage Month. It got a second. And so now we are on our celebrated guests. Yes. Uh this evening we look forward to hearing about ArabAmerican Heritage Month. And joining us to speak to the resolution is Delia Mahaney, our diversity, equity, and inclusion coordinator. Welcome, Delia. Thank you, Superintendent Kingsley, members of cabinet and board of education. I am honored to be here tonight to introduce
019one of our amazing principles from Bout Elementary. But I also wanted to say before we started, I think this is the third year that we've been celebrating this resolution in honor of Arab American Heritage Month. It wasn't one that we had been doing prior. And I think it speaks a lot to how it makes members of our community feel in PSD and how they can feel some belonging. So without further ado, I am honored to introduce to you Mr. Steven Bose, principal of Bouter Elementary. [Applause] Good evening. Thank you, Delia. Thank you, board, for having us here tonight. Um, as Delia said, I'm the principal at Bout Elementary. This is my fifth year there and I'm honored to be able to introduce this young man, Ysef Aruma, who is a fifth grader at Bouter and
020he has been there since kindergarten. So, he's been there longer than I have. And I know Ysef as a conscientious student, a a passionate soccer player and fan, and a caring big brother. I get to see him every morning when he gets off the bus, give his little sister a big hug before they head their separate ways to classes. Uh Yousef also has older siblings who also went through Bouter. So his family has been a part of the Bouter community for many, many years. And as such, I'm really excited that Ysef gets this opportunity to represent his family, the Arab-American community at Bouter, and Bouter overall tonight. So Yousef, you're you're up. Welcome. You got it. My name is Yousef and I've been living in America for 11 years now. As an ArabAmerican student at
021PSD, I have been feeling good and proud. This feels good because of all my great experiences at school and how I've not and how I've been making friends and being glad to talk about my religion. I still haven't visited my home country, Libya. BB is a great is a great country and has a lot of fun stuff like America like water parks, playgrounds, beaches, mountains, and more. I honor the past by fasting and keeping the tradition of fasting. Fasting started around 1500 BC and my family and I are still fasting to this day. At the end of fasting, we have a big celebration called Eid. Fasting shows our respects for our beliefs while also inspiring my future by sharing these values with my children. We fast to show our support to the homeless. The most
022important reason we fast is to achieve tawa which is devoutness to Allah. As told by the Quran, many Muslims often pray more in this month, including special night prayers called regarding my future. My grandfather's legacy with Libyan Airlines also represents a bridge between the past and the future. His work and influence in aviation were part of his contribution to my community. And now I am inspired to follow a similar a similar path by possibly being a pilot. But I might also want to be a doctor not only to help others but also make my mom proud and fulfill her dream. I am motivated by a desire to serve others just as my family has done. My family moved to the US in 2013 cuz my dad had to start his PhD at Colorado State University.
023At first, he was worried about the challenges my family might have to my family might face due to the differences in education systems between the US and Libya. However, with the help and support of PSD administration and staff, we are we were able to adjust to the new system. I'm proud of where we are now and I'm happy to share my experience as an ArabAmerican student. The board of education needs to know that the majority of Arabic speakers are Muslim and also not all Arabic speakers are have the same religion and culture. We still share many things but in a different way. Also, it makes me feel more like I belong to PS in PSD because you guys are recognizing us, recognizing ArabAmerican Heritage Month. This makes all PSD ArabAmerican students feel included. Thank you
024to my family, my school, and thank you to Miss Emani for helping me with this speech. [Applause] That was amazing, Yousef. Thank you. And I have to tell you, whether you choose to be a pilot or a doctor, you're going to be a good one. I can tell you that. So, does anybody go ahead, Kevin? Yousef, quick question. You're a soccer player, right? Yeah. A lot is writing on this answer. Who is your favorite team? Manchester City. He and I argue about this all the time. Forget it. I was gonna say nice things. No, I'm kidding. Same argument all the time. I'm a United fan. Have some mercy. Okay. Um, I did want to say uh also as a former fifth grade teacher, how proud I am of you. I know your family is proud.
025You make our community better and thank you for sharing what you shared. Not only how you delivered it, but the message that you had for us. I want to just say how proud I am to be a director in your school district and how proud I am of our school district that you are a part of it. Thank you. [Applause] Anyone else? Okay, Jill, can we call the vote? Jim Brokish. Hi. Kristen Draper. Hi. Connor Duffy. Hi. Kevin Havda. Hi. Carolyn Reed. Hi. Jessica Zamora I. Motion passes 6. [Applause] All right. To continue the celebration, we have a resolution in support of National Bilingual and Multilingual Learner Advocacy Month. Can I get a motion? Go ahead, Jess. I move that the board approve the resolution in support of National Bilingual Multilingual Lingual Learner Advocacy Month.
026Can I get a second? Carolyn. Excellent. All right. And we have a special guest. Yeah. Back with us again is Delia Mahaney to help us celebrate bilingual multilingual learner advocacy month. Um, welcome back, Delia. It's been a while. I don't I don't know if I can still be considered special at this point. Like I'm a fixture now. Come on up. Thank you again, Superintendent Kingsley, members of cabinet and board of education. I again this is another resolution that we just started. I believe last year was the first year that we had this resolution and I I want to add or reiterate very strongly that some will say these resolutions are performative. Some will say that it's just lip service. I want people to know that this means a lot to members of our community, to
027the students and families who take of their own time to be here. And when we include things, we really are living our values in Pter School District and students put so much thought and time no matter how old they are. We've had littles and we've had bigs. And one of one of the first things that we need to know and do is sometimes just what kids can see makes all the difference into whether or not they know that they belong in Pter School District. So I want to thank you on this second year of bilingual I always forget it's a long one. Bilingual multicultural learner advocacy month. and I am thrilled to introduce one of our amazing family liaison at Fossil Ridge High School, Yenia Sylveio Okmpo. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you everyone. Thank you
028board. Thank you u community for being here. It really is um an honor and a privilege to me to uh help all the families that speak Spanish, to welcome them in the community, to welcome them with uh within PSD to show them the way. Um it really truly has been a pleasure to me once they come to me and they need the guidance. So once for once I meet them um I make sure that I treat them like I would treat my family and they become my family and they become an extension to of the PSD family. And with that um the student that I'm about to introduce to you, she came to the states two less than two years ago and she came to Fossil Ridge High School as a junior and um I
029am so thankful for the family that trusted me to guide them to introduce them to counselors to teachers to handhold for a little bit so that to make sure that they she was comfortable the family was comfortable too ent trusting me on guiding the student. Um I know that the student left everything behind, everything that she knew and it was all new to her since she came. Not only that, she was able to adapt quickly to the culture but also to the new uh academic ways that we do. But um she's now taking AP classes. She has a great GPA, high grades. She's about to get her CEO of by literacy herself and just recently she um was accepted to go to CSU and of course um that came with the support of family too.
030Mom being involved. I love Celle. has always been a great support to uh her students to me. She is involved um in everything and I really truly appreciate that and I do appreciate also Mark for trusting me for supporting me to always giving me the guidance and the leadership I need to support our family as well. So it is really my privilege now to introduce to you Anna Paola Guna. Hello. Um, my name is Anna. Uh, I'm a senior at Fossil Ridge High School and I'm so grateful for the opportunity of being here and talk about my experience as a um, bilingual student during my almost two years that I've been here in Pur High School. Sorry, Pu District. Um, I moved from Montter, Colorado to Fort Collins in July of 2023. And the reason
031that I moved was that sorry uh the reason was that my dad got a better job opportunity. And I can honestly say that I'm really proud of everything that he has done so far. He has been a great support to our whole family along with my mom and the rest of my uh people that I know. Um I have to admit that we got a lot of discussions before coming to Fort Collins because I was so stubborn about not wanting to leave the country. Um, but I realized that I couldn't stay like that forever and I needed to look forward just like everyone else and not stuck in the same place all my life. Uh, a few months before starting school, I was really afraid because everything was so different from what I was used
032to in my hometown. And people had different opinions, traditions, and a completely different school system. And honestly, I was so afraid of that. and also the rejection from other students because well you don't know people about other countries so you don't know what they're thinking of your country. Um fortunately I was able to meet people from many different nationalities and the one that has the same as mine each with their own backgrounds which helped me understand that I'm not the only one with that feels that they're in completely new place after coming to the United States. English it's not my first language as you can tell. Um, and while I was here, uh, well, I got really problems communicating with other people because it was really hard. I had to translate most things in my
033mind and I could couldn't always find the right words while talking to others. This turns out being really uncomfortable for me and became a really big insecurity and I didn't want to talk in front of a lot of people. But I managed to speak fluently and without fear just like I'm trying right now. Um, I think it's important that people like me are recognized so that our voices can be heard and we feel like we belong in a new place. As Justina mentioned earlier, well, yeah, we have a culture club at our school that shares the same goal of helping people from different cultures, nationalities to express themselves without feeling excluded. I think this is an important resolution because just like me, there are many students in our school that may feel different from the
034rest and they have fear of speaking, fear of being themselves and fear of rejection. Resolutions like this let people know that they're valued and belong in PSSE. My opinion, the board of educations needs to support international students to help them achieve what they want to do in life. As an international student, you may not always know how things work or how to navigate different systems. I'm fortunate to have counselors and adviserss like who have helped me through the process of applying to universities and succeeding in high school. And I think that's one of the major reasons I get into CSU. Um, I hope that the board of education in PSD can do the same for other students in multiple schools across the district, providing help with financial aid applications, having opportunities to talk to others
035who have a similar experience, sending students to conference or anything else that may be helpful for students seeking for better opportunities in this country and working to pursue their dreams. Another way PSD can help students like me is to provide a lot of help with scholarships applications. The process can be frustrating because as a student and as a senior you put a lot of effort and time into applying for all scholarships and you might not get all of them and maybe you don't have all the resources left. Um it is even more tedious and difficult when you don't know the American education system well and you can tell my family that has been uh with this process with me that it's very difficult. But to conclude my speech, I would like to thank Ty and
036Justin for giving me the opportunity to speak today in front of all of you. And in the future, I would like to do the same from other students and keep attending to events like this. Much gracias, [Applause] Anna, that was amazing. Thank you. I just want to say a couple of things. One, you said you that you can tell it's your second English is your second language. No, you cannot. Absolutely. Beautiful. Um, and you have a fear of talking in front of crowds. May I present to you a very large crowd which you just completed a very beautiful speech. So way to overcome those fears, way to put yourself in an uncomfortable position and move yourself forward. And I just applaud you for wanting to do that again for other students. that shows that you
037know what you are thinking of is not just yourself. It's about others and about how you want to make sure that others feel like they belong the way that you do. And I just want to thank you for that because that is one impressive um thing for for a young person to be able to to just name, let alone do. So, thank you so much. [Applause] Go ahead, Jim. I also wanted to say thanks. I just wanted to thank you for taking me with you on your journey. I was deeply touched and I appreciate it. Thank you. [Applause] Others. All right. Joe, can you call the vote? Jim Brokish. Hi. Kristen Draper. I. Connor Duffy. I. Kevin Havda. I. Carolyn Reed. I. Jessica Zamora. I. Motion passes 6. All right. And can we do a
038quick picture with everybody? That would be wonderful. I'm a man too, but you have to admit in his lifetime. You want to smile. Congratulations everybody. Thank you. years. Yeah. It's very good. [Music] Good afternoon. All right, thank you everyone. That was just such a wonderful way to start the meeting. Really appreciate it. Um, we're going to go ahead and move on now to 6.0 Superintendent Report. So, Superintendent Kingsley will now make remarks to the board of education and to the community. Welcome. Thank you. Happy to be here. Good evening again, everybody. I think that's a really hard, difficult act to follow all of those young people and our staff members who just represent this school district so well. Uh I think we should continue learning from our students. Uh we have a quick win video
039uh that's going to illuminate an annual tradition in PSD that helps make this uh boardroom so beautiful with our student gallery. It's called the Super Art Recognition Program. It's hosted every year over two nights where we take 49 students from each of our respective traditional public schools and recognize what inspired them to create these beautiful masterpieces. I think as we've recognized state champions and award winners and just honoring humanity tonight, I think it's important to note that that doesn't start just in our high schools. It starts with investing in our prek and our kindergarten classes. And we're going to learn from some of those students here right now. Take a look. [Music] art is fun. [Music] I wrote Art is for everyone because every single student, regardless of age and ability, can come into my
040classroom and make something awesome. I wrote feeling because to me art is feeling and you can express your emotions within your art. I wrote art is a way to express yourself. It's a way to express things that people can't really express using words. Art can tell a story that you can't say with words and it's a beautiful thing. I wrote art is a story beneath every color. Whenever I draw something, I chose a story beneath every color I draw. Art is everything because you can draw anything with like different colors. Art is our main. [Music] I wrote community and outlet because I think art creates a really strong community and it's a place for you to like outlet your feelings and everything. [Music] I wrote, "Art is a space for students to express their creativity
041because I teach art and I'm always amazed at the things that they come up with and their imagination and how it comes out." When you're doing art, you can basically do anything. I think art is like incredible and I it it just can't be denied. Like I no one can I can't resist it. Like it's the center of all [Music] everything. We are so lucky to support 26,000 students from this community in our schools and every day, not just in our art classrooms. I want to thank Allison Alter who was here earlier, our visual arts curriculum facilitator who partnered with all of our art teachers and principles to make sure that this uh opportunity had to happen. But the reason I share that is not just to make known that this art that hangs on
042our wall and it changes every year is significant. But I think what we're noticing tonight, at least I I'll speak for myself, is that we have a lot to learn from our students if we just simply listen to them. learning how to express themselves, but doing so with dignity and respect, tolerating and honoring difference is really who we are as a community. We're not here to seek agreement. That's not what governance is about. But I think our students are showing us every day, not only are they champions in their own right and winning awards, but they're champions as human beings. Um, and I just continue to be inspired and learn from them. I have visited 10 of our schools. I won't name all of them over the last five to six days. Uh, and to
043see the magic that happens like I was at one in elementary, I got to name it. I was at Trout Elementary School yesterday and we were walking across the playground because it was recess and it was a beautiful day. And I can't tell you that four out of every five students just wanted 30 seconds with Principal Kendall. They just wanted a quick exchange to know to be seen, maybe a warm embrace, an acknowledgement, and she knew everyone by name, knew how they did in the class the day before and what was happening in their lives. and just watching that magic, not just it's that magic is not just at Trout, it's at every one of our public schools and I'm super excited to continue to represent what that looks like. And it's happening with our
044adults, too. Uh this is mental health awareness month and we will have a resolution in two weeks, not tonight. But I want to signal to you that I've learned recently as the superintendent that there has been some magical collaboration that's been happening across entities in our organization that are specifically designed to support behavioral health needs for our students and they're working in new and emerging ways. that is our health district, it is our school district and it is Summit Stone Health and they have just developed what I think is one of a kind in partnership with our IT team. uh a state-of-the-art referral system to make sure as we are referring students in need from one agency to another. That not only is there a warm handoff, but we have visibility into that data to
045see what in our community from a resource standpoint is working and where we need to use our limited financial and human resources in more creative ways to support what our students emerging needs are today and today and not think we knew what that was four or five years ago. So, I want to thank the leadership at the health district, the leadership at Summit Stone, our leadership in our student support services, our IT department. We are going to recognize all of those people and those divisions uh in person at our next board meeting. Uh but this isn't about just creating a technology solution. This is about agencies who sometimes could work in silos but are coming together to be creative and emerging with ways that we communicate with each other to wrap more and deeper services
046around our families, especially our youth and our youth in need. So, I'm just incredibly grateful and I look forward to bringing specific people with names and all that good stuff when we recognize mental health awareness month at our next meeting. Uh we have a great meeting designed for tonight. It's not just about celebration. It's also talking about how do we sustain this great work and it's continuing to be a challenge to do that with the financial resources that we have. Our finance team is well positioned as we're continuing to learn what's happening at the national and the fed, excuse me, the federal and the state and local levels around the development of our budget. We're going to present to you tonight that what we know to be true now. And again, I want to just
047name for the community and us as a governance team. Uh what you're learning tonight is dynamic and everflowing. Um, and so we're not going we're going to speak with confidence, but not all absolute certainty. As the landscape is changing, we're going to continue to take this approach both in this boardroom and across our community, engaging the community and educating them on how we're developing our budget to make sure we're continuing to position ourselves to provide robust services to our students and our families. So, I look forward to a great presentation and some great comments and questions from all of you. So, thank you for allowing me to address the community tonight. Thank you very much. All right. And now, welcome to the community comment section of this board meeting. The board desires to hear the
048viewpoints 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 district and appropriate for a K- through2 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 mean that we agree or disagree with what is said or with the description or interpretation of events 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 section session, let us model for our entire community how to
049listen and how to interact respectfully, even with those with whom we disagree, for we all have the students best interest at heart. So this opportunity for public comment is for members of the community who registered to speak by the designated deadline. Those people will be called on to make remarks in the order they signed up. Each speaker will be allowed three minutes to address the board. So first up we have Eric Sutherland. Welcome. Eric. Eric over here. Eric Sullan, citizen of Fort Collins. Uh, please hear my comments this evening in view of the recession that is imminent upon us right now. We have a cult running the country, an unhelpful cult, and that's bad enough, but what really gets bad is when that cult starts to break up, fracture, you never know what's going to
050happen. That's when people start serving up the Kool-Aid. Um, so please keep that in mind. Uh, the taxpayers, the state of Colorado, this school district are getting ripped off and abused. Sorry to reuse those words. They've been spoken way too often, but it is absolutely true, verifiable. We are getting the short end of the stick in terms of abuses of urban renewal authority that have affected the distribution of PSD mill levies for well over a decade now. 2015 state legislature passed a bill 1584. I was the instigator of that by creating enough turmoil and angst motivated several people to get go forward and actually two took two legislative sessions to get that accomplished. And one of the results of that bill was that urban renewal authorities were required to reconstitute their boards. Something that the
051town of Timoth has not done in violation of the law. Well over a decade decade ago, I came into this building and spoke with Mr. Mononttoya and explained in detail how there were multiple legal infirmities underlying the way that turret tiff head was being abused. All of which injurious to taxpayers and all the stakeholders of the community save for a few that were economically benefiting from the abuses. I bring those up because those are two points that last Wednesday's superintendent Mr. Mononttoya presented as a reason why my complaint should be disregarded that the school B district has no business being involved in this issue. Absolutely nonsense. It's very easy to conclude at this point in time as I have that Mr. Monttoya has been carrying water for those people who are abusing taxes in this
052in this school district. This is an easy fix. Very easy fix. There's a lot of legal uh muscle that could be flexed, but you don't even need to do that. All you have to do is exercise your legislative purview in a manner consistent with respect for the people who make this whole thing happen. You talk about supporting what's going on in the school. The taxpayers are what's supporting everything here. Your disrespect for that entity, the injury being being shown very evident at this point. Thank you. Next up, we have Lori Majio Hoover. Welcome. Good evening everyone. Superintendent Kingsley and the board and my fellow media colleagues and audience. My name is Lori Majio Huber and for those of you that don't know me, I am the K12 district media facilitator for the curriculum department. I'm
053also the media specialist in the sole staff at Estone North and South. Tonight, I'd like to share my story in PSD. And as today is National Library Worker Day, it seems an opportune time. I came to PSD after visiting Fort Collins and immediately decided that this was where I would work. In the following fall of 2016, I got the only media opening in the district. I have since been PSD proud as a media specialist at Estone Elementary and now Estone North and South. Being a media specialist, aka librarian, has been my entire career, 29 years at present, and a true labor of love. In PSD, I've innovated in one media center and literally designed and built the second one in 2003. In the process of building IO South with no hired staff, I also injured
054myself and endured surgeries and a year of physical therapy and recovery on my back. That is my story and that is part of the reason why I'm here. Last month, in the onslaught of budget cuts, I was told that both of my libraries would revert back to classified staffing and my jobs were cut. Ironic as this was the very reason that I was hired to replace staff nine years earlier. In light of these budget cuts, we have now lost six certified media specialists at the elementary level. Senior staff such as myself that have brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants and funding were dismissed. Is this what is best for our foundational readers? Media specialists create lifelong readers, align instruction to classroom objectives, and inspire through technology. They also educate and promote on
055media literacy, a district literacy priority, not to mention creating equity for all that we serve. I've had the pleasure of working with a talented, creative, and committed staff of media specialists, both classified and certified staff. They deserve better than being sumearily dismissed. It is the trio of neglect in our libraries now. Understaffed, underfunded, and underappreciated. I came to you today in hopes you will realize the implications of removing the staff that create readers that create coders and thinkers and understand the value of sanctuary. If we are true to our vision of literacy as a district priority, how can we neglect the libraries? How is this not considered an essential right? As a lifelong advocate for literacy, I find this untenable. Balancing the school budget on the backs of the school libraries to absorb deficits is
056not only a hurtful idea, it is rash and short-term thinking. It is ultimately not best for kids or the faculty that need the resources. I have heard so many times that the library is the heartbeat of the school. Well, we all know what happens when you abuse your heart. Let's try to create a happier ending and not one where heartbeats and happy readers are silenced. I can assure you that my students and staff in the district are worth it. Thank you. Thank you. Excuse me. Next up, we have Kane Young. Welcome. I'm Kane. I'm with Task Force Freedom. We're at Task Forcefreedomnood.com. Take your children out of the government schools. They are not safe. These people are grooming and brainwashing your children. If you cannot remove your child, you must speak out against this evil
057agenda. Last year, we had we notified PSD of inappropriate pornographic materials that are available to children in this school district. Their book review committee which was compo comprised of principles and vice principles concluded that these pornographic books had literary value. The book gender queer which is in Preston Middle School along with many other uh inappropriate books. This illustration from Gender Queer shows a naked man on his knees with a full erection while fondling a nude little boy's erect penis. Please explain to the public the literary value of this material and what and why it is appropriate to to divide to provide this filth to children. This is a violation of federal law. Section 1466A, Title 18 of United States Code. Look it up. You'll go to prison for this. You are all criminals. And one
058day you will answer to these crimes and the harm that you have caused to children. Same book. That is a child sucking a penis. A penis. A child. This is in Preston Middle School. Take your children out of these government schools. And parents, good people would never give your children pornography. I saw these beautiful kids today. I saw your passion, sir, Mr. Brockish Brockish. I saw your passion and your and your your heartfelt emotion for these children. How can you sit there and give children pornography? How can you have compassion for these beautiful kids that were here today? Have that compassion, but you deliver porn to kids. We're not saying to remove the pornography. State of Colorado says it can be here. We're just simply saying give the parent the right. The parent should have
059the right if they want their kids to see porn. Thank you. Next up we have Judy Papenfus. Welcome. Clearly, I do have MS for years, but I'm getting better and better. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Judy Papenfouse, a mom and a grandma. My daughter graduated from Pter High School in 2013. For years after she graduated, I had to undo the damage inflicted to her in public school from because of public school. She's a mom of three now, very, very liberal. and she has vowed that she will never put her children, my grandchildren, in a public school. Thank God. Parents are dealing with damage to their children in an unprecedented way. Now, is this possibly due to CRT and SEAL? I think it is. I think it's I don't know what's
060going Well, I do know what's going on. When I went to school, we had teachers, a principal, we had lunch workers, which helped me hide things in the milk box that I didn't want to eat. We had janitors, and we also had a nurse occasionally, and we had, of course, parents and students. From your sources of strength document, I looked at some of the job titles. There are teachers, the principal, the lunch workers. Thank God for them. But there's also school counselors, social workers, seal specialists, school psychologists, and intervention specialists. Oh, and we do have the children and parents. Why do we have all these people trying to help our children? And again, these kids that came up here are extraordinary. And I know people teach. I come from a family of teachers. I I
061have six sisters. Four of them were teachers. My sister was teacher of the year in PSD years ago. She told me, I asked her today, I said, "Did you guys used to have peace circles in the morning?" And she said, "We certainly did not." But she was teacher of the year years ago here in Pter School District. So why do we have all these people? From school data, I was looking it up today. The reading scores are at 59.3% of PSD students who are above or pre proficient at grade level and these rates fell 4.7% from last year. The math scores are 50.01% and that fell from fell down 5.455 from last year. But Pter is very proud that they ex exceed the state level of reading which is only 44.1%. What is going on
062in our public schools? If this was a a a grade, we would be all of us beyond failing. We'd be getting D's and Fs. Our children are not learning reading, writing, and arithmetic. Again, these extraordinary kids that were here, they're extraordinary and I am proud of them and I'm and I'm sure it's their parents and teachers who have gotten them. Thank you. You're going to have to wrap up your comments now. What is happening to our kids, we as taxpayers are paying for. We can do better than what we're doing. Please do something and listen to what we're saying. And the pornography in school is horrible. And by the way, Cherylyn Comr asked to speak. Thank you. We We asked for Cherylyn Comr asked to speak. She couldn't get on. I spoke with Jill who
063is extraordinary and and Thank you, Monica. Next up, we have Sabrina Heric. Welcome. She's here. Sabrina, go ahead. I've got a pretty short comment tonight. I hear you guys are helping the pea find district see schoolboard candidates that match your values. And Jessica, I also hear that you're telling people that once you take over as board president, you want to make some changes to how things are going. To me, this is a breath of fresh air. What I've been wanting all this time is reform. So, I have some good news for you. I filed with the Secretary of State and I'm officially running for District C. I'm a leftist reform candidate, so I think we'll get along great. My goals are to promote safety, transparency, help staff, help students, and promote compassionate and respectful interactions
064between the board and those who feel unheard under the current administration. Go check out my website. It's smhforps.org. Hit me up. Thank you. Next up, we have Anna Labetta. Welcome. Good evening. I am here tonight asking that PSD officially move their position on SB 25200, the dyslexia screening bill for GA grades K through three from monitoring to supporting. This bill would require districts to have a plan for official universal dyslexia screening for kindergarteners in the last 90 days of the school year and within the first 90 days for first through third grades. Our district already uses an interim assessment mandated by the readact that has a dyslexia screener and a dyslexia toolkit for teachers and parents. So, this wouldn't add additional programs to our teachers plate. This would simply require a district as well as
065other districts to be more transparent in a timely manner about the information that is already at your fingertips. The bill would also allow teachers to identify a significant reading deficiency, including identifying characteristics of dyslexia based on individual areas of struggle in each component of reading as opposed to one composite score on an an interim assessment. Utilizing composite scores alone has historically left many kids with struggles in a specific area of reading from getting much needed timely support with the help of Read Act funding. Teachers would also be allowed to use a body of evidence outside of assessments to support identifying kids with reading struggles. As you may recall, just a couple of months ago, the PSD dyslexia team explained a prolonged and complicated process for identifying dyslexia. But this does not need to be the
066case. and matter of fact, it should not be the case. When pressed on how they would communicate the data from the screening to parents, they were unable to tell you what they were going to do. This bill would provide a framework and clarify areas that still appear to be ambiguous in our own district. The one part of this bill that is causing confusion is the language in the bill that makes kindergarten readiness assessments optional as opposed to mandated. Early childhood departments rely on these so that they can measure the efficacy of their own programs, but they are underutilized, burden, burdensome, and antiquated in the kindergarten realm. They do not carry over from preschool to kindergarten. The language of this bill allows those who rely rely on them to continue them and to lighten the workload
067on the part of kindergarten teachers. However, if a district so chooses, they can continue to require them. This bill still requires kindergarten assessments by readact mandated interim assessments as they have been. It just allows for kindergarten teachers to use their time more efficiently. For the dyslexic learner and caregivers, timely knowledge is literally life-changing power. I do not say this lightly, but since my daughter entered kindergarten in 2018, the single most lifealtering factor for our family to date was not being told that our now sixth grader showed strong characteristics of dyslexia in kindergarten when these traits were blatantly spelled out in her dibble score from the very beginning. Um, please take a visible, proactive stance against another dyslexia screening bill dying in this state. Colorado is one of only seven states that has not adopted a
068universal dyslexia screening bill. Um, Colorado's kids can't afford to wait any longer. Please move to supporting. Thank you. And next up, we have Denny Lawrence. Welcome. Okay. The resolution about the week of the exceptional child baffles me, especially in light of April being autism awareness month. April 2nd was World Autism Day and not a single acknowledgement has come from PSD. National statistics indicate that we have at least 820 children on the spectrum in PSD. And I have to think that's a larger number than many of the minority populations you choose to honor with individual resolutions and certainly more than the number of transgender students you so loudly supported here at this meeting last week or two weeks ago. Now that all disabled students are being lumped together in a week in our district in combination
069with the dismantling of the Department of Education, the message being received by parents is pretty depressing. With half of all of the offices civil rights offices now closed, is this the time to be denying individuality while whittling down disability acknowledgement to a week? My son will be graduating from PSD in 411 days and our civil rights complaints against the district will remain unresolved. Even better, when PSD doesn't continue doesn't follow the current 504 currently violating his civil rights, I will have nowhere to complain. I'm sure a celebration for the school district, but continued injustice for us. So, if you're going to just give a single week to disabled students in your school district, I thought I would offer you a free a few concrete ways that you could actually help students. Number one, when monitoring
070reports are given and IEP performance ratings weren't present, why didn't any of you seek that data and you promised to do that at the listening session at Cruz Elementary and didn't? Number two, 504 parents in our district are excluded from the integrated services newsletter. They don't receive it and they've asked to receive it. Could you please just request an end to 504 parent exclu seclusion from the IS community in our district? Number three, the PSD integrated services Facebook page hasn't been used since December 2nd. The disability community is not getting important information. Please consider posting it to the main PSD Facebook page. That appears more reliable. Number four, could you please support SB200, the dyslexia screening bill? Don't just say that you support it, but actually ask your lobbyists to move your position from monitoring
071to support. PSD screwed up literacy and imple implementation in 2021. You all know it, and at least the least you could do at this point is to support the efforts of parents to try to fix it. And number five, the most important to me and my family, could you please seek input from the sensory disability community regarding your new cell phone earbud policy coming out next month? go to the CSU Disability Services Center and seek their guidance, please. Because it's abundantly clear that we are ignorant of the technology needs and implications to students like my son who use their phones to read, to have a library, to identify color, and to use auditory calculators. Sawyer would gladly sit with any one of you to demonstrate how his cell phone is used beyond Instagram as Snapchat
072if you were only willing to listen to him. And if in PSD we actually do value the exceptional child, please don't use this time of national vulnerability to further strip away the civil rights of students who are already struggling here to succeed. If it's truly every child every day, then sacrificing a few for the many defies your mission statement. Thank you. Thank you all for coming tonight and sharing. We will now move on to sorry board topics and committee reports. Uh this agenda item is an opportunity for board members to provide an update on committee work or speak to board topics. Do any board members have something they would like to report? Go ahead. Just very quickly um pertaining to the legislative committee um we've just heard some very good public comment on SP 200
073SP 25200. Um we followed up on this matter uh last Friday with our lobbyist. Um we not only followed up but we also gave instructions for u strong support. Um it is very good that bill did pass the house and the senate and to my understanding I think Annne Bark has told us that it passed without amendment. So it went through in its original form and it will be sitting on the governor's desk to become law. Well, we will but on that committee report, I'll make sure that we follow up on it on on Friday. Um, and if it needs to have testimony within the education committee, um, we will follow up on that as well. Other things? Go ahead, Kevin. Uh, two quick ones. Um, and if I'm going to offer a truncated version
074of our meeting with the uh, the city county PSD leazison meeting. So, if I miss anything you think would be helpful, I think superintendent Kingsley alluded to some of the health updates. I was encouraged. Um, so we have a committee for those that don't know um, comprised myself uh, President Draper and Superintendent uh, Kingsley among other members of the staff. Dave comes often. We meet with uh certain leaison from city council and from our county commissioners and their various staff as well to collaborate and talk about what are the things they're seeing on the county side, what are the things we're seeing on PSD side, what some of the things that council um it's a good idea for people to to sit and talk together about some of their ideas as they coalesce. Um and
075one of the things that we got an update on is um from our health friends at the county um who is going I think to be talking about um some vaccination ideas um with the with the school or potentially having sites um as we're encountering um some other things in our nation. So I don't want to speak out of turn but um I think it's it's helpful. We got an update on um some of the vaccination status of PSD which is very high um which is good but there was a reported case I think of measles in Denver. So it there's you know not not cause for alarm but it was interesting to hear from our county experts to hear what they're doing to monitor address um and how we could be helpful. Um we
076also talked about the 15minute city um that is uh in still in ideiation mode from uh city council. The thought being that we can in our community, we can access everything we would need within a 15-minute walk or bike ride of of one's home. Um the definition of need. Um we we had some really thoughtful discussion. Um we also talked about, you know, how we can celebrate our neighborhood schools and how we can um lean on some of the city's initiatives to try to further our neighborhood schools. Um along with our choose PSD campaign. Um I'm going to have long meeting. I'm trying to get down to two minutes. Um, the other thing I wanted to plug for is we have our last uh BOE uh engagement session with our community this not this Thursday,
077next Thursday, April 17th uh from 5:30 to 7. The two sites are Rice Elementary School and Bethkkey Elementary School. Um, I say final, I mean final of the semester. We will kick it off again in the uh in the new semester in the fall. Um, and just as a a plug for that, uh, it's it's an opportunity for our community to come and engage with directors, engage with staff, um, in a very agenda-free setting, very informal, um, more of a dialogue back and forth. And so I encourage people to show up, um, and keep showing up for our community. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, quickly quickly, one thing. Oh, yes, please. Sorry. Sorry. Yesterday we also um had the first meeting for uh the comprehensive planning committee. Um just very briefly uh attendance was very
078high, very good, everybody engaged. Um like to thank uh Dr. Tracy Guile for um taking leadership on that. Um it was refreshing to see everybody there engaged. Um as well as our employee associations were there and uh I look forward to the committee's work. Fantastic. Good to hear. Anyone else? All right. Thank you. All right. We will now move on to the consent agenda. Would any board members like to pull an item from consent? Okay. Seeing none, can I get a motion? Go ahead, J. Y. I move the board approve and adopt the recommended actions for the items on the consent agenda. Can I get a second? Thank you, Carolyn. And Jill, can you call the vote? Jim Brokish. Hi. Kristen Draper. I Connor Duffy I Kevin Havda I Carolyn Reed I Jessica Zamora I
079motion passes 6. All right fantastic. We will move on now toformational reports and discussion items and we have a budget update. We sure do. Joining us this evening to provide the budget update are Chief Finance Officer Dave Mononttoya, budget director Brian Gustoson and Executive Director of Finance Cara Balamenti. Welcome to all of you. Did I do did I get that right? All right. Excellent. Good evening and thank you for the introduction. Um, I am joined with uh both Brian Gustin and Cara Battlee. They're going to walk us through the majority of our presentation. I think I have one or two slides in there that I I'll jump in and help out with, but uh want to turn it over to Brian first. He's going to walk us through the first part. Good evening all. Good
080to see you again. I know it's been a number of months and um we talked a lot of budget kind of preload back in the fall and so I'm going to try and avoid a lot of uh kind of duplication of some of those things. But if if that's a little fuzzy, please ask questions on acronyms and and processes and those kinds of things that we'll be addressing here tonight. And it is it is certainly right in the midst of budget season for schools for the state of Colorado. And what we're hoping to accomplish tonight is provide you all with some updates on our I don't know what that is. Okay. updates on status of the school finance formula and school finance funding here in the state as well as a preliminary and and as
081uh Superintendent Kingsley mentioned early earlier a very preliminary look at fiscal impacts here at PSD uh with the the school finance formula and um funding and want to also kind of expand um our presentation this evening to take a look at some of our other funds and just kind of a refresher on not just the general fund which we focus very heavily on that's that's the bulk of what we work with but also check in on some of the other funds what do they do and how are they interconnected with the general fund. So those are the the hopeful takeaways from this evening and please as we go ask questions along along that path. Okay. So, just uh as as far as getting into our budget priorities, these are the same that we've talked about
082pre previously. We want to always make sure we're tied back to the strategic strategic plan. Okay? Focusing the budget on literacy, addressing mental health and belonging needs, and graduating with options. Additional priorities that we've addressed and continue to address with the budget are evaluating enrollment trends, safety, and competitive compensation and benefits. On top of all those things, hey, we want to make sure that we're ensuring high-quality educational options for PSD students and families with our budget and how it supports the school district. And uh continue to foster stewardship of taxpayer dollars and community assets like our facilities, equipment, as well as our funds. And lastly, uh the budget should focus on maintaining and improving learning environments to facilitate quality instruction. So, as we're putting this together for next fiscal year, the 2526 fiscal year, these
083are the things that we have to always have in mind as we're building and um assembling the budget. So, what's going on right now in in budget land? And I see that uh you all are copied on um the lobbyist emails, the updates on the legislative session and and um which is great. We're I think we're as up to speed as we could be in a lot of regards there. The school finance act is part of what gets assembled as the long bill, the budget that gets developed for the for the state of Colorado to get a proposal into the school finance act that the typical cadence is the governor submits a proposal back in November and then adjusts that proposal in January. And that's what has happened this year as well. But also this
084year, the speaker of the house of representatives started to develop and work with some folks on a proposal. And that that proposal and you you'll see some real high level comparisons uh ended up being what the joint budget committee, the JBC has essentially dropped and submitted as the school finance budget proposal. Well, the the entire budget proposal including the school finance act um for fiscal year 26. We'll talk a little bit about what are the formula updates. Remember, we have two school finance formulas getting ready to run simultaneously. The current formula from 1994 and then a new formula initiating next year to run and ramp up as the U is well over up to a seven-year period now. So, we'll talk about that school finance act. If we say SFA, we're referring to the school
085finance act. and a a brief look at what are those two proposals that have that have driven really where we think that school finance act will go. The governor uh initially proposed um a pretty broad um look at things back in November, but that dialed that in in January to u increase school funding utilizing the new school finance act with $150 million. If you remember back in the fall, we talked about the cost of the implementation of that first year of the school finance act, the new one was about $190 million. So this number coming in significantly less, but addressing an overall picture of the budget in Colorado, um, when we hear about things like a $1.2 2 billion dollar shortfall in the overall budget. This is this is at least one angle of of
086attacking that. To get um that new school finance rolling, the governor proposed 18% of that um implementation funding to occur in fiscal year 26 with a six-year buildup and eliminate that averaging. And remember, averaging is how declining enrollment districts count pupils. right now at five years. So current year plus the previous four are averaged together those pupil counts to create a fiveyear funded pupil count average. That proposal was set to eliminate that and get just down to the one year the October count number as the the number that funds schools. Hey, in March, Marchish, April, then we started to see modifications to programs and ideas come out and the speaker of the house, as I mentioned, uh submitted a proposal that that uh you all were able to see in different iterations that it as
087it started to kind of get worked out that really turned out to be the joint budget committee proposal that we now see u being worked through the legislative process. Hey, that also looks at about $150 million increase for program funding in the finance act. That's not all funding. That's the formula. That's the pupils times the the dollars per pupil, but about an $150 million increase with a tiered implementation strategy. I believe right now where it's where it's looking like it'll end up is about a 15% implementation in years 1 through six and a seven-year overall phase in with a that 10% kind of end of the end of the implementation there. The averaging uh question was one that was certainly very um in front of our faces, right? very high alert situation for a declining
088enrollment district like us. Uh looking at eliminating averaging or how does averaging move forward in this um school finance act that's been proposed. There's a tiered sort of step down of the averaging. A next year would be a four-year averaging um calculation followed by a three-year averaging with certain qualifications met and so on and so forth. the phase averaging down to that single year count. But instead of going from five just down to the single count date, then we would go into more of a tiered step down plan. Additionally, and we've talked about this before in the concurrent implementation of these school finance acts or formulas, a a hold harmless provision is something we see in this this uh school finance formula. Hey, no no no no district will be uh permitted to drop below
089fiscal year 25 funding levels in this. So most of the districts and if you read some of the news, most of the districts really won't have to worry about that. Most will see increases in funding and some tremendous increases. others may have to um really have that as as something that they they fall back on that might fall below fiscal year 25 funding levels due to declining enrollment. Okay, we're one of those districts where it's it could be close. We'll I'll just say that right now. We'll show you some numbers that may or may not pan out. But the hold harmless um the hold harmless idea is something we also use in our SBB uh but is something that uh certainly is is going to help phase in the new school finance formula. So that
090joint budget committee uh proposal now has has started to to move and I believe um it passed through the House of Representatives yesterday, the House Education uh Committee with a uni unanimous vote and some amendments um and and now it's on to appropriations. But the indications are that well once the the long bill the whole kitten kaboodleoodle of the budget gets sort of calculated figured out then that appropriation would be identified for the school finance act. But all indications are that we've been waiting we've been waiting. We've been waiting but now we've got something that's really starting to roll and and now we start to try and figure out how's that impact us here. So, as we look at um Colorado, other impacts on the budget, hey, one, uh we'll we'll hear a little bit
091more about federal funding, too. But we're constantly right now seeking more information on federal funding and how that's going to impact our budget, as well as listening, have our ears open. Uh we have significant federal sources in the district. um most of which are throughout different funds than the general fund. Really in our general fund, Medicaid funding, which is really a reimbursement. Uh so it's it's a federal program, but it's really a reimbursement of dollars. Those dollars come into the general fund. Uh but we have other federal funds throughout the grants sort the the grants fund, the child nutrition fund like um idea funding, title funding, head start and early uh early childhood as well as child nutrition dollars, okay, that that work through our food service fund. So as I mentioned, we're monitoring those.
092We're trying to gather as much information as we can to figure out what those funds will look like, but al also how funding there might imple uh impact our general fund. On top of that, uh something that's that's uh really important for us to monitor is the Colorado Healthy School Meals for All program. a not a federal program, a state program that was um approved by voters in Prop FF back in 2022 to provide as it states healthy school meals for all. Well, that program has become extremely pos uh popular and I know we've talked about that in here before and so popular that now it's it's become pretty expensive and it's and it's um needing more funding to maintain and sustain. So, what the uh the budget proposal as it stands sets aside for
093this program, I think is $8 million if if I remember reading that right. And that would get this program through about December of 2025. And what we're likely to see then is um a couple of ballot measures that show up in the fall from House Bill 251274 to retain and expand this program. Can I just for a second quick clarifying question I think I'm I understand but when you say 8 million you're referring to the state budget or to how that affects PSD. Thank you. Thank you. State budget. State budget. Yes. Yeah. And will be of course impacted in in how we provide meals and and you know quick side note as we look at our our food service fund. We're tracking pretty well our our expenses and revenues and and it's always a little
094bit of a lag but as as we've been monitoring that things are looking pretty good right now. um get through this first year. We're we're anxious to see, of course, how the fourth quarter looks and how our our meal utilization looks. But Sure. Oh, that's great. So, um we'll be monitoring that uh those efforts to retain and expand that program and how that will impact us. Our I don't want to steal Cara's thunder. She's going to talk about different funds, but our food service fund lives on its own, right? and and ideally doesn't utilize dollars from the general fund. Okay. But um different changes occur in in whether it's costs or programming and uh general funds at some districts and then sometimes have to support things like the school food service fund. So where are
095we in our process uh as we're trying to gather information still? Um, we have a we we know a lot of things and then we don't know a lot of the details on a lot of things. So, we're in our preliminary budget development phase where we're working on our preliminary budget, that's what we'll call it, that we'll deliver to you in two weeks that really illustrates the gap between what we believe our revenue will be and our current year expenditures. It's our starting point each year where we say, "Okay, if we were to just hold everything the same expenditure- wise, how much different would the new revenue picture look?" So, that's what we'll illustrate to you in a in a couple weeks. And I I believe that here in the next gosh, I'm hopeful in
096the next week or so, we'll have better and better numbers as each day goes by to plug into this preliminary budget and illustrate what revenue versus expenditure gaps may or may not exist. We have um gone quite a ways down the road though of of building the budget. In fact, a significant portion of our budget on the expenditure side is already deployed in our studentbased budgeting. And that process is the process to allocate the dollars to schools. A and this really occurs early in the school year relative to the other budget developments really for the sake of staffing uh honoring the staff that are here any changes that may need to occur and providing opportunities for the district to seek uh and and utilize staff in the most efficient um mechanism possible at the schools.
097So, we go through that process uh starting really in January where we get enrollment projections and then we start to build a formula and allocate dollars to each school based on those projections and a base dollar amount per kids. And I know we went through that a little bit last fall, but really that process mirrors the uh public school finance sort of allocation here in Colorado. we get into February, we deploy those dollars, the uh buildings then take their allocation, they build their staffing plans, they determine what their um you know what are their needs look like in the classroom, outside of the classroom, operational expenditures, and they build these plans and then go through a really a sort of an approval process, a verification and approval process, each one of them to to go
098through what's the plan look like for next last year. So, we've been through that process that wrapped up mid-March. And if you take a step back and and look, uh you can see really the impacts of declining enrollment in that allocation of dollars to our schools. If we were to compare next year's allocation uh on and and put this year's number of students to next year's dollars, we're really rolling out just under $5 million less to schools next year based on our our formula, excuse me, our formula and our um population. Now, that 4.8 8 million you see here in the middle of the slide. Some of that is assisted by infusion of some dollars from our debtfree mill levy. Okay, that's coming online. So we we'll talk a little bit more about that as
099well. But we've got a combination of support of small school dollars from the debtree mill but also a reduction of dollars that have gone out to the schools. On the other um angle of things, looking at budgeting, our departments are working through their budget processes too as we get closer to the u end of the the fiscal year. And it's um of note that our academic department really took on a huge focus of of um doing some alignment, some evaluation, some looking into how how they do things uh going into next year and have identified reductions of about $1.7 million of changes throughout academic departments. Academic being like professional development, curriculum, uh assessment, research, those kinds of areas. Hey, those reductions um really based on sort of a um a correlated look at the population
100decline really about a 2% population decline expected in student population. But those those uh reductions will impact personnel as well as operating expenses. On more of an operations, facilities, maintenance type angle, those budgets are being evaluated as well. We saw a lot of changes in those coming into this year. Uh now what uh the CFO COO could probably answer questions about is is really some some very strategic alignment and um refinement of a lot of those budgets and developing some efficiencies and uh those crews are working through a lot of their budget adjustments with really the understanding there's not going to be more resources available. So that process is an ongoing one and the process of integrating the use of what we call fund M which are the debtree mill levby dollars into the picture.
101Remember that debtree mill has to live in its own fund. But we do have some interconnectedness that we're going to talk about here in a little bit of how it impacts the general fund and especially on the more of the operational side of things. Okay. So, let's I I'll get to where I show you a few numbers. Uh but I want to make sure that we have some of the the lingo down or at least fresh when we're talking about pupil counts because this can get really confusing. Uh you'll hear things like where we're going to lose, you know, a district might say we're going to lose a thousand students. Well, what does that mean? Is that funded students? Is that headcount students? Okay. And that's not our number, but just just as an example,
102but it's important to try and understand, well, what what does that mean when we're talking about those things? So, if you hear us talk about membership or count, hey, that typically refers to like headcount, number of students, actual student bodies. So, if an elementary school has a membership of 400, that's 400 individuals typically that go there. Now, there's some mixing as you start to talk about online students and extended um students like uh the ascent program and and these things, but typically membership or count means I I like to think of it as headcount enrollment. Then there's this idea of full-time equivalent. And this gets confusing in schools because you've got FTE staff, you've got FTE kids, and all these acronyms for two different things in schools. But when we're talking pupils, FTE, that full-time
103equivalent student is a uh a measurement of really let's boil it down to how much a student would attend in district. And maybe they're a half-time student, maybe they're not. Most of them are full-time students, but when we talk about FTE, this is typically the number of students that are enrolled in our schools on October 1st. And it's not averaged. It's it's there might be some half FTEES, there might be FOSs, but it's the number of kids on October 1. Then when we talk funded pupil count, that changes. The funded pupil count takes FTEES from different years and starts to average them together for us because we're a declining enrollment district and comes up with a calculation that looks like FTE. It's going to have a decimal point probably at the end, but it's going
104to have students in our funding mechanism that aren't necessarily still in school. And I'm going to show you an example and it's going to be a little bit confusing to look at, but just to show you an example. So funded pupil count is that's what we get paid for and it's going to be different than the FTE that's in the schools on October 1st which is different than the number of kids in the district the membership which is also in the formula. What's it's challenging what's also really challenging is there's no really good formulaic approach to determining if the membership is X then the FTE will be Y. um it it just varies. Membership will also include charter students, charter school institute students. So it it gets to be pretty broad. All right. So if
105we start to think in those terms, uh we look at some preliminary assumptions for um the the key drivers of our finance formula. That per pupil rate, the PPR, if you recall, that's the dollars per pupil that we're funded at. As of this morning, and it changed a little bit this afternoon, and we're expecting potential other changes. As of this morning, what we were looking at was an addition of $46.26 cents per funded pupil. Hey, for next year, fiscal year 26. Hey, also our um our projections, our internal PSD projections, the data team works really hard on these things on an annual basis to take a look at um cohort survival and and birth rates and things throughout the county to determine what does our our full-time equivalent number look like for next year. Hey,
106so that think October 1st. If we look at our enrollment projections for next October 1st, we are expected to see 514 fewer FTE now. And that's I I feel pretty confident just looking at at those those numbers that that's we're going to assume that those are funded pupils because we just don't really have a measure to to determine if some of them are half or full. There are going to be some half half um FTEES in there due to some online enrollments, but really we're approaching our our model that these 514 our FTEES reduced in next year's October. Question. Just real quick, can for members of the community that are tuning in, can you explain what would prompt a half FTE because children and young adults are bringing their whole selves into the building. If
107you can educate the community, it'd be great. Yes. Well, and I might need some support on this, too, but kindergarten was always a really a really good example of you've got full day kindergarteners and half day kindergarters. And I mean, every one of those little guys is a full guy running around, but um but funded differently depending on how much time they spend at school. So, I think that's probably the easiest example of uh way to look at it. I'm assuming some examples might also include PGA where we have some students that are in our options program that are technically homeschooled but benefiting from PSD curricula. So I think we receive a half FTE for some of those students. Is that would that be fair? Correct. Correct. And a slightly different rate as well which
108it complicates things even more. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. All right. So, as we're looking at 514, we're estimating that to be 514 fewer FTE next October. When you plug that into a formula with our existing um our history, our pre-existing FTE counts, what we expect to see for funded pupil count in fiscal year 26 are 291.9er funded pupils. So this starts to illustrate the impact of averaging down 500 kids but really funded for only 291.9 fewer and that number as I mentioned earlier that averaging mechanism is going to change over the next few years. So, here's a a little bit of a look, and this is a lot, so I'll I'll try and guide this a little bit, but we're just going to focus in a couple areas. Primarily, what we do is we
109analyze five fiscal years worth of activity, and that's what you see on this chart on the screen. You have five fiscal years uh including the projected year for next year at the bottom of the the main chart there. And we look at that FTE count. This is the second column of what do we think the population would be on October 1st or what was it the previous four years on October 1st. on top of that are added some of those students uh that you were talking about those homeschool students or online students or the ascent and T-Rep students the the um career and innovation side of things those expanded um programming students those get added in on top of things when you start to to add everything together and you take now four of those
110FTEES and average them together, then it starts to really blur things. Hey, but that's where this idea of averaging comes up. So, if you take a look in the middle of that screen, there's a dark a dark column there, right? And it's highlighted with white text where you can see the number of funded pupils year-over-year that have been funded at PSD that were averaged students or as I think the the governor has called them at times, ghost students. Okay. not really in the schools, right? So, for instance, back in fiscal year 22, 424.8 students generated funding for the school district but weren't in schools because of the averaging mechanism. This year in fiscal year 25, 317 a funded pupils not in the schools, but because of the averaging mechanism, we're providing funding here. So, it's
111this this sort of uh step down mechanism of of the formula to help or at least mitigate some of the the difficulty of losing enrollment from year to year. The projection right now is that in fiscal year 26 next year uh the district would benefit from 595.4 of these average pupils. And this is in the four-year calculation. And gosh, why does it jump from 317 to 595? There are a lot of variables. One is going from five years to four years. Others are increases in charter school counts versus declining enrollments in the non-charter schools. So as we look at at the the calculation there, that's what we expect to see right now. Um direct your attention to the charter column fiscal year 25. We know that that uh funded pupil count was 2,843 and a
112half charter students of our in district charter schools, those five schools. And a a very preliminary projection is that we see that going up a couple percent. Honestly, I think when we come back in a couple weeks, this number will be higher. just that we're just now starting to receive our uh proposed budgets from our charter partners and those numbers are looking a little bit higher than than probably that 2%. Okay, it's a lot at the very bottom in the gold the gold bar at the bottom really when it comes down to what what we work with in the finance department revenue in um we're thinking about that funded pupil count. a four-year average number of 28,125.9 students plus other other funded students of that 488 figure for a total funded pupil count of 28,613.9.
113That's where right now we're basing our preliminary budget. This probably a good place to stop for a couple questions on on counts if you have them. Okay, Scott, did you have a question? Let me see. I'm not seeing anything from Scott. All right, go ahead and continue. Yeah, plug on. So, when we boil that down into putting it into the formula, dollars times number of students Uh we've got a comparison here and and we've seen this in various iterations this chart um comparing fiscal year 24 to 25 and then 25 to the proposed uh numbers in 2526 which at the right side of the chart uh in fiscal year 25 26 this does include district charters that uh expected funded pupil count of 28,613.9 would be about 235.2 I think students fewer. What we're seeing
114right now is a per pupil rate that's up about 3.8% uh from last year's rate to get to 11,184.5 dollars per pupil. That is driven primarily by the rate of inflation. But there are other drivers in the formula at risk funding and um some other the the factors that we've talked about cost of living factors um the local factor those things. So when you simply just do the the multiplication of the number of kids times that per pupil rate you get a total program of $320 million and change. That's about $9 million higher than the current year's rate. This is just total program. This isn't the whole budget. So what I that total program line we're just simply saying current year compared to the next year and then down below that the change would be
115just over $9 million. Then if I back out the charter schools because we receive the revenue and flow it through that's about $1.8 million. That leaves us about a $7.3 million increase in program fund. There are a lot of assumptions there. One of the assumptions that the um the projections of pupils are close or accurate. Okay. Another assumption is that our charter school institute funding which is on top of all this doesn't impact us in some way which it has been in the last couple years that maybe could could change things. Okay, just a quick side note. I don't want to get too deep into the charter school institute weeds, but charter school institute schools are charters in the district that are not authorized by the district. They're authorized by the CSI, Charter School Institute,
116but they receive funding off the top out of our total district's program funding amount based on enrollments. And they're u the those that are working with the formula at the state level have been wrestling with that particular portion of it has been been challenging, especially with going to a nine-month pay cycle. So, uh kudos to Dave. he caught actually something in their formula that was inaccurate earlier this or later last late last week. Um so they're still working on our our number and how those schools may or may not impact us. So that's back to the very beginning where we might see some changes. This could be $7.3 million. It could be hold harmless. We're just in that that mode of we got to be a little bit agile right now. I see a question.
117No. Okay. All right, I see it formulating. Okay, so in this example plus 7.3, I we've been going through various examples of if there was no averaging, we would be losing funds for sure. U you know, and there's been tremendous advocacy and and folks pushing to to make sure that um you know, that that mechanism was not introduced in the school finance act. So, we're grateful for that. Um so hopefully uh everything comes together for us here. We should be learning more day by day. Okay. So we'll transition a little bit from an the general fund impacts to now. Hey, how does the whole debtfree mill levy sort of impact the general fund and and where does it fit in the process? Thanks Brian. Appreciate that. Um, and yeah, I want to just echo what
118Brian said too. Um, these numbers are in flux right now and for and reflecting on how long you've been on the board. This has happened in the past um where a lot of information is changing spec specifically at this time. Um, so it's not necessarily unexpected. It just doesn't happen every year. Um, so so it's it's that's where we're at. I appreciate that we've been able to put the numbers together the best we can and and Brian uh Brian and I have both been combing through the formulas trying to find anything that we can help them uh with some errors. I like we did find a small error that they they fixed the other day. So so that was helpful. Um moving into the general fund and the debt and the debtree male levy. Um
119we've all seen this chart quite a bit. Um and I've talked about this chart quite a bit but there this does have a big impact on what we're doing with with our budget this year. So I wanted to walk through it briefly once again just so that we can kind of norm on this. Um on the right hand side of this graphic is our debtree mill. You see that at $49 million. And what this debtree milvy is going to do is it's going to take on some existing operating and staffing and those are kind of that salmon and whatever pink color uh that with the arrow moving over. So, we're taking our existing operating and existing staff that we have that meet this category to to be in operations and maintenance and we're moving them
120over to the debt free levy. Um, that is about $21.5 million relief on general fund. Um, when we move those expenditures from general fund into the debtree mill, again, that frees up $21.5 million. And this is really where this is helping impact the general fund budget is these these freed up dollars are able to u be targeted in different ways and and we've talked a lot about this. I'll go through it quickly. Um the first one is $4 million for small school uh support and programming. Um 15 million of the 21 a.5 million was dedicated to competitive wages. Um that would be distributed on program a share to all of our employee groups u based on based on the population of their total compensation. Um, and then we would have a $2.5 million um, uh,
121budget to help with replacement cycles. Think of curriculum, instruments, athletic supplies, those kind of things. Um, so without the debtree mill levy, we would not be able to move the $21.5 million over to the debtree mill levy and we would not be able to free up general fund dollars to do these things. So, so the debtfree male levy is really helping in those three those three uh blue boxes at the bottom and without it we would not have that to apply to the general fund this year. Um kind of rounding out the debtree male levy on the other side. Um so we're taking existing operating existing staff and moving it over but we're also doing more. Um and so that's just 21 a.5 million of it. 22.9 million of the override is actually going to
122maintaining and updating our outdated electrical, plumbing, HVAC, blast fleet, um software, hardware, sound systems, uh digital scoreboards just to name a few. Um the last part of the digital or the debtree mill levy will um be part of the program share that goes to our district charters currently. That's about 95 that's not not about but it's 95% of our their program a share. They would get that and that's currently 4.6. I I I know we'll probably need to adjust that a little bit as the counts change. Um and that's true as we move forward in time. So this is just a grounding in how the debt free mill levy is helping general fund. Um we've talked about it a lot. Um we've looked at this chart a lot but it's uh I think it does
123help us understand how things are moving between the funds. Um and then I wanted to hit uh a little bit more on the small school support. Uh I know we came in uh I believe it was in February we came and uh had an update to the board around how we were thinking about small school support. At that point we didn't have necessarily numbers behind it. We had some approximations of where we thought these numbers were going to line land but we we do have those numbers now. So the first part is um as you remember there's basically a three a three- tiered approach um to the uh to the uh the additional supports and then there's some stabilization that's happening. So the first one is um for the debtree male levy uh we we
124have this idea of an SBB floor and that's really um you know schools that are that are above 300 thinking of like an elementary school and and so the idea is is that as small schools get smaller and smaller their budgets are reducing and we just we just saw that in the slide but what this does is it creates a bottom or floor so that as you get smaller and smaller you get to a point where you stop and you don't keep losing losing staff. And so right now um currently in the SBB model and the the way the counts uh paid played out that was about a half million dollars that went toward the SBB floor. Um the next level was schools below 200 and and that's really what we were talking about those
125zerobased schools. So as schools move below 200 the floor funding doesn't necessarily help as much. And so what needs to happen at that point is we're basically zerobasing those schools and we're working with the schools to determine what do they need to make a minimum program working in there. And sorry quick clarifying question when you say below 200. Yeah. What type of count are we talking? Are we talking So we would be talking FTE count. Yeah. Yeah. And in this in this because in SB we fund based on FTE. So Yeah. And so uh so about half million dollars is for the uh for the schools that are falling into that zerobased point where the floor doesn't doesn't work anymore. The other big piece that we talked about in February was that there's going to
126be some relief um to things schools were spending their budgets on. And one of those big expenditures was a most schools were are provided a halftime AP and then the school is probably more often than not using their school budget to hire the other half of the AP of which takes away from how that budget could be deployed in other ways within the school. So this this part of the funding is what we're doing is we're basically covering that additional for certain number of schools. It's not all schools, it's our smaller schools, but we are covering a portion of that um a larger portion of that AP or the assistant principal for them. Um and so what that does is it basically frees up money in their budget where they can target that more to
127interventions or other things that they that they need to do. So it was a relief to their budgets just applied in a different way. The last piece is kind of the um the last piece of the the small school support is the idea of the stabilization. So what what's happening and we talked a lot about this last year and even some this year as as schools are getting as schools are getting smaller and smaller our size adjustment is going up. It's increasing because we're providing more to size because the schools are getting smaller. What this represents is the growth in the size from when we were working on that um with our adopted budget l in the current year versus where we see that size factor landing next year. So you're seeing an increase in
128the size factor. I think we have a question here. Yeah. Great. Go ahead. Who had a question? Oh, Scott. Sorry. I'm not I'm not seeing anything from raises a hand on the Oh, I just did not see that at all. So Scott, go ahead. Maybe not. Let me see. I'm not Yeah, I'm just not seeing anything. There you are, Scott. Oh, yeah. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Okay, Dave, I just had a quick question on the and sorry guys, I'm coming up from the airport, so I'll be there actually in about 10 minutes, but um I had a question on the uh the SBB. Uh you were talking about the kind of that floor. Um, can you describe to the public like what that means in terms of um, you know, basic uh, uh,
129I guess I wouldn't say services, but but you know, are we talking that those schools still would have gym teachers, art teachers, music teachers, all those types of things, or are we at the point where those are either part-time or I don't think we've reached the level where there's no none of those programs, but just kind give the public an understanding of what that baseline means. Yeah, I think I get your your your question there. So, as we have schools that are reaching this floor, um it's important to understand that that doesn't mean everything's funded at 100%. Like it doesn't mean that art is 100% and specials are specials just in general are 100%. what the floor how it was created was the uh some principles the assistant soups got together and they talked about
130what a minimum program would look like and so if and I I don't remember all of it but um what I do remember is it was basically a two- round school so two teachers per grade um and then I don't remember the exact percentages but I there there were partial um percentages in there for like um art music PE um some interventionist we have counseling I'm looking Tracy, if I get way off track here. Um, and and so those are those are built into that floor concept, but that it's not like there's a 100% art. It's a reduced amount. So, the students are still getting the same number of minutes of art. We just have fewer students to provide it to. Thank you. You bet. So, um, so just wanted to come back and follow
131up on this since, uh, February, we didn't have the whole picture at that point and and it's doing exactly what we wanted it to do. And, um, as as we worked on this, we, um, we not only, and I think we talked about this in February, not only looked at what is happening this next year, but we were also trying to look out five years the best we could to make sure that this small school support would be able to carry us at least in that three to five year um, range that we've been talking about. Um, with that I'm going to turn it over to Carara and she is going to pick up some of the federal funding for us tonight. Excuse me. Cara, would you take a second just to introduce yourself? I
132mean, we hear all the time from Brian and Dave, but uh not so much from you and go ahead. Sure. Yeah. Hi everybody. It's nice to be with you tonight. My name is Cara Bad Lamenti and I'm the executive director of finance and I've been here at the district for about um 12 years now and I came from public accounting where I actually had a career in auditing um governmental entities in primary school districts. So a lot of background in school districts but it's a very different experience to be on the inside. Very eye opening and very interesting. And anybody out there listening that might be on the outside I think you should always have to experience what it's really like to be here before you can come in and audit someone and tell them
133what to do. So, if I could go back and tell my old self something, that would be the advice that I give is that you really don't know everything until you're in here and you're in the shoes and you learn and you're in the trenches with with the people doing all of the good work here. All right. Thanks. I won't spend a lot of time on some of this governmental accounting stuff, but I wanted to bring it back around just for a minute. I know Brian touched on some of this earlier in the year and we just did some education about our funding sources, but it's kind of interesting when you think about some of the parameters we have about h around how we use our funds. So, we actually have six fund types that
134we're required to use. So, there's different authoritative resources that tell us how we have to account for things. We have Gazsby, which the Governmental Accounting Standards Board. We have GAP, generally accepted accounting principles. And then we have the rules set forward to us by our state which follow closely federal rules. So that tells us what type of fund types and funds we're allowed to have, how we account for them, and how we kind of bucket them together and utilize them. So we talk a lot about the general fund and there's really good reason for that. That's the principal operating district or fund of our district. That is where we have the most control and leeway to determine how to utilize those funds in the way that we think best suits our students. We have now
135this is where you can see the real creativeness of accountants. Special revenue funds. What do you think those are? Special purpose, special designated purpose revenues that come in and have to be accounted for in a certain way. Capital projects also pretty self-explanatory. This is where we take care of our buildings maintenance and capital. That's where our debtfree mill levy funds live in that new fund that Dave talked about. Our debt service fund. This is where we bring in our revenues, our property tax revenues to pay for um our bonds that we've issued in the past. Then we have two other probably lesser known funds. Um the employee self- insurance fund is actually a proprietary fund type, which means it's accounted for more like a real business versus a governmental accounting standard approach. And in that
136fund, we utilizes resources that we get from our general fund and other funds relate to support our health insurance, our dental insurance. It's our employee self- insurance fund. So, our employee contributions and our district contributions for health insurance go into that fund and then we fund the claims out of that. And then we have a trust fund. This is our much lesser known fund. It's pretty small, but at there was a time way back when um where interest rates were really good and we could earn a lot of interest in funds in in the ways that we were allowed to legally invest them. And at that point in time, we had some very generous donors who provided uh funds in to for us to hold in trust, which means they're not ours and we don't
137have control over them, but they're used to designate scholarships for students within our district for different purposes. And so, so those funds we will hold probably until we finish spending them. As you can imagine, they're not earning a lot of interest now, and there's not a lot of gain in those. So, they're just kind of helping as they can support students. Now although we have some fund types within those fund types we have additional funds. We have actually nine individual funds that we account for in the district. Within that special revenue funds category we have a designated purpose grants fund. So think our federal and state grant revenue. We have our public school activities fund. This is where we get donations um where we collect revenues from students and families to support school-based activities. And
138then we have our food service fund where we account for our meal program within our capital project funds. Um we actually have two now for the first time in a very long time in this district. Historically we've had our building fund. This is where we put our bond proceeds and we we build our new schools, things like that. Well, now with the passing of 4A, um the debtfree mill levy has has given us another capital project fund. The supplemental capital fund is its technical name. Um, and that's dictated to us by CDE through the chart of accounts that we're required to use. Questions on kind of the overview of those before I move on. Okay. So, what I wanted to spend a little bit of time focusing in on here is really the grant funding
139in PSD. I think some of the the recent changes in just bypassing the debtree mill levy which gave us some leverage to increase salaries and compensation for our staff caused a lot of questions around how grant funds are impacted by that. Um we all know that we're in a political environment where there's a lot of uncertainty around grant funding. So there's just a lot more attention and discussion happening about grant funding. And so we wanted to spend a little bit of time just talking about what the grant funding land landscape looks like in our district and how the parameters related to that that grant funding impacts our other funds where we account for it and how we can utilize it and leverage it to support our programs and students. So in PSD right now we
140get about $40.2 million in federal and state grant program funding. And I'm including in the state group grant program funding those state dollars that we get to support our are our uh free meals for all program. It's not technically a grant from a very technical term but it still kind of goes into that bucket that's restricted for how we use it. Most grant fund programs and I think uh Brian mentioned this earlier are accounted for outside of the general fund. So we do have Medicaid revenues that are a reimbursement. It's a really amazing program because what we're doing is getting reimbursed for the work that we're already doing in our schools and we're able to use that money to create jobs and positions to support our students and almost 100 close to 100% of that
141revenue goes right back into compensation which is a really cool thing. Um in the designated purposes grant fund is where most of our grant funding is sitting and then in our food service fund that's where you see the the support for school meals. What makes grant programs challenging is the strict compliance and reporting requirements that they have. So, we just don't have the freedom to really determine exactly what we want to do with those funds because a lot of times it's been prescribed for us or some of the rules and regulations limit what we can do with it. When we look at our our grant funding landscape in Puerto school district, one of the interesting things is we really have four large programs that account for over half of our total grant expenditures. These are
142our title one grants. We get $3.9 million in title one funding that we spend every year. That's about 9% of our total grant funding. Our special education cluster, that's the technical name for the idea funds that support special education. That's at 14% at and $5.9 million that we expend there within our child nutrition cluster. Again, the the formal federal name um when I include both our state and federal funding that we get for that, we're looking at 19% $7.7 million. And then Head Start, which supports our early childhood program, 14% and that one is at $5.8 8 million totaling 23.3 million of our total federal and state expenditures in these four programs. That's important because this is where the majority of our focus from external parties is such as auditors. Each of these programs is
143going to be audited by an external auditor once every three years to make sure we're spending in accordance with all of the requirements that are applicable to each one of those grants. Another challenge is the requirements are all different. What we can do in one grant, we can't do in another. They're for very specific purposes and most of them are for things that add to what we're already doing. So I really like this chart because I think it it really exemplifies a couple of things. Across the bottom we see four fiscal years to kind of so so show some trend analysis and then the left we see the dollar amounts. The blue bar represents general fund expenditures and the orange on sitting on the top represents that grant funding that we've been talking about. So
144this really gives you a nice illustrative view of the the difference in how much the general fund impact is. Again, that explains why we spend most of our time talking about it. This is where we're funding most of the programs and activities. The other reason I really like this chart is in addition to just showing the ratio of the two funding sources, it really shows one of the primary federal funding requirements, which is that we use our federal funds on top of to provide in addition to what we're already doing. So, one of the flexibilities we don't have is if we have a reduction like like we're looking at now, we're challenged in the area of finding ways to cut, we can't now use our federal funds to replace those things. Once we've paid for
145something with our general dollars, in most cases, we can't go back and use federal dollars later. Questions? All right. So, one of the things that we've been hearing a lot about and questions that we've getting we have been getting a lot are, okay, let's talk about how the compensation increases that we have in the district impact our grant funding. This isn't anything new and this isn't specifically because of the passing of the debtree mill levy. Every time we go through a negotiation cycle, we're dealing with this same impact. What this graph is showing you in the orange line is where our grant funding is sitting. And this is an actual grant that we have. And if we say year one, this this is a grant that's 100% used to support salaries. Year one, we're going
146to spend it all on salaries. So those two numbers are even as far as the compensation cost. That that's the gray bar. As we move on, our funding es and flows based on the funding formula and how that federal funding comes in. And the gray bar that represents our actual compensation increases over those four years. What we can see is our grant funding is simply not keeping pace with the f with with the level of compensation increases we get which provides a dilemma for us because we really want our staff to be compensated and get and earn a fair wage. That's one of our primary goals, right? But what that does is decreases the purchasing power of those grant dollars. When we talk about grants, the majority of what we spend that money on is
147people. Just like the majority of what we spend our general fund on is people. 85% about is that still right of our general fund is for compensation. Probably more closer to 90% of our total grant dollars support compensation. And when compensation it costs are increasing at a faster pace than the revenue we're bringing in for those programs, what that ultimately means is we have less people to perform that program work because we're talking about people. Questions on that? All right. Right. All right. So, a little bit of that interconnectedness of the funds, a refresher on how those work and and Cara does a great job with really knowing the nuances um of of all of those things because it gets really uh complex in in each of those different grant sources. Where are we in
148our timeline uh to prepare our preliminary budget? Well, as I mentioned, our SPB, our studentbased budgeting process is is complete. Now, that doesn't mean it's completely inflexible. You know, if there were a school that had an influx of of uh student enroles, you know, somewhere pre midyear budget revision, we've we've been able to work with schools in the past to address their needs if necessary. Um but that that process for now is complete and then we'll re-evaluate that as we start to see enrollments um materialize in in the fall. uh school finance runs. Uh we we saw at the we we've seen runs with the the school finance act that's moved through the house, really basic runs. Now we're we're really looking for that detailed information, especially with regards to the charge school institute numbers.
149So we'll we'll be hoping to see that um updated any time now. Uh the preliminary budget, as I mentioned earlier, we'll have that in front of you April 22nd to show that gap between revenue and expenditures. Uh we expect the legislative session to end on time on May 8th where they'll finalize the long bill, the the state budget, including the school finance act, and a proposed budget, which then brings in, okay, here's what we're thinking for expenditures, compensation, other changes on the expenditure side of things to balance a budget. That's what that would look like. Um and that should be uh presented to you on May 27th and um statutoily we're to adopt a budget by June 30th of the this year for this next fiscal year. Uh a key part in all of this
150is the ongoing work on multi-year projections as we're um it feels like every year we're we're wrestling with something new in the funding mechanism, a new formula. I mean, it's always something, right? But, but, uh, we really have to con continue to focus on being strategic and what do our enrollment numbers look like? And so, I know our our folks that that do those things um, have been working through the winter and we'll develop some projections going out a few years for us to utilize in our our planning for not only fiscal year 26, but 27,28 and beyond. Uh, that I know you have this in your packets, just some uh relevant uh references, especially over the last few weeks, but what additional questions do you have for for our team? Go ahead, Kevin. I
151want to start with the last one. First of all, thank you. Every time you go through one of these presentations, I get a little bit smarter. Um and especially if it's a if refresher of what it's starting to stick because now I've been on the board to go through one of these cycles, right? Um, so I wondered if we could start with the last slide, one of the last slides, which is 21 about the timeline. Okay. Um, and there there may be a little bit of back and forth. I apologize. I don't want to monopolize the questioning, but I I think it's helpful. We just took a very large I'm going to lean in. Sorry. A very large zoom out of where we are. Some of the forces at play, federal, state. We didn't really
152get into local other than 4A, but we there's the interplay, right? and the things that you guys are monitoring, the things that we're absorbing that that the confluence of these events. Let's get granular. School-based budgeting process. You say it's been complete for next calendar year. Correct. Correct. Okay. To whom do the schools submit their proposed budget? Yep. So they receive an allocation in dollars as we talked about based on the formula and then they submit a proposed budget a comp plan we call it compensation plan which basically details how they're going to use those dollars within their school to staff and operate the building for the next year. They submit that to the assistant superintendent's office and the finance and HR, human resources to all then come together and meet and go over each school's
153individual plan to evaluate it for the next year. Got it. Okay. So, at that point, there's a stop gap. Let's say there's a certain principal of a certain middle school that begins with a W and ends with an R who has submitted a budget that is alarmingly out of sync with what we think. And this is all hypothetical of course, but let's say that that that eventually happens. What is this? What's the mechanism by which we say, "Hey, let's have a conversation." Is it that the assistant super and those those individuals? Yeah. And I I'll let those folks jump in too. But my observation having gone through it just a few times now is that uh we really don't get to that point because there's dynamic work leading up to that working you know that
154the principal working with his or her assistant superintendent to talk about the challenges to talk about the staffing u that might be ahead of time. But it if if there was something that came in that was just so outlandishly um unsustainable or or doesn't meet the allocation, then we'd have to have some hard conversations. And I I don't know if you want to jump in or have a historical precedent to to be able to share in that regard. Yeah, sure. So, with the comp plan process, there's always been that kind of final meeting where the principal comes and presents like this is what I've put together and I'm proposing for a budget. And like Brian explained, those three entities, human resources, finance, and the assistant superintendent always um sign off on that budgetary approach. There's
155a couple of steps that happen before it gets to us. So we um collaborate on what we call a budget memo. So the budget memo outlines and details any guard rails that the schools have to make sure that they put into their budget. Like for example, one of the guardrails is is every school has a 100% mental health specialist. So, that's one of the things that we outline that has to show up before that um budget memo. There's a couple of processes that schools are expected to use. So, they're expected to engage their school accountability committee in their budget development and design. And oftentimes that could be weighing options like I I could do this or I could do that. Like what is what does the school value most, you know, as a community? And
156so they'll present some different options. They'll also do that same process with their staff and use their sitebased um shared decisionmaking matrix to be able to say we could do this, we could do that to start to vet like here are a couple of possible different options for investments. One of the challenges I think that we've seen recently is that as your budget gets smaller, that discretionary space for coming up with this option or this option starts to shrink, right? and you really don't have a whole lot of um opportunity to say like we want to add this programming. you're more talking about what programming can we do without and so that's happening on the school side that the principles are working with their staff and their accountability committees and then in partnership with us
157they're talking with us as they're developing that and saying like I'm really wrestling with this what do you think and then they give us that final um budget presentation even after we've like said yes that's the the final they can also make amendments after that final that they have to again get approval from the three of us to move forward with any adjustments to what they present in that final budget meeting. Another followup on that process. We talked about 4A dollars and small school and I think you had a question about floor. At what point is that introduced in the conversation with oh by the way you may have some extra money. So it when Brian talked about that dollar amount, that's when it's introduced. Like when they get their comp plan, that comp plan
158is loaded with whatever is the higher of the two amounts. So that's how we handled it this year when we talk about that foundational funding. That foundational funding does have a dollar amount attached to it that was built with this is the personnel that's needed to run at a foundational level. And so when we run the allocation through SBB of what schools might get for a factor in their per pupil enrollment, whatever is the higher of that dollar amount is what that school is going to get. And so what we noticed this year is that an elementary school that was right around 260 started to fall into that foundational funding model. That seemed to be kind of the makeorb breakak threshold of needing that dollar amount. Not tier two. I thought that was tier two.
159That yes, that is that tier two that foundational. Okay. So, they know about 4A. What about looking at our timeline though? They have no idea what's going to happen in in Denver. So, is there a true up period once we reconcile? Because I've heard we I think we've talked about this too. So the true up once we know brass tax what the budget's going to entail or at least the formula is going to entail in Denver sign off by Governor Paulus and then we still have to reconcile October counts. Is that fair? So how do we reconcile what's happening that you're talking about in March with the actual numbers as they are coming in? Does that make sense? Yeah. I see smiles. So hopefully you've anticipated where I'm going and and if I don't explain
160this properly Dave will jump in. Uh so the formula is based on average charges for the schools and so they're charged on instead of staffing you're at one level, second level, third level, everybody gets charged on an average charge and those charges are based on the prior year's um compensation levels because we know that their averages that some some licensed staff members won't won't be making the actual salary of that average charge and some will be making um you know much more than that average charge but historically it's averaged out pretty well. So we use the prior year's data compensation data to build those allocations so that we're not as reliant on when do we know the exact dollar amount this spring and then have to hurry with modifying these allocations. Quick thought it was
161on Okay. Yeah, quick related question. So, in that that model where we're looking at salary comps, what if in the event I'm doing my budgeting, we're working with our assistant supers, we're working with our team, we think we need three teachers for a certain grade. And it turns out actually we didn't hire three, we have two. Do that. Does that money then get reabsorbed into the general fund into the district's ether? Does it go back to the school? Do they have discretion as to how to spend it? And in fact, oh, maybe we need another par instead. what's the discretion and what are the guardrails there there? So, as as Dr. Guy mentioned, there's significant guardrails that are established throughout the process, but there's also tremendous autonomy on on how to allocate and utilize the
162the allocation of dollars at each school. And that's what it is. It's it's not so much an allocation of FTEES, the staff version of FTEES, um but dollars. And so a um let let's say if there's a pareducator that boy the school just can't fill that position. Okay, their their account is not going to be charged for that person's salary. So in their big budget of dollars, they're not spending those dollars and not being charged for that staff member that's not working. Um, and if they're able to go through a significant amount of time and not have that person on the the staffing charges, well, at the end of the year, if um, they have a net available balance that's less than 10% of the next year's allocation, they will carry that over, the school
163will carry that over as a contingency into the next year. That was, I think, it for now. Just want to say my first government class in college, our professor defined one definition of government was who gets what, when, and how much. 20 years plus on now I I'm finally realizing that lesson is what it feels like that we're talking about. So I appreciate getting granular because I think most people may get hypn not most many people may get hypnotized with the complexity of all the coalesing forces that we're talking about that we need to wrestle with. But I also think get keeping granular how does schools set their budget? what's the process look? What are the impacts to this process? And um how do we account for that? So I really appreciate the the comments
164that you made too from staff from the cabinet. The the schools work really hard with sort of the end in mind each each year in their planning and end being what is a target level of reserves uh as they're trying to think strategically into the next year too. Reserves being something that really you could only use for maybe one year needs. Um but but we have guard guard rails and guidelines of really most of you we're trying to end the year with about three to five percent just in case and but we don't want you to carry over big amounts either because you got to spend those dollars on the the students that are there now and they do an excellent job of planning in that regard. Are there questions? And at what just at
165what point do you do a sweep um you know like um if they're say carrying over 15% you know at what point do we sweep some of that back? In the very rare situation that a school would have a a net available balance at the end of a fiscal year that's exceeded that threshold. uh the sweep would occur right at the end of the year and just wouldn't that wouldn't roll over, wouldn't carry over to the next year as we close one and move into the other. Um and then as you recall, we get into midyear, we true up the numbers in October, the new October counts, and we may have um some schools with more FTE, some with fewer, and we'll do those true ups in in November, December, the middle of the year
166range. Awesome. Thank you. Other questions? All right, one more This is the grant funding in PSDs. Yes, that one. An interesting trend that I was thinking about while you were presenting this was that um in combination with declining enrollment year after year, it is interesting that our general fund appears to also augment each year And I don't know if that's a result of the formula and some of the things that we've seen over the last couple years or um something else that I'm missing because it one one narrative that is easily to support is that the cost of living is getting higher meaning there is a pinch point on wages salaries around the board not just in PSD in our community and yet our general fund seems to be growing and we're not having more
167students. So, can you explain any trends that you're seeing as to why that may be the case? Yeah. Um, yeah, I I think the the first part is that um we talked about the the ghost kids and so we saw that we got 317 I can't remember the exact number increased to 595 or something like that. So, they're providing more funding for kids that aren't there. That's part of it. Probably what the bigger piece is, is you look back at like 22 23, we had very large inflationary periods going through there. And so we were getting very large inflationary increases in the PPR side of it that were really driving those increases that you're seeing. I think that's probably the majority of it. Go ahead, Caroline. So, I noticed our grant funding stays roughly about
168the state, about the same, but is there any worry moving forward? I wonder how many of those grants are federally funded and is there any worry about the how secure those grants are or the availability of grants going forward? Yeah, I I think we are paying attention to that a lot right now because that is an everchanging landscape on us. Um, and and I appreciate Carrie was able to quantify kind of how we're looking at different grants and the big ones, but we are having to pay very close attention to that because there could be some changes on anything else. No, nothing specific. I just think that what's important to understand is the dynamics of the different grants and how they're funded. And so at a federal level, some grants are entitlement grants or or
169discretionary, some are mandatory. That plays into it. So a mandatory grant says for example national school lunch program is a mandatory grant program. What it says is you will provide meals for the students who qualify and it doesn't cap that at a dollar amount. We're going to provide the amount that we have to provide. Other programs are appropriated each year through the budgeting process and the congressional pro process. And that's where most of our grant funding lives. And so the dollars are capped versus the program intent being what drives the spending. And so all of the changes in the different federal priorities every single year um are something that we have to watch and pay attention to. Good. Thank you for your response to that thoughtful question. I think it's important to note here though
170too is that as we continue to glean insights at the state level, there are signals of uncertainty around state funding there as well. Um and so we have to continue to be fiscally responsible and conservative and be mindful of those shifting winds while also not signaling fear. Uh we're paying attention every day to new information that we're getting and I think this the finance team is incredibly strong as you you have seen tonight. Um, but as we glean insights around how and what is coming out of Denver, you know, there are some signals that wait that may be positive for K12 this year, but it's pretty clear that they're signaling that there's pain to come in the next few years down the road and grant funds are being named as a part of that, not
171just the potential end or slow elimination of averaging. So again, that's not to say that it will go away, but the the signaling is clear both at the federal level and the state level that there's some instability and we have to continue to pay attention to what we're learning uh both from Denver and Washington DC right now. Thank you for that. Are there other questions? Okay. Well, thank you so much. That was fantastic as usual. And uh Cara, you're welcome to come back and join us anytime. It was wonderful to have. We'll be coming back often with more budgets. Y next next I think we'll see you in two weeks. Absolutely. Wouldn't miss it. That sounds great. Thank you so much. All right. Um and with that, I can't believe I'm going to say this,
172but this meeting is adjourned at 9:13 p.m. on April 8th, 2025. Thank you all for joining us. Good night.