001e e e all right thank you so much for joining us tonight um go ahead and please mute your cell phones as we begin this meeting today is Tuesday March 11th 2025 and the meeting is now called to order at 6:34 p.m. for those attending this meeting in person live captions are available on the TV in the boardroom and in the lobby to access the live captions in a language other than English on your own device please scan the Q code on the screen or on the table near the entrance and select the language of your choice the live stream of this meeting is also available in English and in Spanish on YouTube for links to these live streams please visit the Board of Education page of PSD website or PSD TV on demand on
002YouTube and if you would now join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance all right thank you would any board members like to make changes to the agenda okay seeing none we will go ahead and do our recognitions and reports um and just to let you know that those um being recognized tonight we invite you to stay at to the to the end for a group photo um at the end of all of this so thank you so much and we have some special guests tonight yeah we have a lot of them so good evening everybody it's great to be in community with all of you tonight uh this evening we are honored to celebrate distinction in the areas of theater and sporting Marksmanship leading the celebration is our executive director of communications John cope
003welcome John good evening president Draper superintendent Kingsley and board directors we welcome everyone in our audience including those watching online I'm excited tonight to introduce our first recognition McKenzie Larson for her multiple awards for competing in various air rifle competitions locally nationally and internationally I'd like to invite Mark Buffington to the [Applause] podium all right good evening my name is Mark bingson I'm assistant principal at Wellington Middle High School um i' would like to thank the board and superintendent Kingsley for the opportunity to uh recognize Mackenzie Lars tonight it's a privilege to um recognize McKenzie she's a junior at Wellington Middle High School um she's ranked first in the nation in air refle shooting for juniors which is ages um 22 and under and fourth overall she's been competing for over five years and has
004represented the United States States in a half dozen competitions around the world earlier this year as a member of the USA Nationals team McKenzie competed against over 700 Juniors representing 51 different countries uh in Munich Germany and one gold in 10 in the 10- meter final she set a National Junior record with a score of 631 point4 in addition to McKenzie's work ethic on the Range uh she maintains a 3.3 GPA in the classroom and is on track to graduate next spring I just wanted to give a thank you to my parents and my coaches for making all of this possible and it's really a great learning experience and I just want to present McKenzie a certificate before you go thank you thank you so much awesome job thank [Applause] you next we'd like to
005to congratulate multiple award-winning theater individuals and groups I'd like to invite Melissa flil to the podium good evening um the recognitions for Theater tonight will be in two parts the first part is going to be our uh qualifiers for the International fesbian Festival so if they and their teachers would come and stand up here um go ahead everyone [Applause] so toward the end of each um fall semester the Colorado thespians hosts Colorado thescon or thespian conference and students individuals pairs small teams prepare either performance pieces or technical works for um adjudication and so these students who are here and I'll be reading their names shortly um have received a superior rating which qualifies them to compete at the international thespian Festival in the summer in Indiana so we have students attend that and compete not
006necessarily always everyone who qualifies because of schedules and things like that um but I just want to recognize their amazing achievement so we have Joel Smith from pter high school he's our theater director there and the students from pter high school who qualified for international thespian Festival include Carter Larson and Alex belda for costume construction also Mason Odell for costume Construction but this student was also recognized with the CR critic's Choice select for costume construction which is I was told sort of like Best in Show so that's a big honor Lexi hapner for solo acting Els vard and Susie Matlock for solo musical theater and MJ Scott donigan for lighting design so a big round of applause for our pter high school qualifiers we have several teachers and qualifiers from Fossil Ridge High School none
007of them are able to attend tonight because they're in rehearsals for their upcoming musical carry but um their teachers are Michaela osmus John Garner and Kristen rust and the students who qualified for the International Festival are Lily Howell for stage management ree katkin for costume design Caroline Malloy Macy patrias Maddie Holloway Zach Bailey Le Leia greenacre and Lexi stump for musical theater solo Hannah schnor for musical theater solo and she also was the soul musical theater scholarship winner for the state and then Maddie Holloway Matt Campbell Micah bofur Sophia Corin for musical theater Duets so we'll have a round of applause in their absence and from Fort Collins High School where Jason Tyler is the theater director Naomi Goldman qualified for a musical theater solo so round of applause for our qualifiers from for high
008school and so if Jason and Naomi will stay and Justin and everyone else can have a seat briefly and we'll do the picture right after the recognition so not the end of the meeting but um the end of the recognitions um so next I'm going to introduce assistant principal Justin Stevens from Fort Collins High School to recognize Jason Tyler for receiving a Colorado thespian theater educator Commendation and Fort Collins High School Tower Theater for their musical six being chosen as the mainstage musical the only show from Colorado so we have cast and directors and Orchestra here if you all would like to join us up up here as well [Applause] Jus thank you Melissa for that introduction thank you board and uh superintendent and assistant superintendent's office for taking the time and the opportunity to
009recognize these kids uh and our faculty members who put in so much time and bring so much pride to Fort con's High School pter school district in the broader Community um I'd like to introduce the students and faculty that make this possible and invite them to thank their parents for making it possible all the extra time running to rehearsals and getting to shows and making all those things happen um tonight we've got our cast our six uh Queens Naomi Goldman Juliet tremble Cassy shonfeld Kylie mivshek Nina Hartzel and Amilia zudnick musicians Jonah stader Tony L and uh Elanor crem our stage man manager Ellie Odin Wald and then our faculty directors Amy Tyler John Hermanson and Jason Tyler who's going to come up and say a few words about the production in students um I
010hate small talk but a lot of people really seem to be into it and uh inevitably it comes around to them saying what do you do for a living and I say oh I teach high school and the response is usually very lukewarm uh until they say what do you teach and I say theater and then man everything changes and those people whether they're 28 or 78 they've always got some story to tell me about theater some production they were in and that's because like theater really like sticks with you it stays with you so I'm just really really grateful that you have invited all of these people here to thank them and celebrate them and recognize them for making a show that really stuck and will stay with us for a long time uh
011we love all of you congratulations and we're so proud [Applause] T is this a que for a group picture I think we want you f so awesome of course you're still here where else would you be oh I love it congratulations [Applause] [Music] that doesn't go away mine are 26 and 24 they're starting to figure it out but you looking forward all right well that was amazing and I feel like we should not have let everybody go because now we're going to have a resolution in support of women's history month and that was just a Fant fantastic phenomenal group of women in here so um if you haven't seen six go see it um fantastic group of women who are um being celebrated in that um and our Marksman our marks woman so yeah it
012was fantastic so um could I get a motion for resolution and support of women's History Month okay go ahead Conor I move that the board approved the resolution in support of women's History Month March 2025 can I get a second thank you Jess all right and Jill can we take the vote oh sorry actually NOP we want to do this first we want to do the intro first so um Brian we have a special guest yes I'm so sorry no apologies needed at all joining us this evening to speak about women's history month is Delia Mahan our diversity equity and inclusion coordinator welcome Delia thank you I just tried to to get Jared I said I would pay money and it would be a great fundraiser for him to have a shooting contest against our
013student that we just recognized um thank you superintendent Kingsley Board of Education and cabinet I am very honored to be here tonight to introduce tonight's teacher and student speaker before I begin though I did want to share this time last year year we had two very amazing students come and speak to you about the importance of women's history month and the importance of feminine feminine hygiene products in all of the bathrooms and after that meeting I had so many emails what can we do what are the rules where do we get these things do we need to have a meeting and so many people reached out to lend their support to PSD prior to even everything coming down legislatively about the rules for having dispensers in the bathrooms I also want to tell you that
014this fall when the dispensers weren't in all the bathrooms those students called me right away and sent pictures of the bathrooms without dispensers in them so I wanted to share that with you this evening to say that this time that students spend with you is Meaningful and matters the skills that they have and they gain from knowing how to advocate for themselves and others matters you have years now of feedback from the students that we serve about what they need from PSD and they are telling you and it gives us Room to Grow whether it be Black History Month trans day of visibility Native American Heritage Month any of those things that kids bear their soul to you about and I hope you know that we do use that information to instigate change when kids
015come and talk to us we say oh this is what kids have told us what they need and this is what we're going to do to get to that point so I wanted to say that because I was very proud of those young ladies for using their voice and I am very proud of the people that we are going to inter roduced to you this evening CLP is very near and dear to my heart because I get to go do lessons there for kindergarten through fifth grade and tonight I'm proud to introduce Miss Amanda feifer who is a fifth grade teacher at CLP good evening and thank you board for having us I'm Amanda feifer fifth grade teacher at Cas lutter Elementary and we're here tonight to celebr Cate women's history month and to highlight
016the incredible potential within our own student body in our fifth grade class we've been exploring how our values and beliefs shape our actions and ultimately our futures tonight I'm thrilled to Ann to introduce you to ACAA beard ACAA is a shining example of what it means to be a change maker she embodies the spirit of women's History Month by demonstrating courage empathy and a commitment to making a positive impact aaa's actions reflect a deep understanding of how individual contributions can lead to meaningful change she exemplifies the values we strive to instill in all of our students please join me in welcoming Kisha a young woman who is already shaping for a brighter future hello my name is AAA beard and I'm a fifth grade at casle pter elementary I jumped at the idea of being
017here tonight and I am happy to be here to talk to you all first I want to talk about just the few of th of of thousands of strong women in history such as Mary cury Amelia aart and Rosa Parks all of these amazing women did something to stand up for themselves as women or for others like how Cy was not only the first woman to win the Nobel Prize but the first and only person to win it twice or Rosa Parks who stood up for black people and women on the bus although she did the exact opposite and stayed sitting down and let's not forget about Amelia aart who was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean but why should everyone care about women's History Month well this this month serves as
018a as a time to honor the achievements and contributions that women of all backgrounds have made throughout the history of the us both by remembering those who carved the way in the struggle for gender equity in the United States States and by recognizing the history makers that help gender equality change for the better but don't worry I'm not just going to talk about the past I'm also here to talk about the future and moving forward we have made so much progress in gender equality and Equity but there is still a long way to go we have made lots of steps in equality for women like passing the right for women's voting or running for president personally as a PSD student I have lots of female role models to look up to like my teacher Miss
019feifer or the school counselor Miss Kelsey and too many others to count luckily I have not had to deal with inequality or discrimination but I am sure that many others have and I love women's history month because to me it is a time to celebrate women's great achievements or just women in general all throughout history but we have to support each other women supporting women because we can be hard on each other so instead of tearing down start to think about building back up [Applause] all right thank you so much Casa that was amazing and 100% women supporting women you go you do it so yeah um who would like to um to speak go ahead Jess I feel supported you're right you're an amazing you're so amazing thank you so much for coming and
020speaking to us I'm so looking forward to like like what your leadership will show cuz I absolutely 100,000% positive it's going to happen thank you for coming and sharing go ahead Carolyn AA you're an amazing young woman and just like Jess I am looking forward to seeing the the places that you'll go to and the things that you'll do I I know you're destined for great things and I really appreciate you coming and talking to us tonight about women's history month and and I appreciate your message all right anybody else yes go ahead Brian hi AA I am your superintendent I just want you to know you are such an amazing light in this world where did you learn how to command an entire room with your presence like that probably from other women I
021would assume I always want you to know our district is incredibly proud of you and I want to thank your teacher as well and Miss mahany for making sure that this resolution came across in the spirit in which it did tonight it landed beautifully and it was a really powerful message for all of us to hear so thank you all right with that Jill can we have the vote Jim broish hi Kristen Draper hi Connor Duffy hi carollyn Reed hi Scott shanower hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 60 and if we could do a photo that would be fantastic what's your name good to see good to see you [Applause] conrat your oops fantastic thank you all for joining us tonight it was wonderful we really appreciate it and now we'll move on to 6.0
022the superintendent report thank you so much it's again it's a great evening to be with all of you tonight it's been a new relatively new tradition this year for uh each board meeting during my superintendent remarks to highlight a video which we would say is a quick win and celebration across the district so I'm going to ask Matt from our Communications team to queue up our video which uh is a celebrate to the entire community at trout Elementary School medieval day here at trout we're having our Medieval Festival we're dressing up as stuff uh people wor in the Medieval ages they're telling us about what people in the Medieval ages used to do and who are the special people in that age who changed life and made history for today this event for students allows
023them to really put themselves in in the shoes of people during the medieval times I didn't really know it's more of a noble than like a peasant and Sir Jon of AR was the like I was pretty amazed to like know how fast she was accepted and how well her brain works so she could get into being a knight I picked her because I wanted to be still my gender but I also wanted to be someone who fights for the [Music] rights I think the most interesting thing I learned about the medieval times was probably about the Battle of Hastings where the Mormons fought the English my favorite part of today so far was probably either seeing the Falcons um or even walking in I felt so special when I was walking into the building
024thank you to the teachers because because they were providing clothes for people who didn't have clothes for medieval and they set up a beautiful things in our classroom my absolute favorite thing about Medieval Festival is just seeing the students eyes as they walk into the classrooms that have transformed into something so new I myself went to a COR knowledge school where we had a Medieval Festival and that memory for me is so close in my heart that making my classroom and their experiences is so much more important I always joke that this is where if anywhere I'm going all out is Medieval day because it's I think what she was about to say is that these experiences were something her students and herself would never ever forget and I just uh I really want to
025thank the trout uh Elementary Community for creating such deep and meaningful immersive experiences for their students doing those things as early as prek and early childhood all the way up through 12th grade are the reasons why we get to celebrate in this boardroom students who are first in their nation and their particular passion and their sport we're recognizing people who were award winning at the national level who are front stage and backstage we recently watched the state championship hockey game it's just an endless amount of opportunities uh to be proud as a member of this school district is something I do not take lightly uh last week at the end of the week I spent a couple of days at a national superintendent conference and we continued to challenge each other professionally around how we
026can continue to think differently about public education so we can ensure that our students not just graduate but they graduate prepared to compete in a global economy and I think as we continue to talk about our District's priorities which we will do tonight with that second half of our District's monitoring report you know having students graduate with options is not simply giving them a diploma it's ensuring that they can graduate with the knowledge the skills and the dispositions and most importantly I believe the empathy to understand how we can be a better member of today's Global Society I'm just really proud that we can continue to do that each and every day over the last couple of weeks I've had a lot of opportunities to engage thoughtfully with schools and members of our community I
027want to thank everybody who has participated in those various events uh in the last two weeks I've had a chance to go to batty Elementary CLP Middle School Lincoln Lasher pter high school and also had an opportunity to have an informal superintendent chat with our curriculum and instruction Department which I'm super grateful for uh we are probably a couple of you know hopefully a month month and a half away from having a ribbon cutting ceremony at the Renovations that are happening up at pter high school as a result of the financial and philanthropic contributions that have been made possible by both larer County the Bohemian Foundation as well as the voters of the pter school district the work up there is amazing the space that's being created to continue to take our ptech programs or
028Advanced manufacturing programs and other type of Technology programs to the next level to ensure that our students can graduate not just connected to their passions but being competitive in alignment with a dynamic Workforce uh I'm really proud of and I know that we have more work to do we talked about that in our dinner session tonight but to see that work happening in meaningful ways is really really great it's also a very fascinating time uh to be an educator as we listen to our teachers talk about their passions and histories and sometimes getting lukewarm responses there's this Duality that's playing out where we're able to celebrate the incredible work that's happening in the system while also recognizing that there's this underlying tension as a result of changing budget Dynamics both at the local level state
029level and in the federal level our District's Focus will remain constant in educating every single student in our district every single day but I want to recognize and legitimatize that tension that's existing especially amongst our principles as they're having human- centered conversations with many members of our staff as I shared with you some of those schools that I had an opportunity to um visit recently like batty Elementary School is an example I know we'll talk a little bit more about batty and their physical facility infrastructure in a moment but as a result of 4A passing they're able to actually get back just less than a handful of some of the positions they've lost as a result of their declining enrollment over the last couple of years but as I you know went to those other
030schools not everybody was able to benefit at the same rate in the same way and from the lens of equity that's appropriate but we are continuing to downsize our staff both at the central office level and at the instructional and Par professional level and across our district and I think while we recognize and celebrate all of these amazing things that are happening I think acknowledging that tension and humanizing it as much as possible and continuing to educate our community that we have real Financial challenges that are not on the horizon they are in front of us today and I'm confident and continue to be hopeful that we can navigate those things together but we need to continue to talk about them while also celebrating our successes so I'm looking forward to having a great meeting
031with all of you tonight I want to thank members of our community some who are here in the room who attended my third superintendent Community engagement session which was hosted at Lincoln middle school last week I have three more that are scheduled in the weeks and months ahead and I look forward to contined dialogue with our community to talk about all things PSD so thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight absolutely thank you and now we will move on to our Community comments so welcome to the community comment section of the board meeting the board desires to hear the viewpoints of all stakeholders including students employees parents Guardians community members public comment is designed to address issues not personalities or Personnel matters please keep your concerns and comments focused upon the district
032and appropriate for a K12 audience please know that the board does not generally respond to remarks made during Community comment a 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 per presented by any speaker further even if some remarks be may be factually inaccurate we generally choose not to respond to correct the record here because formal board meetings are not the time or place for a back and forth dialogue as we begin this community comment session let us model for our entire Community how to listen and how to interact respectfully even with those with whom we disagree for we all have the children the students best interest at heart and so this opportunity for public comment is
033for members of the community who register to speak by the designated deadline those people will be called on make remarks in the order that they signed up and each speaker will be allowed 3 minutes to address the board and first up we have Wendy Bergman welcome hi my name is Wendy Bergman and I have the pleasure of being a social cities teacher at Rocky and the chair of Pea's organizing committee I began my career at Rocky in January of 20120 and endured the many Transitions and challenges our community faced with my colleagues and students it was terrifying joyous overwhelming and rewarding but I quickly realized two things one I loved teaching and two I wasn't sure if I would make it I now know that the challenges I was facing in the first few years
034are largely the result of our funding system here in Colorado I wanted more time stronger mentorship systems a deeper sense of community and for my colleagues and admin to have the support they needed to thrive so that together we could take on the systemic work of diversity equity in inclusion and access that our education system and this District so desperately need I love this work I want education to be a career that in any position we earn a dignified wage and are given the respect we deserve I want to be proud to encourage my students to enter our profession in any role and know that they will have that they will live a rich life and have what they need to provide for themselves in their community in service of those dreams I've spent the
035last three years organizing with my union to win a funding win the funding we need for public services and the people power to ensure that when we get the funding we direct it to student facing services and staff supports since 2009 because of Taber restrictions State leaders have chose chosen to balance the budget on the backs of our students they've underfunded public education by 10 billion since 2009 and the state's own recent adequacy studies showed that we need an additional $4,000 to $4,500 to meet the needs of students in 2025 that's $4 billion Statewide imagine for a moment $4,000 per student could do here in PSD in in what Visionary ways could we educate every child every day but we've fought and we've won this district and others a buy down of the budget stabilization
036factor and the 1989 funding levels we have making us fully funded this year right now the governor and the legislature is considering cuts to K12 to fill the $ 1.1 billion doll hole in the budget caused by Taber but we're organized and we're fighting back against these Cuts this isn't just my fight and it's not just my union this is the fight of all of you that support public education and it's going to take more of us to win the structural funding fix we need for Education here in Colorado I'd like to take this opportunity to invite members of the board superintendent Kingsley cabinet School administrators students parents and any community members who care about public education to join me and my union at the capital on March 20th so that we can fight against
037these cuts and continue to build the power we need uh to protect what matters and build a community where students families and workers Thrive you can learn more in RSVP at Colorado ea.org no-more Dash Cuts thank you thank you next up we have Stephanie Watson Lewis welcome sorry get the feedback good evening board um today I'm actually reading comments for Jess vastel on February 27th I gave a presentation at casby um the district a proposal for the district to learn how to better interact with parents experiencing trauma caused by their staff in my presentation I expressed how I have screamed and cursed and called names at board members after my child was abused on his school bus in Littleton fortunately I had one um Humane board member who was willing to see that while I
038was an angry problematic parent as Mr Duffy coined she acknowledged that my child had been wronged in my presentation I discussed how important it was for the district to set their pride aside and come to the table with parents to fix the problem that the dist the district allowed happen after this tear filled presentation I had more districts than not approach me about how I could how I could help better their district with trauma informed training I had created to come to their District to talk to their staff as well as share a proposal in working to improve the systems in place however one District however one of the districts that approached was pter and instead of asking me for help um that I was begging the districts to take he decided to use the
039opportunity to discour to disparage his own District's family saying that he wished the parents could do what I did and work sorry guys my tablet is doing weird things and work together he did not do his homework because the very parents he was complaining about are my dear friends who I'm here tonight to support Mr Duffy's remarks would be unprofessional and appalling at best but the fact that he chose to follow up my presentation about my child being abused and how I'm working to overcome it pleading with districts to see that an angry mother is a scared mother is in incomprehensible your parents are angry because none of their needs were met they are angry because their children were traumatized and no one is taking accountability promoting a completely incompetent employee who hired a child
040abuser is a good reason for any um is a good reason as as any to call you outside of your name you literally trespassed the parents who was abused does the feeling does that feeling coming to the table to the table I'm sorry you're going to have to wrap up sorry anyway this mom um is writing in support of the parents that were being abused whose children were abused on the buses thank you thank you next up we have Danny Lawrence welcome when I heard two weeks ago that a board representative from our school board was badmouthing and potentially slandering parents who make public comments in this space it lit me on fire you see Mr Duffy you know absolutely nothing about me you've never talked to me you've never offered a single minute of
041care or concern for my son slander is the act of making false statements that damage someone's reputation and I have never yelled at you or anyone else else on this board for reference this is what it sounds like when I yell I don't need to yell my children would tell you that I'm far scarier when I whisper having to listen to three-minute public comments with words that you don't want to hear isn't yelling and I'm not sure if you've ever taken a minute to view any other school board in the state when I met Jess who you complained about to me or or complained to about me I was attending the Littleton School board meeting and parents were screaming obscenities at the board following a pair of professional abusing disabled students additionally accusing special education
042parents in this boardroom of being non-collaborative is a bold-faced lie it is outright malicious slander and I will not tolerate it while you were badmouthing me I was literally contacting Mr havelda out of genuine concern for his child as I had heard news of a PA professional in our district that was being accused of physically assaulting a student in his son's school I can assure you when you want to collaborate over the lack of accessibility to your websites or schools for children like my son I will be present and I care more because I care more about kids than my ego I have never been respected enough to be invited or even consulted after the fact in your ignorance you are unaware that parents of disabled children share resources we share connections also president that
043casby audience who witnessed that presentation in your exchange was my attorney for a district that is facing a multi-million dollar settlement for the crap you all pulled in hiring a child predator this type of unnecessary negligence is a liability to the district while some board members are trying to convince parents facing settlement that you care about them some are simultaneously out here making up public lives about them so which is it if I am as what you all think I am a pain in the ass told to me by told to me last summer understand that I help to get close captioning for these board meetings parents can receive their documents of the IEP now that aren't blocked by encryption teachers of the visually impaired have more access to technology and some of these PR
044presentations are actually accessible to more people and it took me coming here and asking you all publicly it's my first amendment right and my civil right to do so so so much for sacent those sentiments are empty when those who represent you are also projecting animosity about these public comments I'll be awaiting my my apology although I know that hell will freeze over before I see anyone here with the Integrity to give it in your email tonight is the official Complaint about the a violations that occurred to board policies GP 3.5 GP 3.1 at the February 7th casby meeting with testimony from eyewitnesses and I will be awaiting your full investigation and followup in this matter and I will see you in 2 weeks thank you for the opportunity thank you next up we have
045Anna leetta welcome good evening it's been about a month now since you were all able to hear the dyslexia presentation to the board I know you heard a lot of information and if the verbiage was a lot to take in that would be understandable I really appreciated that most of you asked really thoughtful questions to the dyslexia team however as someone who understands the language they were using my concerns were not put at ease as always if anyone would like to talk to me or understand my concerns better please reach out my gut feeling reading between the lines is that it is still about prioritizing District agenda through small batch spoken trainings with Word of Mouth elements that will remain inaccessible to the public case in point not unlike card District managed to have no
046written policy about dyslexia but still had the consistent spoken policy that people were not to say dyslexia we have a literacy crisis in our district and the kids affected are affected every hour of every day by our District's lack of urgency I want to read a handful of comments that have Sur surfaced locally over the past couple of weeks in social media circles here in Fort col we are contemplating pulling our fourth grader from public schools who has an IEP to homeschool due to mental health dyslexia and school refusal we we don't really understand what has happened with our son except for having dyslexia and the jump from third to fourth grade was night and day and he it's made him feel awful and less confident he says it's not any bullying kids or mean
047teachers his shutdown of going to school of going to school is so devastating he was always so happy and outgoing and now he's withdrawn and depressed another parent wrote my high schooler dropped French French yesterday she really wanted to do well and had been excited to learn a foreign language but the teachers had no strategies for teaching a dyslexic kid a language and this and this specific teacher kept calling on her to read lengthy passages out loud a direct obvious violation of her 504 at least she's figured out that she isn't the failure the teachers are another parent wrote we are spending 600 month $600 a month on private tutoring after my 10th grader 10th grade honor rooll student admitted she cannot read at grade level we can't afford that at all another parent wrote
048my son is now a senior he was diagnosed with dyslexia in second grade just last night he was sharing how frustrated he is that his teachers keep forgetting his accommodations he is defeated chose not to go to school today he is so close to being out of the school system that doesn't understand him I don't know if I have the energy left to speak up it's been an incredibly long journey for us all again these are current experiences happening right now in PSD prioritizing asynchronous learning opportunities available to all PSD District's employees and families wanting to understand how our district is going to support dyslexia would serve our staff and students P20 much more efficiently it should also be noted that on February 3rd 2025 a federal court set precedent that accommodations are not substitutions
049for mediation for dyslexia this case involved a high school student who graduated with the 3.4 GPA even though he couldn't read we need to be really serious about this thank you thank you and next up we have Sabrina herck welcome you'll be unsurprised to hear that I also know Jess vestel funny how parents of autistic children abused by bus par at Colorado school districts would meet each other I was thrilled to hear she was invited to speak to casby about preventing and responding to blatant child abuse and that many District's leadership asked her to come personally training their staff on how to do better for the children in their care what surprised me was how Conor Duffy talked to her apparently this district has a group of parents who just like to yell at board
050meetings looking at the familiar faces I've seen in this boardroom time and time again I can only assume this is a reference to some combination of Danny Anna Taylor Jeff and me ironic that tonight we're celebrating women's history month and also discussing your tone policing of a group that is 80% women so let's discuss what each of us is consistently asked for Danny wants disabled children to receive the education they're entitled to under state and federal law Anna wants dyslexic kids to learn to read Taylor has literally bald her eyes out to you begging you to see disabled children as human beings Jeff wants a district that's publicly flailing for funds to be transparent about leadership leadership's conflicts of interest and decision to spend District funds on swimming pools and getting their shoes shined and
051I want children to not be abused by District staff on that topic Connor you weren't on the board yet at the time so you may have missed the memo but me yelling at Kingsley in the parking lot about how the 2023 board was too busy self- filating to care about child abuse is what got the zanella victims the only round of meetings that made us at least for a moment feel like the district leadership might actually have a shred of decency so I have a couple questions for this board you're all own adults you went out of your way to ask for the public for the responsibility of managing the school district which of these asks is so out of pocket that you need us to hold your hand to make it happen and just
052as importantly in between trespassing me from school grounds ignoring us gray rocking us lying to us and actively denying us access to seak where we otherwise would have provided input on these matters one of you actually indicated to us that child welfare education and budgeting are so far outside the scope of your knowledge as board members that you need us to hold your hands on this but here's my gesture of good faith Conor Duffy hold my hand in spirit for a moment it's a bad idea to run your mouth like that when your co-workers are trying to convince your topic of Gossip that you really are all sorry and that they really should settle their lawsuit thank you all right thank you everyone for participating in Community comment this evening next up we have board
053topics and committee reports uh this agenda item is an opportunity for board members to provide an update on committee work or to speak to board topics do any board members have something they would like to report Jim did you have something no yeah I do actually I had the opportunity to visit Canard middle school last week and uh it was a good visit on the visit I got to sit with um three teachers through their plan planning session which was a new experience for me that was great and I was impressed by a number of things from the meeting there were three things actually uh the teachers were all very open to Pure feedback on content on their methods on the results and on ways to improve so that was something that really stood out
054for me uh the teachers were also using data kind of on the Fly they had their computer up they were looking at things on what was working and what wasn't working for their students so that was pretty awesome too and then third although every teacher of course teaches differently these teachers are really striving for consistency in how they did their grading and in the outcomes for all the different classes uh it was really good stuff so it was just great for me to see this professional learning community in action wonderful thanks for sharing yes go ahead Jessica sort of piggyback on this amazingness of teachers um um so I have a statement I'm just going to read it so we're collectively aware that our state legislature is working through a challenging budget cycle but I
055am incredibly proud to support our Educators teachers like Jim said um as they collaborate with other districts and our community to Lobby against any cuts from education our state only last year after over a decade of reducing promised funding to schools removed the budget stabil stabilization Factor this was an important first step in funding public education however it only funds education at a 1989 level with the current budget challenges we must ask our state to hold public education funding sacred for too long we have cut and borrowed against our the Next Generation I am confident that when we as a community come together Educators families and Community leaders that our Collective advocacy will embolden our elected officials to protect public education funding well said Thank you than extremely important that we we do talk about
056that there is um on that on that note um on Thursday March 13th um some of us will be going down to the capital to be talking to our uh state legislators I believe that is the they called it the um super Lobby day was the 13th um and then there'll be another Lobby day on the 20th um so if you can make any of those dates um to go and talk to your legislators um or any legislators to let people know that this is has got to stop we cannot continue to finance everything on the backs of Education um and you know I was lucky enough to be in a meeting this morning um where I got to speak to a lot of County and um local nonprofits and this is happening not only
057with Federal monies which we are all hearing about but also State monies and we have to be aware that this is going to hit the school district from every direction ction um you know right now we have um there's going to be a freeze on those who can get uh those people who can get um child care and that is going to affect everybody that means that there will be people who are unable to work because they can't afford the child care because they're not getting the help for the child care that they need which means that we may see more people um coming in that will need more help because they're not able to get the childcare needs that that the child care that they need this is just it's coming from all these
058various directions it's coming from all of these um different areas and we need to start to stand up and say enough of this enough of taking education money away from children this is not okay so if you can join us uh again Thursday May May March 13th um at 9:00 at the state capital and then again on the 20th 9:00 again 8 11:30 thank you um that we'll be doing that as well so and then another thing um we will be having our yes did you have well I have them up a you if you could go ahead yeah that'd be great so sorry no sorry I didn't know who you were pointing to Thursday April 17th 5:30 to 7 at Rice Elementary and Bethy Elementary we are having our listening sessions so we'll kind
059of split and you guys can come visit whichever group you want and whichever school is most convenient for you and we will happily listen and discuss topics of your choosing anything else go ahead Conor I was gonna say the same thing the to to your point um for everybody in the community to know that our budget is the single most important driver when it comes to funding allocation across the whole district and this board is doing more than just listening um we are actively engaging on the 27th and 28th met with multiple legislators at the capol to voice our opinion on the importance of K12 funding across the board for for all programs um another thing that I got to do uh just this last week is the PTA meeting at Lopez and uh it
060was one wonderful because it's community-led um parents who were really involved and they were doing something very complicated but fun which was organizing their Carnival festival and it was good just to see you know School get together and do things for their kids all right anyone else go ahead Kevin um I was gonna say we um we had a great cak meeting couple weeks back now hard to keep track it's a Bo um there was a lot of uh interesting topics discussed one of which which we we've had presented at a dinner session and I want to give it a little bit of air time now um was the tension between having an advisory committee um but still allowing for some public input and so we wrestled the the committee wrestled with that that those
061discussions for the latter part of the meeting and um so it's going to go back through its own feedback loop but um but one of the things that came out of that was that um you know and some people had various opinions about whether people you know cak meetings should be open to the public or you know are there other avenues but on the heels of what Jess just said and what Kristen said and Connor said there's so many avenues for engagement um with not just the board of directors but with superintendent and with others and we're looking to do more um and so if you have ideas about how to have better engagement either cak or any of the you know dab committees let us know um I'm I'm interested in the conversation I
062learned a lot from uh just the discussion at cak from different points of view um so there's a lot to consider but I think the I want to dispel the notion at least that that I am off limits to engagement I don't think that's the case I think we're all very interested in having further engagement sessions and not just limited to community comment but other ways where other people can can talk about the issues um so that was an interesting conversation cak but it was it was a great meeting thank you well said other comments all right let's go ahead then and move on to consent um would any me board members like to pull an item from consent yeah I'd like to pull 9.1 the Personnel action okay so we will go ahead and
063pull that and make that um action item 10.1 if that's okay all right would any board members like to pull anything else no can we get a motion go ahead Carolyn thank you I move that the board approve and adopt the recommended actions for the items remaining on the consent agenda can I get a second thank you Jess and Jill can you please call the vote Jim bookish hi Kristen Draper I Connor Duffy I Kevin havelda I Carolyn Reed I Scott shanower hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 70 thank you and now add move on to our action items and we'll do 10.1 the Personnel um sorry yep sorry we're we're going to do the Personnel um action item that has been moved off of consent so can I get a motion go ahead Jim
064turned it off I move the board approve the Personnel actions as updated and presented to the board on March 11th 2025 can I get a second thank you Jess all right and there any any discussion or questions um I think just for the general public there was just a a mistake um in there someone was moved to retirement instead of transitional retirement so just fixing a mistake there um with that said uh can we call the vote Jim brokish hi Kristen Draper hi Connor Duffy hi Kevin havalda hi Carolyn Reed hi Scott shanower hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 70 fantastic thank you all right now we're on to hbac and lighting upgrades at batty Elementary and OD day Elementary so can I get a motion good I move that the board approve expenditures in
065excess of 250 ,000 authorizing staff to execute contracts with the vendors to provide the construction services can I get a second thank you Jim all right and R yes thank you joining us to speak about the HVAC and lighting upgrades at batty and oday elementary schools is Dave Montoya our chief finance officer Dave welcome good evening um tonight I am here to prevent uh present uh a fairly uh intensive project and it is uh actually providing uh air air conditioning and HVAC upgrades to B and OD day um so we decided to present that as an action item uh I am joined in the audience with people that can answer technical questions if we need to so uh so that's available so let's get into the presentation real quick um just as a little bit
066of grounding and background um the reason why we're talking about this is the override that was passed the debt-free mevy override that was passed November 24 or 2024 and without this override we wouldn't be having these discussions um and we wouldn't be able to make these Replacements um we would be waiting for things to fail before we did them so it's nice to be able to actually be trying to be Forward Thinking a little bit about what's happening um background further background is um when we started looking at the engineering data um we had identified a tenative Five-Year Plan for schools as we went out to the election and so these two projects were definitely contemplated in that first five year uh that first five years of project so so we have uh decided to
067move forward with those um I alluded to these back in December when we we were talking about trying to be pretty aggressive with our timelines thinking that we could get some of this work done in the summer of 2025 and uh as it stands now we're going to go through this in the presentation we believe we can still hit that Target um but there are some things that are happening in in the world and that we need to be paying attention to that could change our plans um but right now what we have is two sites uh batty Elementary um and that the project is a full building and lighting and HV upgrade um while we're in doing HVAC and and things in the ceiling we might as well get the lighting done while we're
068doing that at the same time um oday is the other school um that we are going to be working on this one uh does have have some air conditioning already so this is going to be upgrading some of the rooftop units um the existing ones that hadn't been replaced and to get air there um we'll also do Lighting in this one um so looking at batty um we actually started working on design work with batty and it was really focusing on the rooftop units before the election um these were identified in the study as the rooftop units that were high priority that were aging and that needed to be replaced so so we really focused on that um and so the the project really entails uh I got a little typo there with the boiler
069but um remove and replace existing rooftop units so that's that was the plan and that's what the design would have been regardless of whether 4 a passed or not because we were going to have to do those at some point anyway um but where it changed is with the with the money from 4 a the new rooftop units that we'll be replacing them with will he both provide both Heating and Cooling capabilities so it's an opportunity to not just do a like for like replacement but actually do an upgrade that gets us the air conditioning that we're also wanting it's a kind of a unique opportunity there um and then I had mentioned the uh lighting upgrades for new new Energy Efficiency um these are basically LED fixtures um there's a lot of places replacing
070these and and uh so that's part of this as well um oday Elementary School is uh very similar uh but this one uh we actually were same like with batty we were actually doing design on rooftop units um in od day we were doing something similar with the boilers and uh what we did is after fora we we tasked our our our design team and everybody to say Hey what if we were to try to do some of these air conditioning units while we're doing that and so that's exactly what this project entails it's a little smaller because OD day does have some air conditioning this is a little more limited project um so the project would be very similar to the above we would remove and replace existing boilers in this one and rooftop
071units um new rooftop units would be provided uh again would provide both Heating and Cooling capabilities and the same uh upgrades to lighting uh lighting LEDs um this is a summary of the just the procurement and the Contracting behind this I w't spend much time on this we did do public solicitations on this in the form of invitations for bids um uh batty Elementary uh in your packet we are recommending uh the contractor Bryant construction uh be awarded that the contract value is $3.4 million and the anticipated uh completion date is August 1 of 202 um OD day very similar same uh public posting and invitation for bid uh we uh contractor selected for this one is Golden Triangle Construction contract value of about $1.7 million and the anticipated completion date on this one is
072September first we're going to talk about both of those dates in a second here um so risks and and constraints that we need to think about um right now overall potential constraints I I think we all are aware of that tariffs and shipping can we're going to have to pay attention to that um there's changes happening daily um but I just want to be full disclosure here if if that really starts impacting these projects we may have to we may have to wait um just because of the tariffs and and the increased in cost but we'll pay attention to that right now um what we do have is uh we have some pretty intensive equipment lead times now these contractors also understood our our completion date that we were design Desiring so they I think
073they've done some a lot of homework to make sure that they can get some of these these pieces of equipment but we're still going to be at the mercy of being able to ship and and and and if we can afford it with the tariffs so that's going to be something that we still need to think about um and and then we just need to be aware of if there's any potential cost escalations that I I've already said this if it if if it starts getting to the point where it doesn't make sense we may have to talk about is this the right time to do it do we need to shift to another another summer um but nothing there we're still moving forward but just want to make people aware that there are challenges
074that we need to be paying attention to um batty um elementary school as well as but really both of them here B and OD day Elementary School um there is going there may be a need for some temporary air flow including air conditioning as as this project progresses especially as we get closer to the school school opening um Alex Hendricks our construction manager has been in touch with our schools uh to talk about the fact that some of these may go a little bit further past the start of school but that we're going to be prepared and ready to do that um here is a flowchart and I won't spend a lot of time on this but it really kind of talks walks you through the preconstruction per preparations that's where we're at now um
075the project would really start in June in a in a in a big way that's when we're going to be doing abatement and demolition U mechanical electrical and plumbing work would begin June through July um inspections and temporary certificates uh of occupancy would begin early August 25 as well as preparing for the school year early August 25 um school year does begin August 14th 2025 so we that's that's really our Target um and then there is going to be some work that we're probably going to be wrapping up uh just to finish these projects up but uh again I think we're prepared well for for what's coming um kind of coming into the uh into the last piece here um so when we're thinking about preparations for the 25 26 school year um construction closeout
076um what we're going to be really looking for is is really moving toward getting temporary certificates of occupancy because I think some of these projects won't be completely done by that August 14th date um but we're going to assure people that it's still going to be acceptable to have teachers and students in the building um if we need to and we don't know that we need to at this point but if we need to we would be prepared to bring in some rented units to push air and air conditioning around while we're finishing those projects up I think that's just a that's a a plan that we want to keep on the back burner if we needed it I'm not sure we're going to need that but we'll see um and then other condition uh
077considerations that we need to think about um we any completion of the work will not disrupt School operations that's very important to us um we did something pretty amazing up at PR high school and we did a project during the school year so what we're really challenging ourselves with is can we get some of these done even when there are students in in school so this one is an intensive project it's not something we would want to do with students in there but if we're just wrapping up some things toward the end that's tolerable and so that's that's kind of what we're planning for um and then uh there might be temporary accommodations U building would look at and and operating can't see my rest's my slide there sorry yeah so that would operate normally
078just didn't see the word normally under that um so that is the summary of the presentation again I mentioned I've got some folks that can answer more detailed questions that the board may have um but we are moving into the question phase okay go ahead it's Scott Dave I just wanted to get familiar on a couple things so does batty already have air conditioning batty does not have air conditioning right now so oday is the one that is partially air conditioned right now all right I couldn't remember and then um you were saying the Heating units at batty are nearing the end of life are we talking has one already died or the boiler I don't believe we've had any Heating units die we did have the boiler at Fort Collins die um recently um
079but no none of these have have died to the point where we're being reactionary to them we are looking at the data to be proactive to those ones that are anticipated a fail soon okay thank you other questions go ahead Jessica um on the previous slide you T you had something about temporary units and I just want to be clear that would be in the event that there is not really anything circulating air we would have to have something in place so it's not for the sake of putting AC it yes I think it's really to have air circulation that's another requirement that we have to have in our schools so so that would be part of it for sure perfect go ahead Jim I just want to say thanks to you and your team
080Dave for the work consolidating things together the the heating and the air conditioning work it sounds like we've really gained some efficiencies and brought this in well below the mckinstry estimates from way back so I compliments to you and your team for doing that yeah I'm glad you brought up the mckinstry data and that some of that some of that information that we had um we're going to do this on all these projects like we're not going to just take what was in the report we're going to actually challenge ourselves to say what opportunities do we have we're we're creating great relationships with um engineers and designers so that we can have those conversations and actually be very thoughtful about where we're going I would expect that there's going to be times like today where
081we're able to be Innovative and reuse some of the equipment that we already have so that we're not having to do a full install and and we might come in under some of those numbers in mckinstry I want to caution us that I suspect we'll get into more challenging projects that may exceed some of the mry estimates so I think we need to take them one at a time as we as we encounter them maybe not one at a time but as a group for air conditioning and then start to see okay what does each building need because it may be a little bit different as we move forward with it if we can reuse things so or reuse some of the systems that they already have that's that's always a way to save some
082money go ahead Kevin thanks Dave I appreciate it um this is perfect segue into what you were just talking about as far as the selection could you go into a little deeper about the criteria that you use to select OD and batty um and in in doing that I understand it was uh uh informed by mckinstry um the natural question I have is why were they selected and who's next and so is there any kind of timeline we could disseminate so we I mean we did have a conversation back in December so I'm going to kind of bring some of those topics back um when we when we selected these projects we had that very short window between November passing and being able to have projects stood up by summer of 25 we had already
083begun design work on rooftop units for both of these schools as well as boilers and so it was after the election that we went to those designs that were already underway and said hey what if we add air conditioning so that it was a unique situation where we were able to squeeze them in in a short period of time there needs to be a more detailed report that we're working on right now that will prioritize the rest of the schools and how we would go about that but this is this year is a little unique because we had that very short Runway and we're trying to get everything done and like we got designs we got engineering done we got contractors set up we think we have the equipment lined up I I mean it's
084looking okay right now but it's it's kind of a unique situation this year other questions go ahead Caroline so I'm I'm just wondering how all of these Renovations kind of fit into considerations in three years around um maybe in three years we have said we will revisit school consolidations or are putting schools together and so I wonder how selecting these schools if that was ever a consideration and when we decide to do this work like I mean do we want to pour money into schools that that might be in consideration for for um being Consolidated or moved or having extra things added or different things added to the buildings so I'm just wondering if if that was a consideration at all when you picked these projects so I Bri do you have any ideas I
085saw you were looking to I think one thing that I really appreciate the question I think one thing that's really important to State again to the community around our intentions is I I believe that we have tremendous facility needs for other creative Innovative type purposes in the school system where we need to continue to invest in the entire portfolio and so I think that's really really important whether it's early childhood we talked about Career Technical education there's all sorts of different opportunities that it is not our District's intention at least right now nor has you know and I don't know if that changes in the future but I think we have facility programs that we need to think differently about in the event space comes open so I think that's important we also as we
086looked at the mckinstry list and prioritized these projects they were already in design so I think as director havelda talked about the timing and how that came possible I think that's really important to note but we haven't stalled any projects in the event that a school in this District was named for any potential scenario that came up either from me in the fall of last year or from the steering committee last spring we thought it wouldn't be prudent to send any mixed signals to the community based on the social compact that we have continued to affirm and articulate baring any unforeseen circumstances at the state and federal level and I want us to play cautionary there because we're reading about those things on a day-to-day basis um but we have not changed the prioritization of
087any project if a school came up on any of those lists last year for consolidation or closure is there anything you want to add to that I I I think it's if the board wanted to direct us to think about that deeper that would be something we we'd need to do um I agree with what uh superintendent Kingsley said that as I reflect on the the conversations we had with the community um we talked a lot about that even if we were to consolidate or close a school we would not necessarily divest ourselves of that property and we like Brian said we would use it for probably other purposes but in order for that to be possible we would need to continue to maintain the facility go ahead car okay so thanks I I really
088appreciate that answer so I think what I'm hearing is is like these are going to be our buildings for the foreseeable future so any Investments we make in into them no matter what happens in the future it's it's a good investment for the district and that I think that this is a really important question to ask out loud so that our community can hear that too I mean if I was sitting out in the audience and we have been talking about school closures and about how we don't have money and then I see were investing in these schools I'd want to know why it's a fair question and I'm really glad that you asked it and that your assessment of our response is it's business as usual that these are buildings that we believe are
089going to be in our portfolio for a long time to come we understand that people will have questions whether they're part of the baty or a day Community or not um but I think talking about that in the sunshine and being transparent about that is good governance so thank you for asking the question go ahead Kevin I have a boring question but I think it's an important one um I'm looking I was looking for terminology when I was reviewing both contracts for change order process this might be an Autumn question might be a Dave question um but in the event and I was going with what you were talking about with tariffs and increasing costs if there is a change order that exceeds $250,000 my understanding is it would still need board approval so that
090would potentially slow things down too is that right I'm going to look for Autumn to correct me if I get out of line here um there is a policy policy Fe that talks about change orders and that policy what it what it says is that the change order can happen but it needs to be reported promptly to the board of education utumn and I are currently working on revising many of these policies that is one that we want to I think address a little bit okay other questions all right um I just want to say first of all Dave to you and your team thank you so much um I it's amazing how much we are able to um just even just check off here at the board meetings so I can't imagine the workload
091that you are experiencing at the moment I see Giggles out back there so thank you for having a sense of humor about it too I appreciate it but I think it's going to be wonderful it's going to be it's going to be great for our kids and it's going to be great for our buildings which will stay in our portfolio so I really do appreciate that question as well Carolyn um I think it's very important for people to know that these are ours um and they they will be treated as such um so thank you with for that y now I want to thank um PEC an engineering firm uh both uh Corey and Dan they they were here tonight in case we needed to get into the technical side um great team I mean
092we've got uh both an architect da modeling and and working with uh PC it's been really good and we're excited about these projects as we are so yeah thank you so I think with that Jill can you call the vote Jim brokish hi Kristen Draper hi Connor Duffy hi Kevin havalda hi Carolyn Reed hi Scott Shen Bower hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 70 all right thank you at this time we are actually before we move into 11.0 informational reports for policy governance update we are going to take a um 10-minute break uh so we'll be back here at little five past 8 or so hey Matt uh this is Matt I'm just checking to see if you can hear hear me can you hear me now Matt check check one to hey Matt um
093can you hear me Matt will you will you talk for us yeah hi oh there we go so you're not hearing us right test one two can you hear me Matt um let's see Matt can you hear me give me a thumbs up or thumbs down see Matt can you can you hear me check check one two yeah I can hear you okay if I do this can you hear me okay you can't hear me now okay uh stand by um I basically I want to can you hear us yeah he can't hear um I basically need to disable I'm going to leave I'm going to leave the as the boardroom and I'm going to go back in let's see Matt can you hear me check one two Matt can you hear me uh can
094you have him talk said no okay test for [Music] e e e check check one two check check one two okay for e e e so check test e e for testing hello good evening check check check all right you talking check check test test that Matt can you hear that I can yes okay cool that hey last question yep do you want us to show the presentation from here or do you want to share your screen uh let's not let's not give it another reason to to do so we can if you can share it that's fine okay we will do that all right thanks thank you all right so we are ready to go fantastic love this time all right welcome back it is 8:08 p.m. thank you for the um time away
095we needed to get some uh Tech issues settled and so uh that has been done thank you so much so we're going to move on to sorry 11.0 informational reports and discussion items and the first one is policy governance update so we would like to Welcome Matt Cook um who we're welcoming back he's the casby director of public policy and advocacy um and he is going to lead the discussion on um policy governance part two and uh role Clarity for us so Matt welcome yeah thank you all appreciate your patience well thank you for yours yes yep no good so uh we've got about an hourish and I know um we may go a little bit quicker depending on questions and discussion but um this is a follow on from the time we had together
096last November I think it was so uh we can go ahead and go to that next slide there we go so kind of my understanding is and this correct me uh board members if this is not uh what you all are hoping to talk about tonight but I thought uh we want to hear a little bit about board agendas uh efficient meetings how we are achieving the ends talk a little bit about board Communications uh certainly want to have any discussion or questions with you all uh that uh you know as the items come up so if you have questions as we're as we're going through this please feel free to to speak up and and we'll do those and uh we'll do that so that you don't have to wait till the end um
097so if we can go ahead and advance that next slide so as I said Matt Cook Colorado Association school board's the director of public policy and advocacy I served on the Aurora school board for eight years I was President for five years I was president of the casby board uh in 2013 and I did a course with um the Carver instit it's called government for impact now it used to be the international policy governance Association and so I'm certified in policy governance uh in full transparency when I was on the Aurora board we adopted policy governance uh the board has since moved to a different governance model after I left um so just so you all are aware a little bit of of what's going on there so uh the board agenda if we can
098go to that next one there um would like uh you know just ask a few questions you know how how do you feel how how do you all feel that uh the agenda is working for you are you accomplishing what you're you're trying to get to so policy governance uh really talks about achieving the ends and I've had a conversation with um several iterations of the pter school board around their end statements uh there's a lot in that end statement it's U it's multiple points and so it's always important I think uh if you have not looked at that recently um that you do that so that that's a big part of of kind of what we're doing so um the other piece of that is the end statement or if it's more appropriate or
099easier for you all to call it goals like I said is very broad you have a lot of things in there and while you certainly uh want to have those things uh as statements without some guidance to the superintendent it's really hard sometimes for the board to uh clearly communicate what it is that you all are trying to work on so in that end statement you know there may be every year one or two I would highly encourage you not to go more than three uh really items on that particular of that that you really want the superintendent to focus on so um a big part of that is kind of how I talk about it is that you should be able to review your ends every year uh you should be able to review
100all of your executive limitations every year and then in a two-year cycle you should be able to evaluate and review all of your other policies your your governance policies and then your board superintendent relationship policies as well so that's kind of how we look at that um the agenda is the the big piece of that so if we can go ahead and go to the next slide this is your G gp34 so this is what I say is no surprises so if you have things that you want to talk about at a board meeting it doesn't make sense to keep those to yourself right uh if there's an item on the agenda that you either would like to have more discussion on or you need more information uh I would encourage you to get that
101to the to the superintendent and the board president depending on how you all have traditionally done that you know at least with 24 hours ahead of time so that the superintendent staff can bring that forward and so this is your this is your policy and so um it can be easy for boards and it's not just a pter thing trust me uh boards to get into all kinds of of elements and items related to the agenda uh and get sidetracked and so um you can kind of see from your policy there that you all are a pass forward at some point uh had taken some time and and really put this in place so two questions uh and I would just like to have some discussion on how you all feel that the the agenda
102is working for you one I noticed on several of your policies some of them clearly have been updated recently and others do not have a date on them um do you all know if those policies have been reviewed recently and they just have not been updated with a date hey Matt this is Carolyn Reed um you know I've been here 10 years and I would say they have not been reviewed and updated not that I ever remember in the 10 years that I've been here um we there they are on our agenda for review but we've not taken any steps to update them and I would say especially with you mentioned um El executive limitation policies and I think that there's a huge opportunity there um to condense those and have less legal ease and
103make them less worthy but um yeah we haven't done that yet though but um I think that the board is aware that that needs to be done yeah and we do have a you know when I look at these the monitoring frequency is annual that we monitor them but the but the actual um polic revisions have it's been a long time since we've done revisions they're on the they're on they're always on the agenda on the schedule that they should be but they have not been revised that's correct yeah so I just want I just want to put it out there that we we are doing the the monitoring aspect of it but we have not done many revisions yeah and and a lot of times honestly uh your your policies are pretty comprehensive um
104you're not you know not every policy is going to require an update or or a review every every year um but I just think it's a good idea that as you go through that cycle and however you decide to do that just to throw those dates on there you have the board looked at this the board had a conversation and said this is a policy that still pertains to what we want to do um and from a a strictly policy governance framework that's really where Carver would say um after trying to achieve the ends or helping uh monitor those things the the policy piece is the is the most important thing because this is your communication to your community that this is how this board wants to operate and so if you're not uh doing
105those things and and updating them people may look at that and say well is that really the policy then or um yeah so questions thoughts on that anybody have any thoughts on that I mean I I do Wonder with the go like looking at the GPS the governance processes um you know look reviewing those as well um as those I'm not seeing that the monitoring um if that's an annual monitoring and yeah you know I and I I I I did go through several of your your policies and looked at it and it did sound like that the monitoring was really more the the reports coming from the superintendent on specific items items um as opposed to the board having you know two or three of these as you review them and and update and
106have this have discussions around that so um you know so like if you look at your GPS like the mission and the vision um the mission I'm pretty well sure is out of date um I don't think the mission of the pter school districts and I could be wrong educate every child every day yeah it is correct okay so the only thing I would say is if I if I don't know that and I look at it the date on that is September 11th of 2006 so it would you know as someone who would you know maybe look at that and then would say well guys does that mean they haven't looked at that that long um the other thing with mission statements and it just depends on you know boards sometimes are are bigger
107into mission statements and that but that can also Drive some of your work with the ends and the goals and then the same thing with the vision I think it had the similar date the vision of the pter school district is a pter school district exists to support and Inspire every child to think to learn to care and to graduate prepared to be successful in a changing world yeah and that is also correct okay and so that's great and so that one is easy then right so you all look at that and say um yep that's still our mission that's still our vision and then how that works is then you look at that and say how does that relate to our end statements so you have several things in there right exist to support
108Inspire every child well what does that look like right and how does the ends communicate that to certainly the superintendent so that he can direct his staff but also to your community right there's a lot in there um sometimes you know a mission statement may be a little more um I like to think of a vision statement as kind of the the broad overreach and then the the excuse me the vision is kind of that broad you know 30,000 View and then the mission is more of a tactical thing right so here's how we're going to do that so we say we're going to have every Inspire every child and then the mission statement will have things or tie it to your ends um related to that so and the reason I bring it up
109in this section is the only way you're going to set yourselves up to be able to do some of this is by moving pretty efficiently through some of the rest of the agenda items so I know you a consent agenda um Carver and policy governance would tell you that anything that you know there's a law that says the board has to vote on this or this is an item that clearly comes to the board uh that those are the kind of things that if you can deal with those quickly and efficiently with a consent agenda and knock out you know the vast majority of that and then dig into some of this policy work and and be able to do that to have the presentations to have the conversations with the superintendent on their monitoring
110reports to say you know this is what this is what we're looking at um what is the sense of the board on how efficient you all are with um things that are directly tied to board items so policy ends or goals monitoring of the superintendent so I'll just you know when you ask about efficiency I mean on the one hand we are you know doing what we need to do um is it quick no so what's your you know when you talk about being efficient um just help me out there what you're looking for because we while we are thorough I believe um I I don't know that I I I don't believe that we are terribly efficient okay so really it boils down to this you all are the final Arbiters of whatever the
111business on the agenda is it's your agenda certainly the superintendent and staff are going to help you plan and develop your agenda but you all are the ones that make that final decision to say these are the items we want to look at so when I when I when I speak about efficiency in my opinion every item on your agenda should be be able to be tied to part of the ends the goal what you all are trying to accomplish uh tied to a specific policy right or there's another reason for it to be there again that legal thing right so a contract the board has to have a conversation around uh has to vote on a particular contract right and so really when you look at that what we're trying to do is get
112all of that stuff that doesn't directly relate to so I'm looking at your end statement uh and your end statement has three different sections and several bullets underneath of all of that and at least from what's on your website um there's not a revision I know you have done this there's not a revision since August of 2015 so that's where I'm saying can we tie specific items and sometimes that happens right there may be a consent item so for instance there's there's a purchase of something and somebody has a question and so they may pull that item off the consent agenda but that's also where I'm talking about making sure you bring forward those things ahead of time so that the superintendent can have an answer for you on why bus tires were this much
113uh more or we did go through a competitive bid process this was the best bid that kind of thing so that you can have that answer that question answered quickly right the public gets to see you do that but you're still dealing with all those perfunctory things in one kind of vote so that you can dig into the bigger pieces the the policy conversations the goals the ends the work uh that the superintendent and their staff are doing it's easy and I understand that to get into the weed so to speak where you're digging into things um that may be important right uh but if you can't tie them to uh you know one of those items I would just encourage you to think about what kind of things are on your agenda right and
114if there's a lot of that kind of stuff where you're not really saying this conversation is helping us Advance part of our ends or our goals is it something that really the Board needs to spend a lot of time on and it there may be uh time the other thing I'll just say is that as we said here at 8:30 at night um you all have worked all day long most likely certainly your staff has worked all day long and I don't know how much more of an I I do know how much more of an agenda you have after this um and so the question is always are we being our the best use of our our own selves and our own time right because your staff then has to you know drive home
115and and and then wake up and come back in the morning and so you know when you have very long meetings or very complicated meetings or you have questions that you know they don't feel like they can address uh that can be stressful for folks so I would say that does that help at all yeah I mean I I I like to say no good decisions get made after 10 p.m. so you know trying to um to minimize that and and I do think that um you know looking at every item here whether it's tied to the ends or policy or it has to be on for legal um that's a that's a great way go ahead Jim I I was worried that we're being a little too hard on ourselves for efficiency I actually
116think that our leadership team does a really nice job with efficiency if I look at the meeting tonight I see consent agenda I see the building AC discussion that we had governance policy District ends and then we've got an executive session to discuss legal the only thing that I might throw off of that was the building air conditioning discussion but I thought that was a pretty good discussion so I don't know at least looking at tonight I feel like this is a pretty efficient meeting which is what I would expect us to be discussing sure and and I think to your point um there are times where it's important for the board just to have that information right uh you can't tie per se in a agac project right to accomplish in part of the
117ends or the goals but at the same time it wouldn't be good for the superintendent to just spring it on the board and say hey when we adjourn for the school year in May um we've got all this work on it you know going to be so uh you're right sometimes you can be too critical uh it just depends I mean I think you all started around five o'clock tonight is that correct 5:30 yeah so three hours into a meeting um you know rather it be a form and my question always is to what effect and if if it works for the board and you all are comfortable with how that going that's great continue to do that I would just ask you to to kind of think kind of bigger projects right and bigger
118piece and more importantly is the work that you're doing in those three or four hours or however much longer you have tonight is it leading to accomplishing the goals and and direction to the superintendent of the things that that you all have said publicly in your in your ends policies yeah and I and I think another point that you made Matt and I just want to reiterate it is um staff time I mean I know that we are all you know volunteering here and um after um jobs and and long days ourselves but we also have to remember that the staff has put in a long day and then as coming back to this meeting uh sometimes most of the time never leaving the office building they're eating dinner here and then staying for the
119entire meeting and and I will point to um our meeting two weeks ago that was not terribly efficient and ran till 11:45 p.m. um and we held the transportation folks here um until then and you know one of the things that I vowed to do next time on that one was uh Transportation folks go first there's absolutely if they have to be here at at a meeting they get to go first because they are the first ones up they're at 4:30 in the morning so um I think there's definitely some efficiencies to be gained um and I I think we we got better on this particular meeting so thank you for pointing that out Jo yeah go ahead Kevin sorry go ahead oh yeah please I'll go um I want to say I validate what
120what Jim said about not being too hard on ourselves uh the the only other thought I want to add to that is that I I think too as the board composition changes each iteration and I I'm a recent addition to the board my understanding at least is that so too does the dynamic of the board itself and I think we have to honor that and kind of take a self look at what kind of leadership team we've got and who are the personalities and um you know what the level of scrutiny is for different topics right and so I think to your point too president Draper I think last I would I would respectfully disagree with its characterization being inefficient I think it was thorough um I think that when and part of this and
121I got a point about consent is that we have a lot of items on consent and you know when I see that initially I think well it's a lot of work to get through to get to a point where it's a yay vote for all of it right and so I think there are some times where it's appropriate to rescrutiny pulled between Scott and I three items from consent and I think that was an important conversation to have so I I one musing that I had is I I like the idea of putting the more Community focused Community Centric presentations things up front like we've been doing um I wonder if we could do that with informational sessions as well and move consent to the end right because um I'm just trying to think of
122some some efficiency gains we could do um I mean I think we need to do I think we also need to be more not more but I think we need to continue to be thoughtful about the use of dinner sessions as well um that is an audience for a group or people or us to use it a very important issue um but I wonder about the timing of that too um and I do know this is a difficult discussion every time but if there's an executive session after a really long session I know for I'm not always at my best at 11 o'clock at night after full work day so I just wonder if there's some things we could tweak to the agenda as far as reordering that may have made it more efficient so
123I I would just say two things real quick you are 100% correct that the board as it's currently constituted needs to agree that this is how we're going to operate and that's your boards and that's your policy and so when you haven't done some of those reviews when you haven't had those conversations that makes that a little more difficult the other thing I would say is you absolutely want to start having an eye towards November I don't know how many seats are going to be up off the top of my head um but I know there is going to be some turnover and so when that new board is elected and seated I would encourage you to do very quickly St down as a board superintendent leadership team and have a conversation is this still
124an appropriate way for us to operate is this how this board as it is constituted now wants to operate because again those Norms those agreements your policies those are all the things the rules that you all have agreed to follow and so uh it's important that everybody understands that and then real quick on the consent thing I agree consent agendas could be very long and there could be items that the board might not feel um are appropriate on a consent agenda my suggestion would just be to voice that ahead of time here's my concern right so that everyone is understanding kind of what kind of conversations we're going to have right so I I plan to ask to have consent item X Y and Z pulled from the agenda and I would like a th
125more thorough conversation and here's the things I would like to understand provide that ahead of time so that superintendent and staff can bring that information to give you the response because minus that you spent a lot of time you may not have got gotten the information you needed as quickly as it could have been and the superintendent and staff may feel you know uh that they weren't able to provide what the board is asking so just questions to keep in your mind real quick Matt we did that we're doing that give ourselves a little bit of credit we are anticipating at least flagging things that were likely be pulled so that we can have a more thorough mini presentation Etc so I appreciate superintendent Kingsley and his staff for um accommodating that yeah no that's
126awesome the thing I I just wanted to ask I noticed that you all do resolutions as well um what is that just a a traditional thing is there a reason for that yeah it's a traditional thing that we we've been doing for yeah for 10 years anyways Carolyn's um saying um and it's a it's actually a very nice way to get our community engaged um we often have um we try and limit it to 3 minutes but we often have student speakers um speaking to the resolutions um so it's a it's a way to to be able to bring the community into the boardroom and share what they've either learned or um are learning about um or what they've experienced so that the board uh can understand different perspectives so those aren't really resolutions then
127that require action we do vote on them so but we do not read the resolution no no no I meant the resolution isn't saying you know we're going to have um a particular item sometimes boards will do a resolution right uh in support of a particular thing and minus it being part of your ends right or your goals or your policy um sometimes those resolutions kind of go just into the file and nobody really looks at them again right and then a year later the community comes back and say Hey you passed a resolution that we were going to do x what happened that and that was really my question if they're more like honorary kind of things like you know yeah like tonight's tonight's was women's History Month um okay yeah so it's it's
128that type of thing okay okay good I much honorary and I can never remember one not being approved sure sure yeah no and that that makes a lot of sense so Carolyn I think you had a question right well I kind of a question maybe and a comment I guess and I think that it would be better our time would be better spent having highlevel policy conversations here in the room in front of the community instead of like I don't want to call it the dog and pony show but it's sometimes feels like that and I think that our community would probably be more interested in policy conversations and I also think that our meetings going really late is a problem because after 10:00 nothing nothing good happens so I think that it might be
129a good idea if we um put time limits on on when we get our agenda like you know from 8 to 8:05 Brian's going to do his comment from from 810 to 8:15 is going to be you know uh the resolution is going to be read and somebody's going to say something and then and then really make an effort to stick to our schedule because um for some of us up here who have to get up tomorrow and go do very important things we we need a good night's sleep I mean some people are up all night with six children and so I think that um being more cognizant of how long our meetings are going needs to be a priority going forward it's not um it's not logical to expect volunteers to sit up
130here till 1 or two in the morning I have been in a board meeting before that lasted till 2: a.m. and staff should not have to stay here for that kind of stuff like if we really want to respect people's time we need to get more efficient and uh we I agree with you Matt that as much as we can put on consent we need to and and then like I said I'd like to see us having some policy conversations up here in front of the public I think that's the things that are that the public wants to hear really just one idea off Carolyn's if you look at um I think it's uh city of Loveland City Council meetings they actually have a time stamp of when things are going to be discussed and
131the other it's not just the timing so that we can stick to that but I also like the level of transparency that gives to our community because if some people are wanting to come for this presentation now again we may change the order on the fly as we've we've done but I think that at least lets it it respects people's time more that want to come for a limited conversation or not the entire meeting and have to wait it out and decide when we're going to talk about something as an idea that's good yeah and that's a you know I personally am a big fan of that I I will tell you that if you traditionally have not done that and then you have people that come to present and they see that time limit
132for the first time they're like oh well we always get an hour and the board then says well you now have 20 minutes right so you want to communicate that and socialize it and and get people used to it um but I agree with you 100% people generally like it more uh because they they know when they're you know approximately going to be on the calendar they know how much time they have it helps them kind of narrow uh the presentation and the information that they're going to bring and I will tell you that a lot of boards you know again norms and agreements uh and you all are the final Arbiters and how you want to operate but there are a number of boards that have agreements that after three hours four hours uh
133the board will take a vote do we want to continue tonight right um and um that you know also kind of helps people keep in mind um you know and I'm not saying this is the case here but if you are consistently going six seven hours at a time for a board meeting my first question is always why and and that's really that that idea around are are you accomplishing the work that you feel like you need to do with that amount of time and if you are and that's great and you can make it work that's fine but if you're not that's where that conversation needs to come in what is it that we have on the agenda and then does it really you know is it serving our our needs and our purpose
134so not to beat a dead horse because we've had I think I've heard some good good conversation so okay Scott you had a question right U yeah I just I wanted to reiterate I really like that idea of a time stamp um I think that was one of the things as a new board member last year I always felt bad for the community that was sticking around till 10 o'clock until they could finally hear what they were really there uh for so I think that would just show respect for the community um I really like that and then Matt I do appreciate your thought to warn speakers that their um their time that they may have had in the past is is going to change and with that in mind you only have five minutes
135so get on it right yeah and again um the first couple times you do it you you may have to remind folks but um you know you all are the final Arbiters so we can actually just go through the next couple slides pretty quick we talked about the no surprises um and and then the next one is kind of some just best practices this is your consent agenda and these are just kind of you know things you can have in the back back of your mind and the these are really right from John Carver right from the book uh does the board have to act on that item that is one a lot of times that boards struggle with because I don't care how large your organization is if it's 150 students uh or if
136it's 90,000 um the size of the organization there are always things that you as board members may not be aware of um and so when you when you look at that is it something the board really has to have on the agenda and sometimes there's a legal answer and the answer is yes uh but if it doesn't then that's one n you can look at has the board delegated that decision to the superintendent has the board said okay Mr superintendant um yes we want the buses to have good tires and uh we have policy place I think your limit is about $250,000 uh in the allocated budget if it's above that the superintendent's got to come back but if you delegated this the decision to the superintendent then that's going to come back to you
137in a monitoring report right where he's going to say the board told me to to run an efficient Transportation uh operation for example um and here's the evidence that that is happening right and then those items that are sometimes appropriate or not appropriate for consent agenda so we're heading into the spring season when we may be non-renewing teachers probationary teachers um some boards put that on a consent agenda some boards do not right and and it just kind of depends on on your community how your board wants to operate so those are just some things kind of as as ticklers that uh might help with the consent calendar a little bit any questions or thoughts on any of that I feel like we've got the consent pretty pretty D down okay good so we can
138go ahead and go down then um so again just to iterate on the agenda items um does the agenda item help the board achieve their goals or their ends so again I'm looking at your your goals and your ends and hopefully you all have said to the superintendent you know this is the thing that we're we really want you to focus on so for example your NS 1.1.1 uh students demonstrate levels of achievement and learning skills and content knowledge consistent with high expectations across all academic in areas in the Colorado academic standards and then you list dance drama Comprehensive Health and physical education English language mathematics music on and on and on right so that's that's a a a case where the board is saying all of these things are important right but there may
139be a point where the board says you know what the Reading Writing and communicating is really an emphasis for us and Mr superintendent we really would like you uh to make that an area of emphasis right or perhaps there's a fiscal uh issue that the board really wants to to focus on so that's where the board would go through look at those end statements um and then um bring those back to the superintendent on the things that you're going to evaluate him on right um you've got a 1.1.2 students successfully manage transitions that is a really big statement are we talking about transition from elementary to secondary uh postgrad graduate uh from different programs what does that mean right because you could put a lot of things under that so that's really where uh to
140the point I was trying to make earlier when you're having those conversations and you're having a conversation about a particular program can you tie that back to something that you've asked the superintendent clearly um to to do those things the other thing I would say real quick is is are you doing some self-evaluation and is the board occasionally stepping back and looking at all the work we're doing and is it the appropriate work is it the work that the board wants to do um I think I shared this with you last time but a real simple question you can ask yourself is is did the board hear an item tonight or information tonight that required a new policy a revision of a policy or something that you'd like to have on a future agenda right
141and so that little bit of just self evaluation at the end of the meeting and you can rotate that have one member kind of keep track of that another one is did we follow the agenda did we feel like the conversations were um advancing the discussion right and those are some other things so I just encourage you to talk about that on how you all again how you all want to operate and and think about those things questions thoughts on that oh yeah just one one um Brian's going to speak in just a moment um but I just wanted to um ask you Matt the self- evaluation form that you had sent um me could you send that to me again I I was on the casby website today and it looks like it's changed
142quite a bit um and I could not find it again so we we just launched a new website and we're kind of in the process of finding out where all the links are again so yeah because one of the things um I know uh you all had asked about was a self- evaluation instrument and we have a really good tool it's about about 50ish questions on a number of areas and it really just provides you a baseline uh and so yeah absolutely I can fill that out and I know if the board would be interested in doing that um we could do that we could set that up for you just to see what that data looks like yeah because I think we very much would like to do that um and so if it
143could be sent out to all of us um for us to to to go ahead and use and then we would fill that out and have a discussion amongst ourselves and also send it to you at casby for an evaluation is that how that would proceed yeah it's an online instrument we use qual treks and so we get all of those responses back uh we put it through the the the the process the software and then uh it prints out we do two things we actually can print out a very nice booklet for you and then we also make that data available and I always think it's helpful lesie bogar our Deputy executive director is really dynamite in this area um she would be very good to work with you and just go through that
144evaluation and and and say you know here's what a majority of the board said because really what you're looking for is pockets of agreement or disagreement right uh so the board really feels like they've got vision mission planning going right uh or if it's all over the place like if five people had five different answers that's something that just highlights what is it that we don't all understand or agree upon so yeah 100% great thank you and Brian you had a question it's really more than just a a reflection I think as I'm listening to the conversation and Matt I want to thank you for joining us as a governance team here tonight I think as Matt articulated early on these four areas of policy our ends goals in monitoring the me as the super
145intendent I think one of the greatest strengths of the governance team is the role and the level of dedication that you collectively take to monitoring right so when you think about the executive limitations being brought the interpretation the background the review that's happening on an annual cycle in a few minutes we're going to have a very detail oriented conversation about our district ends our outcomes and an alignment to our really ambitious goals that we have as a high- performing District done it so I think and the level of detail that we get from Dr Schmid's and the relative team I think is we're an outlier as a district in that particular space and I do and I know I know I'm biased but I do think you have a very robust evaluation process for me
146as the superintendent that's outlined both in my contract and in policy I think the area where I think we have to find some balance is in the midst of the monitoring how do we also find ways and time that's not more time to dedicate a policy revision to ask ourselves do we want to continue to operate this way I think one of those things that like sitting here on the de and talking about policies and this has existed for five years 10 years and us having I think you know as director Reed articulated like is that some things that we want to continue to do in that manner I think that's the area that I have as a noticing that I don't know if we have a rhythm or a Cadence to just yet but
147I feel as a result of this conversation it's it's it's it's an aspiration that I think you all have to find a way to achieve that and I look forward to partnering with you on it I appreciate that Bri one of the thoughts that I had especially with this conversation is that I think acknowledging the human element I'm tired um I know you guys are tired I know there's a lot of tired faces and looking around but a lot of times I feel like in our discussions sometimes we have the itch to kick the important down the road to address the Urgent and with a school district our size with complex problems and the issues that we confront on a daily weekly monthly yearly basis these kind of conversations get kicked down the road so
148it feels a lot like one I'm at work and we have a meeting and we talk about work and then the work afterwards is kind of a question as to when it's going to get done so one idea I had was and maybe we can fold this in with the three new directors that are going to come our way in November is to use part of our um uh uh lack of better no not dinner session our Bo like norming and forming stage a retreat there you go sorry it's late um and maybe we can have we we have we have a cluster of policies that are assigned to each board member and to do a deep dive and review and have an hour hour and a half discussion in which they say you know
149we we defer to that board member and we say you've looked at these policies again um do you think they need revision do you think we can execute these better Etc and just have an open conversation then and then if there are suggested changes for forevis language I I think it has to go for a first reading and second reading so to at least propose some red lines or some changes at that time um so that way people are in charge for a cluster not all because I I I do feel that we're going to talk about this and then the lack of action to your point Brian is yeah it's gonna be hard go ahead Caroline and I think you bring up a good point which I was just getting ready to say is
150a lot of this work should be happening in committees you know we should assign a governance committee some of this work you know and and break it down to small pieces and attack it um that work I don't think should be really happening here right like we want to have the high level policy conversations here we don't want to be doing this tedious kind of work here in public this is work that can be done by a governance committee yeah agreed with that yeah and the the only thing I'll say about committees is you want to be really clear and it's easy with a board committee um that they have a clear understanding of the scope of the work and that even if they put a lot of time and effort into that whatever recommendation
151they bring forward even if it is a board committee it's up to the full board to adopt that right and that happens occasionally right you charge your committee and say okay we want you to go out and and gather information about the the physical plant the facilities right and then that committee goes out and does all the work and comes back and says yep we we need a brand new football field and the board says oh gosh I was thinking we really needed a science build building right and so now that committee feels like oh we put in all this time and effort and they didn't listen to us and now the board still doesn't have the information then it needs to make a good decision so just give them a clear scope make sure
152that they understand that the The Authority rests with the the final adoption by the whole board um and then really give them clear guidance on what it is that you're looking to do close the loop on that Jess reminded me that the uh policy revision committee is comprised of autumn Jess and myself and so as a as a member of that committee I'm going to Red delegate a portion of those revisions to other members um that are not brand new members to the board but we will um see how that worked you you try to punt the work back to me and I'm kicking it right back um but I appreciate that I think there's there's a way that Autumn and Jess and I can maybe divvy this up and assign it yeah that sounds
153good um so if we can go to the next slide real quick I think you all know uh the the other piece of I I heard that you were interested in was was board communication um you all understand executive session I just include this as a as an update um I just talked to a board member this week that the lawyer who has visited several school districts uh bringing lawsuits related to open meetings and executive session just filed a couple more complaints this week so he is out there um always want just encourage you to be one check with your lawyers make sure you're doing that uh the one policy that I would really encourage you to do after you speak to your councel is the board should have a policy or the district have
154a policy that those executive session recordings uh the law says 90 days if you don't have a policy though that says those recordings are destroyed in the appropriate legal manner after the 90th day if they still exist the courts have said in the past and a couple boards have gotten this have been sued on this that because the record exists it now is available to be to be brought in so uh those are just the two things I would say real quick on Executive session any questions or thoughts I'm not a lawyer but I I know enough to be get myself in trouble probably I think we're I think we're okay on um exact sessions too good yeah okay next one would be the we can go to that next slide then kind of board
155communication um I get the sense that you all are comfortable doing this what people what talk about uh I just talked to a board last week uh one of your fellow boards up in the north there they said you know how is it that we have these conversations right that sometimes are are not easy um because everything has to be in public and I I I told him that second bullet there you really just have to become comfortable doing your business in public right and having those conversations uh the law says there's very few things that you can do in executive session behind the veil so to speak the rest of the time you comfortable having those conversations in public and so that could be your meal time right that's actually still a public meeting
156people could come and watch you eat your salad and and listen to that conversation if you wanted to um the norms and agreements on communication can be very helpful as well uh just in you know so that everybody understands that we want to hear from everybody you know the one rule the one question rule sometimes can be helpful um I don't get the sense that you all have issues with or two board members kind of dominating uh the time but uh there are things uh you can do that and then that last piece is really how how will you make your your board sustainable the pter school district for a long time um has had a a a history of of good board members good governance uh being a successful School District that doesn't just
157happen right there's some work certainly by you all as the board members and and your community helping you will understand how we're going to make that board sustainable so that when those three folks are elected in November they don't just show up right and feel like oh my gosh I I I have so much to learn I mean they will have a lot to learn but how are we onboarding them how we bring them into the district you know how are we helping them understand that what they think the board's role is and what it really is sometimes are different things um so uh questions just in kind of in General on Communications or or issues that you all are um having struggles with or anything I think one of the things that we've done
158well is um we've sort of gone through the norming and storming phase we brought in a facilitator um right at the beginning of um onboarding new members um and so we have um various statements that we use um and and Norms to follow so I think that was helpful um I think that would be helpful to continue to do with uh new more sorry new board members coming on with the inclusion of policy governance so that there's some understanding um not only what is expected as a team member but what is expected as somebody who is um doing policy governance so sometimes those things you know as a as a team member you want to be able to um always you know state how you're feeling and then you have to realize as a policy
159governance member you're doing that in public and so how does you know how do those two jive with each other yeah and that honestly is one of the things that new board members one they they they express how they didn't realize how large the job was and then two was how do I how do I get this work done how am I communicating with the superintendent how am I communicating with my fellow board members so now is the time to be planning that onboarding right um certainly I I hope that you while when folks come to pick up those packets in August you're saying you know here's the here's the date and if you're s you're seated the casby convention right is that first uh this week this year we're a little bit later we're
160the second week in December but that would be a great thing for you to be able to attend um we're going to have a onboarding retreat on this date so make sure that you know as you're thinking about do you really want to run for this job that those dates are available and then the other thing I would just say real quick is once that new board is elected seated that's the board that now has the authority to say okay here's how we want to operate right so everything passports have done is great and it and a lot of times it doesn't change very much but you might very well have a new board come in and say you know what I don't think policy governance is the best way to do this work uh
161and what else is out there or they may say I don't understand it and then how you know certainly casby could help you know do a preview or or some of that but that onboard piece is so important because as you all know the the the pace of work doesn't really stop just because you're a new board member uh it just sometimes I mean it just keeps rolling and that sometimes makes those newly elected folks really feel like a what did I sign up for okay other questions comments thoughts anybody have anything Ian how are you all feeling I mean I kind of jumped in on there as far as the teamwork building and stuff but how are you all feeling on that part I don't know I feel a very close and congenial what's
162the right word relationship with all of the board members and I think that makes it and I I think we all feel that and I think that makes it easy for us to have hard discussions so I I'm pretty uh I'm very comfortable with the communication part of our board I thought the uh the team building uh sessions you put in place were fantastic and really helped with that and have a you know a good casual conversation but really productive as well so I appreciate you doing that Kristen yeah I think if we can combine it with some policy governance so that we have that solid foundation of what we're building on on it would have been that much better um so that we can take that for the next time yeah I agree I
163really like it I think that we need to sometimes take the break and I think this says we need to pump the breakes on our agenda and spend the time thinking about how we're going to do the work not just doing the work and I think that's the Temptation sometimes I feel somewhat distant from this and so it's nice to have the physical copy reminder here but I think that being very intentional with how we want to approach the work that's ahead of us and so I think the natural thought is when we have a new board composition there should be a retreat of some sort where we can do this work and also think examine be very thoughtful about how we want to conduct the business of the board and the governance team in
164the next calendar year and so Matt I don't know if you can see but we have um in front of us laminated um pieces of paper that basically remind us of our Retreat um and that we had agreed to the following actions um in this case it says for the next 3 months but it's actually been longer than that um and you know a good part of that is things like we do uh we had written that we were able to pump the brakes about um agenda and that um and um it's okay to ask for help those kinds of things I think it's just you know when you get into the work and when so much is being thrown at you on a daily basis um it's it's hard to recall that it's hard
165to remember and you just feel like you have to get everything done and I think Kevin you said it the the Urgent then gets replaced with sometimes uh with the important sorry the important gets replaced with the Urgent yeah so and it's just a good reminder for us to to keep doing this yeah and and I would applaud you all for doing that right because there's a certain level of self-awareness to say okay we do need to take a breath here and figure out a better way to do this some boards will just continue to barrel down that road of you know taking votes and going to meetings and and then then you know they get to the end of their term and they they come and they ask me you know they'll say I'm
166not really sure we did anything in my first four years and like you know and my my question is always well what evidence have you seen what kind of conversations what kind of things have you done so I I do applaud you all for that because a lot of boards I shouldn't say a lot some boards are not taking the time to do that and to me that's that's the big question really you know you can fill your your life with a lot of busy work but is it meaningful and impactful so all right well I think given our discussions about time allotment your time is up yeah so just real quick we go to that last slide I think you all have it uh that's my cell phone uh number um and my email
167if there are ever any questions or concerns anything else you all are interested in please let me know and uh we are always available here and um let us know thank you so much mad this is greatly appreciated um I know that we've all enjoyed having you um come back we had you in November coming back now it's been great um and Y just look forward to um getting those self- evaluations and we will uh talk to you later all right sounds good have a good evening folks thank you you too okay well thank you everybody we are now going to go on to um 12 action items 12.1 monitoring report policy review de1 General District ends this is part two and so we will need a motion on this one anybody I move that
168the board determine that the superintendent has reasonably interpreted Board of Education policy de 1.0 in his internal monitoring report dated March 11th 2025 and that the evidence presented supports the superintendent's conclusions stated in the internal monitoring report can I get a second thank you Jessica all right and so now we have a special guest yes we have our chief institutional Effectiveness officer Dr Dwayne schintz is here to present part two of the de 1.0 monitoring report welcome Dwayne thank you hello president Draper directors and superintendent Kingsley hey so part two monitoring report this kind of sounds a little interesting to me standing here maybe I'll Stand Back just a little bit hey I want to on the tail end of that conversation I just want to tell the board you guys are a great Board
169of Education and you are and you have been effective the last a couple weeks ago on the 25th we looked at quite a few data points that we can see that achievement and that growth we can see those graduation rates have gone up we see things have changed and and they've changed for the better and we navigate big issues and we continue to have great outcomes we can be proud of and so I'm serious when I say I really do feel like you're a high functioning board and I feel like we have a fantastic system we can all be proud of and there's always room for improvement and more work but there you go I want to say real quickly too it's a great honor just to be the person that gets to stand here
170and speak to the data points we'll talk about tonight and the de 1.0 monitoring report um part two it's 5 minutes after 9: I'll Endeavor to do this in about 20 minutes or less and I think that's reasonable maybe it's 15 20 and uh then we'll open up for Q&A sound good okay so um we you guys know what the routine is that we're here for I do just want to mention that as we walk through looking at the district ends um reminding the audience that we did go through the means part of this conversation on the 25th when we had the Strategic plan the uip presentation that's the means and part one of the ends and now tonight is part two of the ends is very much focused on outcome data not as much
171of a conversation on how we got the outcome data but those two pieces dance together and that's true in our school Improvement plans as well as our district Improvement planning processes so just reminding the viewing audience this is the ends that we were just talking about for policy governance we review the ends how did we do in attaining our Visionary um outcomes that we're going out after okay so tonight uh foundations for success is grade out that is a big section that is what part one was all about ran through everything achievement and growth connections data was in there mental health and wellness data was in there graduation rates post-secondary outcomes that was a lot of information so tonight we're switching to the other three big District ends in De 1.0 which is connections success
172in a changing world and above and beyond as we um go through these different pieces I want to invite the board to look for the presence of partnership because these are our communities outcomes right the school district is a major partner in that work but so are so many others um and so throughout the report I'll try to make those uh kind of connections for us around partnership and how that's serving us well okay Student Connection survey uh we have eight years now of consistent data that's a celebration and of itself and thank you Board of Education because it was the board of education at the time that pushed to say we should be measuring student connections how do we do that and we started that work and we've been doing it consistently for the
173past eight years U what we see is increasing response rates and the highest level that we've had um in the actual composite score for student connections and so both of those are a celebration the reason the high response rate is a celebration is because this survey is delivered in schools to students while they're at school um grades 4 through 12 okay and yet uh students get to choose parents choose whether they will participate you know whether the students will participate in the survey and so on so the response rates go up when people see value in the data usually and so getting a a response rate as high as 81.1% is quite good okay so why why are the high response rates and the high connections outcome on that composite score so important the reason
174is that there's very clear evidence and PSD data over these years that there's a positive association between students who feel connected and indicate that to us on this self report you know tool that we have and those students attendance rates achievement rates and discipline rates everything moves in the right direction when students feel connected to their peers to their interest and passions and to the adults while they're in school and our data couldn't be clearer on that point and so I just want to be super clear when I have this um slide up here positive associations with connections what we mean by positive associations is as one thing increases the other thing's moving in the right direction like the direction we wanted to and that's what we mean we're not saying causation we're just it's
175an association but it's clear as Crystal eight out of eight years okay so this is one of the reasons we care about Connections it buys us a lot when students feel connected at school you can see that um trend line uh showing that nice increase in the last couple years from 83.8% to 84.2% to 84.8% and those are the three years we're seeing those higher graduation rates and that we saw those higher um Elementary and yeah literacy rates as well like lots of things moving in the right direction okay the increases we see in the most recent um connection survey are really driven by that one specific subscale that climbed the most which is the students connection to their interest and passions the other two big subscales the student to their peers and the student
176to their to adults connections have been high and relatively stable across U multiple years the the lowest subscale being scored over these several years has been to interest and passions but we've seen that decline consistently over these last several years which is good that's a that's something that we're looking for so to put some visuals and some data behind that we can see that the connections across the whole survey you know of the grade levels I mentioned for students to their interest and passions climb from a agreement percentage of 68% to an agreement percentage of 77% so that is a um substantial 9 percentile unit growth over the uh five years I just want to mention real quick that the pictures that were selected to kind of show some of our students doing interesting things
177there as just an example of students getting connected to the interests and passions that top picture um really has three of our Fort Fossil Ridge High School students in it and they are participating in broadcom's apprenticeship program and this was all this data is from 2324 just reminding the board that's the moning report is looking back at last year's data and these students are both learning and they're earning money through this apprenticeship program in this highly competitive semiconductor industry so these are the kind of Partnerships remember when I said there's a theme through this of Partnerships PSD cannot do this alone we have industry Partners many many industry partners that sign up and help us run all kinds of things like internships and apprenticeships work-based learning experiences and so on and so this is just
178an example of that the lower picture is a a student from pter High School Who's involved in the automotive program and um this student uh was quoted when we did an article with him on saying I'm not really planning on this for my career but it's a nice set of skills to have in my back pocket and I've probably said this to the board before but I just want to reiterate it one more time because the auto program is one of our most highly sought-after programs in this space and we're continuing to work hard to expand those opportunities for kids in our district and my personal story is that I also was lucky enough to go through a good auto program in high school I was able to be an a motorcycle mechanic assistant at
179three different motorcycle shops in my junior senior year and into college and so really truthfully these types of experiences helped Dwayne schmidtz pay for because I came from a family that didn't have the money for college so like the student that were kind of um highlighting here it was a nice thing to have in my back pocket I didn't think I'd ever be a professional mechanic for my whole career but I certainly realized it would both one help me earn money while I was going to college and building my skills in that space and two I have saved unimaginable amounts of money doing my own work on my own cars and motorcycles and things all thankfully due to bin high school and that fantastic auto program so we're really committed to that as a school
180district providing as many kids as we can those kind of opportunities and we will continue that work okay just like with um achievement data and growth data we talked about on the 25th we have a lot to celebrate and we fully acknowledge that we have differences and outcomes across different student groups right for uh commonly those are called gaps out in the world and we have a big push in our strategic plan we talked about with disrupting disproportionality well in the connections world one place to see what I will call a gap is we ask students a really important question Middle School into high school we ask them a simple question do they think they're going to graduate from high school and and there's a big difference on how um students are reporting feel feeling
181connected to their interest and passions when you break down their outcomes across these two different uh outcomes that they answer on a different item which is do you think you're going to graduate students who indicate they expect to graduate from high school um are substantially higher like 80% in the 2000 fall of 2024 more likely to indicate that they're um connected with their interest and passions well it's school students who indicate they're not sure if they're going to graduate they're indicating about a 57% of them are feeling connected to their interest and passions at school that is a big difference that's like 23 I think uh doing the math in my head that's a 23 percentile unit Gap and so I think here's the here's the concept we're not talking causation but we definitely can't
182argue there's an association there right and I think the theory of action would go something like this if we can provide more opportunities for more students to feel connected to their interest and passions while at school we believe that this Association would would indicate that students are more likely to believe they are going to graduate from high school they're going to graduate with options and that they're excited to move on to whatever it is they're moving on to It's A Simple Theory of action but that's why we're putting a lot of time and energy behind so many different things in the Strategic plan in the uip to make sure students and Families are aware of all the opportunities kids have in prer school district to pursue their interest and passions while in school okay one
183thing we track is the percentage of students that find IAP IAP stands for the individual career and academic plan we track the percentage of students who um find IAP useful and the platform that we develop or sorry that we deliver IAP with is called Zell so that's the platform we deliver it with and then the thing itself is IAP we track both of those are they useful for their purpose we ask students this on the connection survey every year I'm happy to report that that's been a consistently increasing percentage of students who indicate that IAP as a process and zel as a platform for delivery are meeting are good for their purpose that's an increasing percentage we still have more work to do there okay well what is exactly an IAP um so real quickly
184just these bullet points help us remember like what do we mean when we say an individual career and academic Plan and there's a reason that we're slowing down and talking about this a little bit and I think I'll hit that real quick state law has changed a little bit and the state is putting a little more emphasis for the districts on individual career and academic plans and that's a good thing and as a um result of that a lots of districts around the state are revisiting and revising and wondering like how are we delivering that important process right at the same time the state is changing the school performance Frameworks and the district performance Frameworks in the near future so they're going to take some of the um sat type PSAT sat data that's currently
185in that key performance indic indicator for um um work um work-based learning not sorry not work based learning um postsecondary Readiness and they're moving those to the achievement key performance indicator and what they're one of the things they're looking at putting in its place is IAP completion IAP progress they're still working it out a little bit the good news is that's going to show up in places in our accountability Cycles that's a good thing um we are very proud of what we have built and how we deliver it because of these important bullet points building resumés creating four-year High School course plans right to explore options while you can in high school taking career skills and personality assessments um researching and applying for colleges for those students who want to go to college right identify
186and research in demand careers like living wage high quality careers so kids can learn more students can learn more finding local scholarships which are super important for lots of our young people that do want to go to college or trade schools um and find job shadow opportunities internships and apprenticeships so this is what icap's all about it's helping this in a formalized kind of a way in explicit way helping students paint the picture of like graduating with options perfectly in alignment with one of our big priorities okay success in a changing world so let's look at some indicators of success in a changing world for this district end we've picked um several things that we tend to look at and Report out on in the past we've had some really nice Statewide comparable data between
187ourselves the state and our comparison districts I reported on the 25th out to the Board of Education that the state has um has stopped updating some of those data reports that we were finding a lot of value in those were the data reports that were letting us know with Clarity that we had um really fantastic post-secondary Workforce type of outcomes we had uh more students going to college they had higher first year GPA they had lower remediation rates they had higher percentages of matriculating to their second year they had higher percentages of successfully completing a a bachelor's degree in four years like all these and that's all through these monitor reports over the past years you can see all that data and so uh PSD is a state leader in that space one of the
188other things that we looked at um for the postsecondary career connected learning kind of information was our CTE rates like how many students are involved in C CTE course courses how many students are um involved in concurrent enrollment so they're getting college credits while they're still high school students right and as we looked at that compared to the state and other districts once again we saw that we were state leaders we were big leaders in that space right well that state data has gone away but we know that we have increasing percentages of students engaging in these opportunities successfully um but we had to switch to local data which I thought I had right here and I don't that's interesting okay um I'm going to read off a little bit of information real quick that
189I thought I had on a screen but it's um we have a 99.6% percentage unit increase over the last three years in the percent of students 9 through 12 who are participating in concurrent enrollment courses so it's a 99.3% and it's a real steady increase it went from 31.6% to 34.8 to 41.2 now those percentages you're hearing feel lower than those State numbers we were looking at because the State numbers we're looking only at the graduating class the numbers I'm reading off to you right now in that are in the monitoring report which you all have those are 9 through 12th grade student all of our n9th through 12th grade those that's what the percentage relates to right the important Point here is that it's an increasing percentage each year which is an alignment with
190what we just talked about that our big uh push is to create more opportunities for more students towards graduating with options the other data point I just want to read off real quick is the percentage of PSD students grades 9 through 12 that are enrolled in career teched um sorry um the first one was concurrent enrollment and this one's career teched enrollment data and that's a 7.1% unit increase over the last three years and also had a nice progression up from 42.1% to 42.3% to 49.2% so that's um just consistent increases grades 9 through 12 I had to check myself on the concurrent enrollment numbers because we do have ninth graders getting concurrent enrollment credit isn't that awesome we have ninth graders getting college credit in courses I I honestly thought that was kind of
191surprising I bet a lot of our public doesn't expect that that would be true okay so what are some of the um on-ramps to getting these types of opportun ities well um just real quick you know we've got the ascent program which is under threat um from the billion dollar uh shortfall at the state funding and so just a quick update on that we still are waiting to hear if they're going to fund or kind of um Step us back slowly out of the ascent program but it's a great program where kids can get a a college year a free year of college following their senior year under certain conditions um some students go on for two years in a row of that type of funding support which is fantastic so we'll keep you updated
192as we learn more and then just running through these of course we've have AP or advanced placement we have an avid program we have associates degree Pathways PSD students some students do earn an associates degree while they're in high school uh concurrent enrollment which is free college credits dual enrollment is similar but often that costs money um concurrent enrollment is free college credits the IB program the international Balor the PTEC program which superintendent Kingsley was mentioning this fantastic expanded facility up at the pter high school campus and again remember I mentioned we're going to talk about Partnerships that's a big one but I'm going to call it out one more time so we had the county and the Bohemian come through and I want to mention Woodward as having donated an awful lot to that
193process for us as well and there's other um industry Partners involved in that work as well so we there is no way PR School District would be able to offer that type of an experience without the partnership that we have as a community so all the winds that we're walking through in our data their Community wins right and then we have the T program which is about teacher Recruitment and these are just examples of some of the big bucket kind of classifications of some of these opportunities there's so much going on in PSD so the other um quick uh look here is to remind us that we have all these career connected learning Pathways every one of our our high schools has access at their main campus to Pathways they're not all the same Pathways
194at the same schools and they all the schools have access to the Career Tech Center which is being carefully designed to augment what is in fact available at the comprehensive and other high schools right so it's a real thoughtful process that our um team is carrying out to make these opportunities for students available um Zell if you went into Z if you went to uh PSD um future.org this is mainly for the home viewer mom or dad who could be watching this on film you never know there's so much information right there on that website of PSD futur ready spaces. org so I was able to go in and for my son Kai pick a pick a particular architecture and construction pathway and start seeing exactly what courses are available at Rocky Mountain High School
195where he goes and how he would lay those out there's just so much information there to help your planning and you're guiding and you're exploring with your young people so just want to mention that okay PSD students are attaining their above and beyond so we're moving on to the Third District end that we're going to talk about briefly tonight um um above and beyond so students have increased again here from 75% to 83% and in the latest iteration of the data we have up to 80 86% so that's an 11% gain over 3 years in the percentage of parents on the family engagement survey that are telling us that their students did attain and have opportunities to explore they're above and beyond that's where that data point is okay and so again that tapped out
196at 86% so that means we have 14% more work in front of us right to get to the 14% more of parents who didn't uh indicate that that was a yes so Works in front of us but we're doing good and we're moving in the right direction so this is just a little visual of I want to remind again the public and our board that the family engagement survey like all of our data has a dashboard on the PSD website under community research evaluation and then there's hyperlinks to these different tools those tools are heavily used to report out information to everybody in the world who might be interested in coming to pter school district and be able to see school by school what are the outcomes for different groups of kids what are the
197outcomes on different types of things like connections data graduation data family engagement data graduation rates if I didn't already say that achievement and growth all of it is available um this is just a screenshot of the family engagement report Out tool that we have that's publicly available and it kind of highlights the breakdown the the two uh the upper bars on the top half of the graph are the responses and the greens are the yeses and the Reds and no for that question has PSD Andor this school provided one or more opportunities for your children to strive toward their personal above and beyond as described above so there's your you know 1,180 parents took the time to respond that's a lot of information and we have that um percentage I just mentioned of 86% saying
198yes add Dwayne schmidtz to that I doubt took this survey but I have three kids in the system and I couldn't be more proud of PSD and I mean that and I mean that sincerely the bottom couple bar graphs are the bars that you see down there are answering the question parents are answering are your children taking advantage of opportunities outside of school private lessons Community Athletics programs community centers Etc to pursue their above and beyond interest because we know um we're not the only game in town right it's all about partnership again and this is a great Community there so many opportunities so we also kind of collect that information so we want to know the and interestingly this year was a dead- on Match of 14% no so as a community we keep
199doing the work to make opportunities available for students because we want that to be 100% yes okay Awards and accolades a couple of my slides in a minute have the wrong year on it I noticed unfortunately at the last minute but all this data is for 23 24 and usually when we go through this um piece of the presentation and and in the monitoring report um it's it's around that idea of like are we bringing home the gold are our kids out there winning well tonight what a perfect segue right tonight we heard directly from some students and I think I heard superintendent Kingsley say to the one young lady who was here who was shooting best in the nation and I heard you say I don't know if I've met someone before and shook
200their hand who's the best in the nation at anything and and I agree like that's amazing um and she's just a great representative we had all the thesbian that were being honored tonight and this is this um set of slides basically acknowledges we have so many students bringing home the gold basically in academics um more more academic scholarship uh winners um that were and and Merit program winners that we're seeing here US Military Academy appointments and Ry scholarships um quite a few students there activities Champions and recognition so this is jazz band and different types of science um Olympiad and things like that science bowl and athletic Champions and awards and we have so many athletic Champions and Awards being won that we needed two slides just to do justice to the number of them
201and so basically um these last three components in the district ends we try to just have some spotlights and we try to move them around a little bit to illustrate our stories of success on behalf of the community it's not just a pter school district success right it's partnership but there you go there's a high level I took longer than I anticipated um good review of the second half of the monor report so any questions be happy to answer those well thank you so much Dr schmidtz I it's again an amazing um accomplishment that PSD has had um just everything from our literacy mental health and belonging um and graduating with options we've just seen it all right there and um you know thanks to all the staff and their hard work making this happen
202um the only question I have really is how do we advertise this how do we get this out to both folco and Beyond yeah let people know that we are something special here and that you know if if you want it we've got it so true so we're making some steps in that direction but John we're going to look at you and say I saw superintendent Kingsley glance over there but this is a big and exciting thing because it is true we have so much to be proud of and we have to keep on making strides towards pushing that story out it's more important today than ever the other thing and I know the board knows this but we are truly getting very active if about trying to make family engagement um uh access on
203all these wonderful opportunities for young people so we're making some big strides in that space too we got to move on all fronts because it's true we have such a great story we just need people to know um your students are in good hands when they walk into pter school district and thank you for doing that too because that is it is truly important to make sure that everybody knows just how excellent this district is um and no matter where you live no matter where you are no matter what school you go to it's an excellent school and there are not very many places where you can say that that's right so yeah Scott Dwayne thank you so much it's a great report and I'm always impressed by how thorough your work is your team's
204work on the data this is It's you can almost get lost in the data but it's it's really powerful stuff and and going along the lines of what Kristen was saying is we need to find a way to get the word out about this and I think it would be helpful even a video out to the community with you as the star but just walking people through like where they can find it you know screenshots of how to how to navigate and find this information so they can really see and get to the information because I think that's the biggest thing I hear from people is they had no idea about certain things and I know John you are absolutely dedicated to getting that story out from our conversation about your past District compared to
205this like I think I don't know if I'm quoting you but basically it's like people need to know how good we have it here compared to other districts and I think if we get that word out our enrollment issues might uh might turn the corner that we all hope they will in the next few years so um I would encourage you to take advantage of Dwayne and his knowledge to navigate this stuff thanks Scot while I Shar in the Glee of the good news and not to be Doom and Gloom but I do want to ask uh the tougher question in your view having done the Deep dive and all this data what are some portions where you think we could improve upon that where the work remains unfinished and where should we be directing
206those efforts in the ne this next year thanks so much for that Kevin that is fantastic so one thing that jumps out at us is that the within the connection survey we have a subscale or set of subscales in there really around social emotional learning so there are those cell uh Castle standards is what they're tied to and there's five of them and we have a composite score in each of the five we did see a decline in those social emotional learning competencies as reported by our students okay that data does align with data that we see on the tell survey um healthy kids Colorado survey so there's a very real signal in the system that our students do need support with um their social emotional learning competencies their mental health and wellness that's real
207and we we can see it right and and all these different data um systems and so we we know that and that's why mental health and belonging is one of our three big priorities and you heard some of the actions we're taking in the Strategic plan so it's not in our blind spot but the data is very clear clear on that right the other thing I would mention is that we know and we acknowledge there's gaps so we could talk all night long about different gaps and show different data points on where we know that we have um gaps or disproportionalities to work on one that has always struck me is just immensely important is when you look at the connections data and you separate it by students we've identified as good candidates for additional
208support versus students who are ex either exceeding outcomes or you know typical type outcomes there's a clear difference in their self-reported feelings of connection to their peers to the adults and to their interest and passions and the reason that always has struck me as such an important signal is there is no reason that data needs to look that way and it's like that year after year right and what it's telling us is we already know we already know this is true but the data is so clear that the students who let's say need us most like academically speaking are in fact um needing to feel more connected at school so everything that our system can do to make sure that kids feel welcome seen heard appreciated connected includ it is the right work because all
209the other metrics move in the right direction when students feel connected or human beings we're social animals it's so fundamentally important right so I'm just expressing to the board that any work when we are currently engaged in this but any work that we continue to do to help ensure that every kid feels seen and heard and connected is the right work and it will pay off in achievement and growth discipline being reduced you know attendance going up all the needles move in the right direction when kids just feel connected when they're at school so important Conor Dwayne quick quickly kind up on that point what is the overall participation rate on the connection survey and has that fluctuated over time it has gone up over time we have the highest rate we've had um in
210in the last number of years and it's around 80 something percent I think I called it out like 8384 it's like in the high 80s or low 80s which I know that we've heard in the past in the board early on when we start this process Lev why isn't it 100% you know like why isn't every kid um we always make the offer for parents Andor students to opt out not many do very very few do but we uh respect that by not passing through the survey to any student or parent who opted a student out okay so that's a little piece of the answer the other piece of the answer is the response rates go down for the high school compared to the middle or Elementary it's kind of like all things like high
211school students get their freedom they can drive they can do different things right attendance tends to go down a little bit response rates on survey goes down a little bit so it's kind of it's that you know and to follow up on that if a student who hasn't had a parent select them out of it um do we encourage them directly again you know the deadline's coming please fill out your survey please fill out your survey oh you haven't filled out your survey or is it just kind of surveys are due next week that's it thank you for that one it is delivered in school with class time it's one of the only service is that we actually use class time delivering it in school it is not a request for students to take the
212survey at home although they can because it will come through their student email so if they didn't if they didn't click into it in school they certainly can click into it outside of school but we actually dedicate that's why the response rate is so high because we're we're actually giving it in school now again high school student schedules are complicated compared to Elementary it's very hard to blow a whistle and say everybody just sit down right now and take a survey that's easier to do in an elementary harder to do in a high school right so different high schools have their methods of how they you know schedule it in I I just say to my fellow board members I think one of the areas that we could improve on that is I this my
213opinion I may be off Mark but some kids who aren't filling that filling it out are the ones who are not connected so we're not capturing their data so if we can do something to encourage enourage them more and get them involved and have them Express their feelings it may be um something that not only helps them but helps us get a better better Clarity into the data other questions or comments all right thank you so much thank you yeah have a good evening you too well done yes wonderfully done and Jill can you call the vote Jim bishh hi Christen Draper hi Connor Duffy hi Kevin havelda hi Carolyn Reid hi Scott Shan bow hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 70 thank you so much I really appreciate the great presentation and just the
214terrific work that's done by all of our staff really appreciate it okay and now we will move into um an executive session uh can I get a motion please go ahead Jim yep I move the board enter executive session for the purpose of receiving legal advice on specific questions regarded to civil action number one colon 23- CV 0254 6- rm- nrn as authorized by CRS 24 -6- 424b individuals invited to join the board in executive session are superintendent Brian Kingsley Chief of Staff Dr Lauren hooton Chief finance officer Dave Montoya lead assistant superintendent Dr Tracy Kyle executive director of communications John cope and general counsel autom masman can I get a second thank you Jessica and Jill can you call the vote Jim broish hi Kristen Draper hi Conor Duffy hi Kevin havalda hi Carolyn
215Reed hi Scott shanower hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 70 thank you we will now convene in a closed session this is the last agenda item before adjournment at the conclusion of the executive session we will adjourn the meeting and the adjournment will be recorded so we will meet in executive session let's give ourselves five minutes sounds good e