001e e e all right good evening everyone thank you for joining us um today is Tuesday November 19th and it is 6:33 p.m. um go ahead and mute your cell phone or anything else that might Buzz or beep um as we go ahead and get started so thank you for joining us tonight um 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 QR code on the screen or in the table near the entrance and select the language of your choice the live stream of this meeting is also available in English and Spanish on YouTube for links to these live streams pleas please visit the Board
002of Education page of the PSD website or PSD TV on demand on YouTube all right so would any board members like to make changes to the agenda okay seeing none we can move on to action item 3.1 um so this is a resolution and support of National American Indian Heritage Month I believe we have the resolution to be put up on the screen is that correct okay um so can I get a motion thanks Jess I move the board approve a resolution in support of National American Indian Heritage Month November 2024 and Kevin has the second thank you all right and I will ask everybody um to stay for both um action items and resolution so that we can do a picture at the end so um and to that end I think we have
003some special guests today good evening everybody it's great to be with you all tonight uh joining us this evening to speak to the National American Indian Heritage Month is Delia mahany our diversity equity and inclusion coordinator welcome Delia thank you superintendent Kingsley Board of Education all these wonderful people here in the audience you have you have a full house tonight um I just wanted to say since last year we have decided in support of our Native American indigenous students to pursue For the First Time title six funding under the Indian Education Act it's quite the undertaking and we've already met the initial threshold for that so I just wanted to inform the board and the community that that is one of the actions we are taking to meet the needs of our students who are
004native American and I am very honored tonight to introduce Miss Abby deoya fifth grade teacher at istone elementary to introduce you to our amazing [Applause] speaker good evening it's such an honor to be present here tonight and even more so to int introduce This truly wonderful individual to my left she is new to Ione this year and since she has joined our community she has truly added immense value using her voice to amplify such important matter such as this is something that fills me with pride to witness it is a beautiful thing to watch a young person find their identity and develop their voice I am so excited for you to hear from her tonight please join me in welcoming ma [Applause] Badger hi I'm M Badger and um I'm really excited to introduce myself
005and give a speech and um and thank you for inviting us to speak with all of you today my name is mikani and Badger I'm a fifth grader at Ione Elementary School I'm chipal cre from Montana all of my native family lives there except for me and Mom I am proud to be a Native American and I would like to share my culture and Heritage with everyone my family and I like to go to powow and sweats we wear traditional dresses when we dance gather like my ribbon skirt I'm wearing now sweats are important because we gather together friends and family to pray and support each other I love our music in sweats and powow the drums are my favorite their hearts are in the music and their laughter another favorite of mine is my
006mom's yellow Shaw and we like to make traditional meals like indan tacos my most favorite thing about my culture is how we treat and speak to one another with respect and kindness we light sage and sweet grass to smudge and pray with it makes me feel relaxed and happy this is important for me to share today because we all live on Native American land what we say matters what we teach matters and what we learn matters I want peace and to know the real history I want people to stop being mean to each other because of their skin tones history has shown us how to be better and what not to do it's time we do better I hope sharing our special culture helps us do better because I really think it can thank you
007for having me in hearing my words today [Applause] Ma I just want to say thank you so much that was incredible I am so proud of you I bet your mom is so proud of you right now as you should be and just thank you so much for coming from Montana and sharing your gift with us here in Colorado I think it's truly appreciated and keep sharing anybody else have anything that they'd like to say okay absolutely ma are you a professional public speaker because if not you are officially designated as one after tonight we are so proud of you for bringing your whole authentic self into our district into istone elementary school and I want to thank your teacher and family for being here and representing the entire Community as well it's it's really
008wonderful to celebrate all of you thank you congratulations Jill can you please call the vote Jim bookish hi Kristen Draper hi Connor Duffy hi Kevin havelda hi Scott shanower hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 60 okay next we have 3.2 resolution and support of the anniversary of the individuals with Disabilities Act can I get a motion go ahead Jess I move the board approve a resolution in support of the anniversary of the individuals with Disabilities Act can I get a second all right thank you Kevin real quick I'm sorry can we get the resolution up on the prompter as well yes thank you and then we we're working on it we got it fantastic thank you so much all right I believe we have a special guest tonight as well for this yes so joining
009us this evening to speak to the anniversary of the individuals with Disabilities Act is Dr jod raml our director of integrated Services welcome [Applause] Jody just wanted to share that we've made a couple changes because in the past um we've recognized certain eligibilities or certain disabilities and this year we wanted to be more inclusive and so this anniversary really encompasses people with disabilities um and I'd like to go ahead and have uh Jeanie Holmes come up so she can introduce our first [Applause] guest thank you Mr Kingsley and the board of education for the opportunity to be here tonight I wanted to introduce Rowan she's a seventh grader and she's here to talk about her visual impairment in honor of the anniversary of the individual ual with Disabilities Act although I was just introduced to
010you all I have to reintroduce myself to teachers all the time I feel like they are not always properly informed about what to say or the proper etiquette for my vision impairment even my friends are confused about why I cannot see with glasses it's hard to explain myself even if I tell them my specific disability is they are still confused because they don't know what it means I have bilateral optic nve optic nerve atrophy and I am the only person in the world with the genetic mutation I have I'm missing a mere copy of the gene in the vision chain my optic nerves are continuing to shrink the only explanation I can come up with is I just can't see with glasses or without them to simplify for all of you glasses do not help
011because the damage is to my optic nerves so the message cannot be sent to my brain in order to make things bigger so I can read and participate in class I need to use a monocular it's basically like half a binocular and Zooms in on things farther away I cannot see clearly otherwise when I am in unfamiliar places I use a vision cane to help me look around without having to look at the ground all the time so I can experience new places my favorite place to explore with my cane was Rice Canyon I really liked all the colors at the Hado and formations I would like to encourage all of you not to only lend a helping hand when someone is in need need but also learn about Vision impairment and inform others because
012it is one of the least understood [Applause] disabilities do we have other guests or sure let's yeah please so it's my pleasure to introduce our next speaker her name is Heidi greenall and her family moved here six years ago from Banbridge Island Washington specifically for their daughter Ellie who has Rhett syndrome the r Clinic at the Children's Hospital of Colorado is one of the best in the move has been lifechanging for their family Heidi is very active in the r Community she is on the executive board at the Rocky Mountain red Association as a Communications and Family Services chair the Colorado State Rep for the international R syndrome Foundation and she works as a volunteer at the clinic twice a month she's a family caregiver consultant uh for aadia pharmaceuticals speaking to doctors and families
013across the country along with other Rett moms she has a podcast it's called this downside up life all about being the mom to a child with a disability but more than anything else she's mom to Ellie and Rees please welcome Heidi [Applause] hi everybody um I just want to thank you for having me also I was told I only had two to three minutes which is very hard for me to do I like to talk especially about my daughter so um thank you for that introduction and let me tell you a little bit about Ellie um Ellie is a 16-year- old she's a sophomore at fossil rich and Ellie has rhat syndrome and I don't know if you've ever heard of r syndrome but R syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that affects mostly um
014girls and some boys it's about one in 10 to 15,000 girls one in a million boys um but boys do get it and what happens is you have this per and if I cry I apologize um you have a perfect little baby and at about 18 months old they start to lose all their skills and they lose their ability to talk some lose their ability to walk as you can see Ellie um she can still walk and she can cheer um they lose hand use most of them have seizures um a lot have feeding tubes and it's it's a horrible disease um and at the moment there is no cure so Ellie is great she um she is thriving right now in high school and really honestly the reason she's doing so well is special
015ed and she's been in it since um like uh jod said we lived on Banbridge Island in Washington and she started off in the developmental preschool there so we have been in this a long time um but what I wanted to share is what I feel are my top five things for an ex a successful special ed program um and this is all from what we've seen what we have seen Works what we've seen really really helps kids helps teachers helps you know the whole system Thrive so number one teachers and staff have to love what they're doing they want to be there they even on the good days and the bad days they're still so happy to be doing what they're doing and they love to be their changing lives number two collaboration between
016parents and teachers listening and trusting each other and that goes both ways and we've found that without that it's a complete failure um the thing is the teachers are the experts the teachers know what they're doing we're just the parents but we're the experts on our children and so when you can come together and reach the same goals and work together all that brings is Success across the board inclusion this is huge this is what everybody wants um and inclusion for us it happens in and out of the classroom so it's fine I think you know people like to have their their students in a typical classroom but that doesn't always work my daughter there's no way she's going to sit in a high school class and pay attention or or even want to be
017there she'll get anxious and other things when she was in elementary school she could do that fine it was a different environment Middle School and High School completely different but for Ellie what works is one-on-one time with her Paris and them really taking the time to teach her in the way she needs to learn and then she gets the inclusive with adaptive art adaptive drama adaptive PE and uh adaptive cheerleading which she loves to do um I will say one thing that's really cute if you see the pom poms so one thing with the kids with r syndrome is they have repetitive hand movements or stemming it's different stemming than autism because it's not a it's not a behavior thing it is their brain making their hands do it and they have no control over
018it Ellie's teacher figured out that if we tied the pom poms on her wrists it looks like she's doing what everybody else is doing with her stimming so that's another um she has a wonderful teacher by the way um the other thing is Teachers thinking outside the box I think a lot of times in special ed you forget all these children are different and you really need to learn the best way to teach each child you need to take the time you have to be creative you have to find like you have to crack the code on each child to be able to teach them in the way that's going to be the most successful for them you also have to praise them and let them know how proud you are of them so that
019they feel safe and secure and they want to be there and they want to learn and they're excited to be there and if you don't have that it's a disaster um and last and not least um one thing we do is we like to to call our group of people team Ellie so this year or or last year I guess it really started when she went to Fossil they embraced her they all of them embraced her the principal the Paris the teachers the therapists everybody and so now that's our team Ellie and we work so closely together I've taught them all about Rhett um they want to know about Rhett they want to learn everything they can and they come up with ways to do things for Ellie that works best for her and if
020you don't have that again it doesn't work and for me as a parent my daughter is non-verbal she is very vulnerable so for me to drop her off in the morning and let her go with people that aren't me that aren't my family is one of the hardest things a mother could ever do and when we first started school it was very hard but um at at fossil I would say um but as soon as we got to know them I I have more trust in those people than I do even some family members you know like they could all take her away for the weekend and I'd be like go ahead take her it's fine give me a break um but I do want to share some things so since we did move here
021six years ago I have two schools that have blown us away um one of them was bacon so when we first moved here before we moved here actually um I spoke to Teresa Ashton at the time had been calling her trying to figure out what we needed to do where we would put Ellie with the best program she went above and beyond to make sure that we found the perfect food for Ellie and that was bacon and as soon as we figured out the school kale wicker who was then the vice principal called me and he wanted to learn all about Ellie and then Joe who was the principal called me wanted to learn all about Ellie and then when we did finally move here they set up a meeting right away for us to
022meet Tara who was her teacher the entire staff and they just kept saying don't worry it's going to be fine we're so excited to have her we're so excited to see what you know what we can teach her and how we can make sure that she thrives here and that was another situation where it was hard the first day and after that they could have taken her anywhere they wanted um some of the things they did at the school to make Ellie feel like she was part of the school was for the two years that we were there they had a r syndrome day and one year they raised money for research the kids brought in they put buckets at the front of the school the kids brought in their change and put it in
023and then we whoever had the most change got a pizza party which is great they also did a purple day because purple is the color of Rhett um and those kids still remember that and those kids that were with her at bacon are at the high school and my son plays football there was a son or a a boy on one of his teams that was at bacon when he was a kindergartener and saw Ellie and said I know Ellie she has rat syndrome and we're like who are you what and he raised like $5 or something so he remembered that so the fact that that school went above and beyond to make sure that not only Ellie was happy but she was involved with everything there she had a group of friends they used
024to meet her at the playground and take her off to the swings and and it was incredible and I still to this day say bacon was one of the best experiences we had moving here and then this is the last one I swear fossil so we did not have the same experience in Middle School um so much so that we ended up pulling Ellie out of school early um but when we did that we had already had the transition meeting to go into high school um Rachel Reynolds who is one of her teachers had just met her first time meeting her and I remember before they were leaving the room Rachel got down on her knees in front of Ellie put her hands on her knees and said Ellie I'm so excited to have you
025here next year I just can't wait to be your teacher and my husband and I were shocked I started balling because that's what I do and I just thought oh my gosh this is amazing she's incredible and then the other teacher Jonah was the same way the staff was the same way and so when we had the unfortunate experience of the other school uh someone in administrative said why don't we bring her to Fossil for the last part of the school year and get her used to it since she'll be there next year and I thought oh my gosh I don't know we okay we'll try and we did and Ellie was happy every day she was there every day she loved it so when we did start high school she she went in knowing
026what to do she went in knowing who the people were and everything about that school has been phenomenal the therapists are phenomenal the principal's phenomenal the teachers again are phenomenal and the students are phenomenal the students Embrace Ellie they say hi to her in the hall when she she went to the homecoming dance this year with her best friend and her parot took her and said kids were just coming up to them saying we're so happy you're here you know so I mean that's what it's all about you know that's all we want for our kids is we want our kids to have that environment to feel like they're a typical kid because they're not I mean Ellie struggles every day just to make it through the day you know just to make her body
027work and so this is you got this school district is great we're very happy we have had a wonderful our ending our going out of it will be a wonderful experience and special ed is it changes lives and changes teachers lives it changes parents lives changes everybody that's involved and I think raising awareness of how how important that is is is it's what everyone everyone should be doing all the time so I hope special Edge sticks around I hope nothing changes and um yeah that's that's it that's my girl so thank [Applause] you Heidi I Just Want to Thank You for Your Enthusiasm and your joy that you bring um sorry it's okay it's just I I love that and I I just can tell that um you bring that to Ellie and I'm sure
028Ellie brings that into the school and it's part of why everybody just is so excited to have her in class and I I'd be excited to have her in class too just knowing that you have that advocacy and you have that um ability to just see the best in everything in everybody and I just so appreciate that and I know that staff here really appreciate what you have um shared with us today so thank you thank you for that it's it's wonderful isy old they never are but 16 it's quite all right I understand thank you so much oh of course and then I just wanted it uh Rowan um I just wanted to say thank you and how ly are we that you are the only person in the world and you are here
029in PSD and you are sharing yourself with us and sharing your joy with us and sharing all about you I feel so lucky to be able to say that you are here at PSD so thank you so much for being here does anyone else have anything they'd like to add can we go home I'd like to end on hi there you go yes go ahead so Heidi I want to start off with you and just say thank you for introducing our entire Community to team Ellie I feel like we should have passed out t-shirts uh to [Laughter] oh well that's exciting news and I'm hopeful that everybody enjoys that I I I don't know if you all planned your speeches together but you know M it started off with you where you were talking to
030all of us about the importance of how we treat each other right and that was really something I think resonated with everybody's hearts in this room and then we get a chance to meet Rowan who's sitting right behind you and Rowan's like yes that's super important but we got to do more you got to learn about each other we have to ask the right questions it's not just important to be kind but we have to spend time listening and learning to each other and how do you model all of that for us in real time so thank you all of you uh for being here and helping us celebrate this really important day all right and don't go anywhere we do want to do a picture at the end of it but first we're going
031to call the vote Jim brokish hi Kristen Draper hi Connor Duffy hi Kevin havelda hi Scott shanower hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 6 zero e e all right thank you everyone for coming tonight enjoy the rest of your evening and now we will head off to uh 4.0 superintendent report so superintendent Kingsley will now make remarks to the board of education and the community just give people a second to transition here that was a great way to start the meeting right wasn't it yeah that was awesome that pulled on all of our heartstrings and some of our tears so I want to say uh good evening uh to everybody who's either watching or is here in person as you can see uh we have some really special guests whether they are local elected leaders
032or legislators I want to welcome all of you to the pter school district to have a robust conversation tonight regarding how we all continue to work in partnership with each other to advance the needs of public education um as you all know this community and PSD are huge supporters of our public school system and we're really honored and grateful to have that support each and every day and over the last couple of months we have been starting each of our superintendent uh my superintendent comments by showing a quick video uh around some of the highlights of things that we are honored to have going on in PSD and here tonight we have a video that's going to really focus on gratitude to our public for supporting this District in really amazing ways hey everyone I
033am so excited that our district M Levy override recently passed you have shown just how much you care about our students our schools and the future of our community as a result of your support we're going to be able to provide incredible investments in our District's Building Maintenance needs we're going to continue to be able to retain and recruit the most talented work force and we're also going to be able to provide the best educational opportunities for all of our students thank you for helping make our schools better we will even have a new playground so we can have more fun playing I'm grateful that we'll have new musical instruments your support means we can keep creating and expressing ourselves this support we'll have better technology to explore innovate and learn you are helping us
034build our future thanks to you we'll have safe new maths to practice on we can keep doing what we love and stay safe doing it this support means safer well-maintained spaces for our students and staff thank you for about our schools thanks to you we can continue recruiting and retaining the most talented staff to support students and provide them with the best quality education each and every day PSD Community by approving this measure you are providing robust educational opportunities that are going to make a difference for our students each and every day we are committed to being transparent with the use of these dollars we're going to communicate with you along the way and I want to say thank you for allowing us to earn your trust let's work together to keep PS strong so
035it was an honor to work in partnership with the communications team for the development of that video hey everyone oh hey I need to think of a new opening line it's all everyone um but we have a talented Communications team and I'm hopeful we get a lot of mileage and traction with really expressing the gratitude that we have for all the people that were involved in moving and mobilizing our general public to support our most recent ballot measure members of the board I want to thank you for your leadership all of our respective associations who their leaders are here tonight uh we could not have done this without all of you in partnership with staff to educate the community on what that meant for our system and I believe uh as the superintendent the resources
036that we now have they have not solved all of our problems but they are transformational in a lot of different ways for us to make progress in real important areas and you heard from our students and staff around what those are I know there are many members of our community that are involved in participating in the oversight of how we spend those dollars to make sure that our promises are made uh those promises are kept and so I want the community I want to signal that in our upcoming PSD now newsletter uh we will be messaging to the community that Our intention is to have an application process for that in early January of 2025 so please be on the lookout we want to make sure people are aware that we're going to enroll people
037to help with the oversight of the spending of those dollars immediately but it just please know that that process will be unveiled in January but we will be sending out multiple messages between now and the holidays to make sure our families are starting who want to be involved are starting to think about how best to engage uh in that particular process um you know that helps Advance the work we all know there's great work that's happening each and every day in all of our schools and divisions and I had the pleasure and honor over the last couple of weeks to visit several schools I just want to highlight a few of them uh Bower Elementary School uh had a great visit if you want to see high quality and high integrity levels of implementation of
038our new El education curricula Bower would be a great school to start the teachers there are simply incredible and watching them do some of their uh learning Labs with El education that had a real high intentional focus on bringing access points for the multiple multilingual Learners that they had in their core classrooms was really really impressive I also had an opportunity to visit one of their mathematics uh impact teams that was led by the principal and there was teachers I mean literally looked like smoke coming off of their pens and their Post-it notes as they were taking the advice uh of their proud principal and how that relationship was so reciprocal and built on mutual respect and honor I just thought was really really amazing had a chance to go to several schools yesterday Canard
039Middle School was a highlight um some of the work that they're doing around Colorado's essential standards to make sure that we're teaching students explicitly skills around how to be better communicators better problem solvers learning how students can become more self-aware of both their emotions but their ideas they were very verbal in expressing who they were and what they were thinking and I think the more that we as a district can make our thinking visible around who we are and what we care about and what we're thinking about the better we can become as a community um in a respectful manner to each other and then I ended my day yesterday of visits at Werner Cruz and Linton there's so much great work happening across all those sites each of those visits I focused on just
040connecting with the principles and the leadership team and just making sure that I was kind of in tune with some of the successes and the challenges that all of those schools are experiencing Werner has 30 more students than they expected uh in the school year which is a really great problem to have when we were experiencing declining enrollment in our school system crws I walked away from just being really impressed by their human centered uh approach to building culture they have uh dealt with and continued to dealt with some uh tragic challenges uh to some of the beings that are a part of that proud community and how they're all wrapping their arms and hearts around each other to make sure they continue to thrive and lift it each other up uh was really impressive
041uh and I contined to be impressed by not only Kristen stl's leadership at Linton elementary school but the broader uh faculty members who are really focused to presentations of learning and making sure that their students in partnership with their Community are just highly engaged with one another so more and more school visits more and more opportuni needs to engage in the community but just super proud to not only see what's happening today but what's possible as a result of this community lifting up our district tonight we have a great uh meeting scheduled not only with our legislators and elected officials but we're also going to have an opportunity uh to meet and listen to one of our proud principles of Lopez elementary school as a leader of our calendar committee and so we tonight is
042the first reading in first presentation signaling what some of the calendar committee's intentions were uh for the year year ahead uh regarding you know when students would come and go to school and we want to just remember last year we had a really spirited conversation around our school district's calendar predominantly because uh at the time I think 33 now it's 32 of our traditional Public Schools uh do not have air conditioning uh because of our public support we are going to be able to advance and install air conditioning units in those schools but we're not going to be able to do it in 32 schools overnight and that's going to take time and as the Community starts to listen and learn from the calendar Community they may be a little bit disappointed that they're not
043taking a more Progressive approach around moving the school's calendar I'm going to let them speak to the ins and the outs of why that is but we're going to continue to be committed to thinking outside of the box listening to each other and I'm super excited for Cheryl and the committee's leadership in this work we look forward to hearing from you tonight so uh that concludes my comments thank you for giving me opportunity to hold space for the community and hold space for each other and and share some of the things that I've been exper experiencing thank you so much and we will go ahead and move on to um 5.0 board topics and committee reports um this agenda item is an opportunity for board members to provide an update on committee work or speak
044to board topics um do any board members have something to report and if I may take just a moment first to um re uh reiterate what Brian has said about gratitude I just wanted to say to our community thank you so much much for supporting um the mil Levy override it really is going to make such a tremendous difference in our students lives um in our staff lives staff's lives um and I also want to take a moment to thank Connor who um was just a tremendous leader in this um I believe if I if I'm not mistaken I believe that this was one of the highest percentage rates of passing that we had in some of our um past uh overrides so well job well done just wanted say thank you for that um
045and again thanks to the community for the support and with that I will open it up to anybody else okay go ahead Kevin I have one thing I'll try to be as brief as I can because I understand that we have other guests in the room and we have other business to attend to um I it is my job on this board to not always um praise the district and praise our schools and we're doing things well but it's also I believe my job to ask tough questions and to express concerns when things are not going well and so I want to um open my remarks by saying that I was recently made aware of a new story that was published um or run by Denver 7 concerning um uh some some issues that are
046happening at one of our schools in Liberty common um I myself has have received recent calls emails from constituents from affected families um from other teachers um and people that are expressing some very serious concerns um with with that school and some of the the the issues there too um and I want to say publicly that I to share those concerns um it's not just enough to share concerns and to um cast blame or dispersion that's not what I'm going to do tonight what I do want to do is Express those concerns and then um invite some conversation with uh the board as to how best to approach this situation and maybe some others um the other thing that I've been has to address in some emails and some texts and calls from constituents is
047they're demanding the board take action which I appreciate and that's um also our role is to take action when when there are concerns and there are things that are not meeting our district ends um I do think it's it's incumbent on me and the board to take a moment to clarify what the board's role is in this situation um I think there is some misunderstanding as far as what the purview of the District board is to our Charters and so I think it's important to note that our charter schools have their own governance team they have their own board of directors that they answer to that set policies and procedures uh the board of directors at PSD does not police Charter Schools we're not involved in the day-to-day activities we're not involved in staffing issues
048we're not involved in hiring issues we're not involved in overseeing the things of that school they have a board of directors that they answer to um that that works closely with their leadership to do that so I think that's an important note um that said though I do think it's important to knowe what it is to be a district authorizer and a charter and if I say anything out of line I'm hoping my um State Board of Education confers will correct me but as a district authorized um board we overview and we see um the the uh renewal of the district authorized Charter which we did and we we voted as a board to approve Liberties renewed their their Charter on June 11th and I do want to call attention to there's two Provisions that
049caught my attention to uh when we made that vote um the provision in the contract that we approved as a governance team was 7.5 which I think is um timely for tonight's discussion which is a commitment to non-discrimination and I'm going to quote Liberty common shall comply with all applicable federal state and local laws rules and regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race color creed national origin sex marital status sexual orientation gender identity gender expression religion ancestry age veteran status disabil disability or the need for special education services uh closely in in line with that is 7 six which is accountability Liberty common shall operate under the opes of and be accountable to the school district and subject to Colorado law regulations of the State Board of Education and the Colorado Department of Education
050Etc and so as I review this this language is mandatory not discretionary in other words it's a deal breaker or in my world in the in the the law it's a material provision of the contract and that's my view that I'm expressing um but I think more broadly I think it also is not unique to Liberty common I think that those values are values that we share as a district and that discrimination has no place in our schools that's a deal breaker for me um retaliation has no place in our schools those are deal breakers and so those are my negot non-negotiables and I'm not speaking out of turn again when I think I say that that's what our district stands for and those are some of the values that we espouse and while it
051would be easy to believe that this is a because it was a news story uh concerning Liberty be easy to suggest that it was the only instance in our district this year of racial discrimination it wasn't um I spoke at a previous board meeting um a dear friend of mine has experienced this within our within our schools um happy to report followed up with that individual and been very very happy and pleased with the way that PSD has addressed it so again I credit superintendent Kingsley and Leadership for taking the corrective action taking the steps that need to be addressed because that's who we are as a district um and so my proposal is as follows um and I like the the board's input on this um I think there is a disconnect between um
052having a charter that has its own board and our own governance team and what the role is there and not that we need role Clarity but I would offer our board to have an invitation to Liberties board and to have a Frank discussion I mean we have Frank and tough discussions in this room every board meeting I feel like and I think that's also appropriate to have the same with Liberties board if they're willing I'd love to invite them to have a working session where we can talk about some of these issues it's not just pre prevalent in their schools but what we're seeing in the districtwide and engage them thoughtfully on how to be thought partners and best to address that I think there's an opportunity here to do that instead of demonizing one
053another that may be a lofty aspiration but that's one of my proposals for tonight um and I do I do believe it is prudent to have a formal update on some of the corrective action that's happening not only with Liberty but in our district um when we experience these things when we hear constituents Express these concerns that are happening in 2024 um I I think it's it's it's inconceivable that this is allowed to happen I'm also a firm believer that children aren't born uh with this attitude and they're not born with these ideas in their head they are learned and they can be unlearned but I think it's also coming upon strong leadership within our schools to make sure that we root out those causes and we create a culture of acceptance which is what
054we just heard tonight and if we're going to pass resolutions with granos language I'd like to see the action behind them um and so I I'll I'll leave with this and that um I think I'll leave with the quote that I think was the best suited for all this I want people to stop being mean to each other because of their skin tone me too and so I think it starts with us as adults to have tough conversations when things are not going well and so with that I'll leave it open um I'd like to hear what the board would think about an invitation or if they've got other ideas about how to address some of these situations thank you Kevin you know I will say that um unfortunately I believe that um while this
055has always been prevalent um in our schools and in our nation um and in Fort Collins I know people tend to think that Fort Collins or Northern Colorado doesn't have to deal with these issues we do um and what we need to do I think is work together and figure out a way to make this stop and unfortunately in 24 and 25 we may be seeing more of it because it become it may become more prevalent in society in general so I think working together to figure out how to make this um and we have talked about safety in our schools and we need to make sure that this is a safe place where um you know mental health and belonging is our second on our list right so we need to make sure that
056we have that um ability to make sure that all students feel welcome that all students feel safe and all students are ready to learn and so I think by working together with that uh on that is a is a great way to go others go ahead Scott yeah Kevin thanks for bringing that up I think it's I'm glad you brought up that it's not just you know isolated at uh at one particular school I we all have kids that have gone through this district and unfortunately I've heard stories um and and like you said this just this year we've heard stories in uh in some of our own schools and I think Dalia could probably tell us lots of stories that are happening in every single one of our schools it's just a societal problem
057this one just happened Happ to get on Denver 7 but uh I think um you know anytime I think one of one of the most recent ones at the beginning of this month we heard about uh parent actually felt like they had to pull their kid out of the school U this is one of our our regular PSD schools not a charter um because that child didn't feel safe and that is that is completely unfair that um a student would not feel safe going to to their school um I would amend your suggestion I think it's a great suggestion that we have something and maybe Dale you can kind of lead this not to put you on the spot but um if we are going to have a working session I think leadership from um
058it'd be great if we could bring all the schools together but but schools that have had incidences uh like this both Charter and in uh the regular um neighborhood schools I think it would be really important to to bring people together and just talk about this um because it's it's stuff that's happening between students sometimes that we kind of get wind of there's sometimes teachers are hearing it and not knowing how to react and there needs to be some training in that area um but the seriousness of it needs to really be emphasized and and just how much of an impact that has on a a student's ability to learn um and succeed in the district so I would like like I said I'd amend it to say not just a one-on-one with Liberty but
059with with many many schools in our district okay Conor just really quickly um I know I don't want to pile on Liberty common but I think overall um and Liberty is one of them they've been requesting that we have less oversight um that happened earlier this year and we made sure that that didn't happen um this is something um that happen Statewide wanting to amend or renew their charters for an extended period of time that's unacceptable to us um also I want to make sure that the community understands that the board is watching we didn't find out about this in the newspaper U we've been talking about this for a while we've known about it um as far as it pertains to any kind of behavior going forward for any of our schools this is
060unacceptable and we're watching other comments go ahead Jim I agree wholeheartedly Kevin I think you laid it out beautifully and uh I would like that kind of a meeting I think uh I think your proposal is Great Scott um we could expand it I don't know if I'm a huge fan I think uh sometimes focused meetings might be better for this kind of thing but it's I don't know know I could probably be convinced thanks if I could I I might amend it to be two separate um and I don't actually know that a that a board meeting with with the Liberty board is necessary I actually as we're talking about working together to solve the issues I really feel like um the schools that are having some of these difficulties getting together and talking
061about the difficulties and talking about how to how to solve them and Delia this may be happening already I'm I'm quite sure knowing you that it is um and maybe there's just something that you can share with us about um how that's going um and what um steps are being taken um I'm not because I think that's the important part of this is to make sure that this is not um that we we understand um and talk about that it is happening how do we prevent this how do we stop this um so that it's not happening to kids in our district again and again and that to me is the most important part of it if if we wanted to um I don't think having them in the same meeting or in the same
062room is necessarily um cond conducive like you're talking about Jim I think having two either two separate or I in my case I would prefer um having Delia tell us what's what's actually going on with the schools that are already having these conversations and where we are with that goad Jess I guess I would argue I would I would not mind having a meeting between boards just even to level set on what are our values as PSD because they're under our umbrella nonetheless and so we should have some level of this is what we all commit to now as boards we set a tone we don't we don't go into the school or the building or the classroom and make sure it's happening so as far as training goes and what the adults in the
063space actually have to do is not our purview in my opinion but if we are at least level setting that our values align and that what they are trying to distribute within their school culture is one of belonging and one of acceptance and um safety for their students I think that is something that is a conversation worth having and making sure that they are complying with the values of our community actually dub tail is exactly what I was going to say next yes I appreciate it because I think part of my concern too is that I'm to be clear I'm not interested in performative compliance with any kind of remedial plan I also am reserving judgment until things are put into place until we can see some actual you know progress towards that end I
064think the reason why I want the invitation is because I think as leaders of the district as leaders of the school um we have to be honest with each other and we have to share what we're hearing from our constituent base what we're hearing from parents that either have left the school or are still there that may be too scared to go their board meetings and so that's why I think it's kind of incum on us to have that tough conversation and I'll have it with anyone I think I've been pretty clear about that but I want to make sure that it's a purview of the board and not just director hda's thinking and just responding to you Jess for me I I agree with everything you said around we set the tone but I
065also want to know that there's corrective actions that are taking place in in general neighborhood schools at Liberty Commons wherever it is yeah and to that end um we should be getting and correct me if I'm wrong Brian but we should be getting um the um information back from OCR they should sorry Liberty should be having that given to OCR by the end of 2024 and we should be um seeing that they're whether or not it was compliant with what OCR suggested um at the beginning of 2025 is that correct yes that is correct and I appreciate you asking the question my understanding of the OCR review specific to the concern that is in question is that that uh update is due to them by the end of the calendar year um I also want
066this board to be aware that I have requested from the leadership of that school uh updates to me directly I've received my last one in the middle of October um but I'm also looking for the validation and the evidence that comes behind that through OCR just to make sure uh there are no uh actions that are performative in nature we want to make sure um that everybody is acting in good faith to move move this work forward uh I also want to acknowledge as we're talking about this as a community you know there are many members of our community that are not only concerned but they're hurting as a result of these scenarios in very very deep and intimate ways I'm super grateful uh that I received the personal invitation to a community conversation at
067our local cultural enrichment center on Sunday evening not only did we have an opportunity to break bread with each other but members of our community came around uh to learn about the different resources that are available in this District uh through the lens of diversity equity and inclusion Delia uh gave an incredible presentation that outlines the work that has been done to date and the work that's left to still do all right so this is unfinished work in many many ways um but we have to do it together and hold each other accountable to continuing to make progress in that area and I also thought um parents who spoke and led presentations talked about the advocacy and the importance of reporting uh so continuing to make sure that we're reassuring not just the accountability lens
068but trying to repair the harm that's been done uh is a two-fold proposition that we have a lot of work to do so I would encourage this board as a result of uh you do have a level of shared ownership and governance with their board of directors and I do think it is confusing in a lot of different ways not just to members of the community but probably even to each other as a result of this uh these scenar is not happening uh repeatedly so I think any conversation that we can have with the governance teams of our five district sponsored charter schools to make sure that we do have shared values that Center on inclusivity uh and equity and making sure that all students feel affirmed uh not just in one school but all
06954 of our schools that includes our five district sponsored Charter Schools I think is time well spent uh so I will continue to keep you updated on any other future reports that I get from the school but I do believe it's appropriate for this board of education to engage directly uh with any of the boards of of the respective schools to make sure that we're continuing to align on our community's values I think it's now it's more important now than ever before Brian really quickly on that the report out that was in October was that specific to the OCR um filing or was that just a normal scheduled oversight very specific to the OCR concern okay all right anything else all right in that case we'll move on to consent agenda would any board members
070like to pull anything from consent okay if not can I get a motion go ahead Jim you want to go Jim go ahead oh I move the board approve and adopt the recommended actions for the items on the consent agenda Connor would you like to Second sorry about that I didn't realize you going to read no no worries all right um so Joe can we take the vote J broish hi Kristen Draper hi Connor Duffy hi Kevin havelda hi Scott Shen Bower hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 60 okay moving quickly to um 7.0 action item 7.1 monitoring policy review El 2.7 compensation and benefits can I get a motion okay thanks go ahead K I move the the board determined that the superintendent has reasonably interpreted the Board of Education policy El 2.7 in
071his internal monitoring report dated November 19th 2024 that the evidence presented supports the superintendent's conclusion stated in the internal monitoring report can I get a second all right thank you Jim all right and Jill can you call the vote or is any any discussion sorry jumped from that part okay seeing none Jim broish hi Kristen Draper hi Duffy hi Kevin havalda hi Scott shanower hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 6 Z okay thank you and now moving on to informational reports and discussion items uh 8.1 2024 202 oh sorry 2025 2026 school year calendar first reading yes thank you so tonight we look forward to the first reading of the 2526 school year calendar joining us this evening from our calendar committee is our co-chair Cheryl dayve welcome Cheryl thank you for being here yeah
072good evening um I am Cheryl day one of your calendar co-chairs uh Brian Keel our other calendar co-chair is recovering from knee replacement surgery um so he sends his regrets but I am joined by one of our committee members Natasha misho um as our secondary expert in case you have some challenging questions for me and all right so the calendar committee is charged with helping the district develop a recommended calendar each year which the board of education then approves and there are parameters of course that we need to meet and you can see some of those on this slide CDE um has a required number of days and hours that need to be allocated as well as school f funding requirements and so I'll give you a moment to just look at those as well
073as District policy we also need to align the calendar with the uh employee agree agreement and the designation of days so our teachers license contracts are 188 days we have certain designated days that then leave us with 17 three Elementary student contact days and 176 at secondary and you can see on this Slide the allocation of those designated days and again I'll allow you a minute to look at those this has not changed um since last year next up we have the composition of the calendar committee so it represents a broad range of stakeholders across levels as well as departments within the district um some of the positions such as the co-chairs and the uh Association members are appointed there is also an application process for the other members so if you are interested in
074contributing to the calendar committee March 1st applications will open and one once uh people are selected through that application process it is a three-year um term of service before you would need to reapply so one of the really um key pieces and superintendent Kingsley mentioned this earlier the calendar committee is tasked with trying to take into account as much as possible community and stakeholder input and there's a biannual survey that is conducted this was not a survey year so we are working with the 2324 survey data and there were three major Trends in that data from stakeholders one was to move the start date of the school year later to address heat concerns in our many buildings that are not air conditioned um the second top priority named was a full two weeks for winter
075break at then a full week for fall break and so one of the things that you will see when we present our proposal this evening is that we are not proposing moving the school year later this year or for the coming calendar year and we felt as a committee that it was really important that we address the reasons why since that is a top priority um that was identified by stakeholders so since last year's calendar presentation district Personnel have been really looking at what would be implications of moving the start date later and in August Dr Julie Chaplan presented both to the board and to the calendar committee co-chairs some of those findings and so I really do want to highlight those because those have really influenced um the recommendations that we're making this evening
076so these are some of the constraints to starting the school year later we have annually 3 to 4,000 students who participate in concurrent enrollment meaning that they are high school students who are also taking College course work for example at Front Range Community College or college coursework that's being offered within one of our PSD buildings and this aligns with one of the district's top priorities which is graduating with options in addition this program um represents a cost savings to families because students are receiving college credit while they're still in high school and so if we're going to participate in concurrent enrollment we have to align our calendar with Front Range Community College they do not have flexibility to just switch their dates to accommodate PSD they're part of a larger Community College Consortium and so
077they are beholden to other people as well the other factors are if we push the start date back that can push um the end of the first semester after winter break and the concurrently enrolled students finish their coursework and are left without academic tasks for a week two weeks or longer if we push the date back um we one option that was explored as Dr Chaplan was looking at this was well what if you just had students do concur in enrollment but everybody else was Shifting the calendar an implication of that is that students don't have the assistance of counselors as they're trying to register during the summer for those courses we also run into issues around transportation and then Equity of access um we're also looking at a potential loss of Revenue we do
078have memorandums of understanding with other districts uh to offer some of the services that are affiliated with concurrent enrollment and so that's another impact and then finally we do have students who participate in AP and IB coursework those spring testing dates are nationally set and when you push the start date back further into the fall students are given less time to do their coursework and to prepare for those um assessments so when all of that information was presented it became became clear to the committee that it's not feasible to push the high school start date back um nor did it appear to be something that would be um desirable um given the concurrent enrollment so that leads us to what are we proposing um to try to balance the desires that the community uh presented
079and this situation so our recommendation for future years is to explore a staggered calendar and what that would look like is that high school would have one calendar it would look similar to what we currently have and what we're proposing for the coming school year and then middle and elementary school we would explore having a later start and end date um this was just really where we landed given that the constraints of high school cannot really be moved this is the option we're looking at clearly that's a major shift there is a lot to consider having two different calendars potentially we need to explore is that even what the community wants does the community want to start late if it leads to two different calendars so given that that will take a lot of time
080um we want to be sure we're getting input we want to be sure we're addressing problems that are identified from the community rather than creating what we think somebody wants and also taking the time to do it in a thoughtful and deliberate manner so our recommendation for 2526 is to continue with aligned calendars they look very similar to our current year calendar we did not want to um recommend any significant changes knowing that we are exploring the possibility of large changes another year down the road and we would recommend that the district continue to use the heat release options which were developed last year for our buildings that do not have cooling systems here are some of the highlights of the calendar that is proposed the transition day would be a Wednesday and then all
081students would start on Thursday August 14th we were able to maintain the five-day fall break as well as the two- week winter break which were also priorities identified in the stakeholder survey the first semester would then end on December 19th right before winter break and the last day of school would be May 27th which is two days following Memorial Day so again very similar to what we currently have in terms of next steps for the district our committee and the timeline that we're looking at we know this is our first presentation to the board the board would be accepting or adopting a calendar in December uh Communications will share that out with the community in January and then the calendar committee does meet year round and so our primary task for the spring would be
082a stakeholder survey an end in mind that we really have with that is to present draft calendars rather than just asking do you prefer this or that we want to develop some drafts where people could see what does it actually look like if you start after Labor Day how does that play out over the course of a a school year on a calendar and then continue to use the remainder of this school year and into the fall to gather the information that would be necessary uh to look at two separate calendars so thank you questions do you have thank you so much questions none at the moment all right looking good thank you so much for yeah no thank you so much for the great presentation and I think it's a it's a wonderful um
083idea to make sure that we're not pres we're not um running with a solution we're actually going to be asking with um if this might work for people so I think that'll be great U so look for your in January look for more surveys to be answered so yay y all right thank all right thank you okay and now the moment we've all been waiting for 8.2 discussion with legislator legislators uh first off just I want to say thank you all for coming this evening um I know that that was um a little bit longer than we had intended so my apologies um for having to wait that long but I know that the board is very excited to be able to speak speak with you um and see what is coming up for 2025
084legislative session um budget that kind of thing and so what I thought we might do first off actually is do very brief introductions um and in that introduction maybe the your top priority for Education um in the next year and we can the shorter the better no I'm just kidding um but yeah you could just briefly say what what the um top priority for K12 education might be this year and let's see who want oh sorry who wants to start Kathy I'm looking at you so but we're gonna have you C start Kathy uh state representative and Senator elect Kathy Kip um really um the budget's in a really bad place for the state um we're looking at cutting over a billion dollars um from the state budget so maintaining funding is probably the most
085important thing uh Andy baser state representative for house District 53 I would say ditto as a perfectly valid response that holding the line on education funding and making sure we can fulfill our promises made in previous legislative sessions is really important and something that's going to be a challenge an do you want to introduce yourself too yeah go well I would love to have a vote on the priorities in the state legislature unfortunately I'm just the contract lobbyist for the pter school district so thank you for having me hi I'm Sally bachala the Northern Colorado and eastern Plains Regional director with us Senator John hickin lver so thanks for having me um on the federal level things are still up in the air um we're still waiting to see who will actually be appointed to
086the Department of Education and all of that but I can tell you what we're working on and what's a priority for us um so the senator as you're all aware is um a big advocate for apprenticeship programs creating Pathways that um not only are for fouryear degrees but also for optional Pathways right for students to have um a vocation or certificates what have you um to succeed that may not be a technical so um we have a couple apprenticeship program uh apprenticeship bills that he has introduced and um we're going to be advocating for those and um and then we'll just see what happens but um I have I did take notes in regards to um funding uh I'm going to look into some funding opportunities for some of the things that was mentioned previously
087in this meeting and um and I can always follow up with with Brian on that but thanks for having me bir oh happy birthday oh hey um I'm Janice Marchman state senator lmer in Boulder counties and former Thompson School District Board member so just want to start by saying thank you um to the board members who are serving um I'm fascinated by this conversation I had missed the story and I would just say that we are one of the things we're trying to do is certainly defend the funding that um we have committed to we finally paid off the BS Factor last year which means we're at 1989 levels of funding so you know to go back from from there now would be really really bad but one of the things we have been doing
088is codifying some of those harassment and discrimination things so I've run two Bells since I've been there and they are in alignment on the pter school district website and when I look at Liberty charter school it specifically says that it does not include the piece of legislation that is supposed to be in place by um July 1st of this year and so it would be an interesting conversation to have as the authorizers um you are I believe the people who would be in charge of making sure that they are in compliance with state law um so that 7.5 piece the bill and it's and it's on your website but it's sb23 296 um that was implemented two years ago so that said um the other piece of that is we're working now to provide free
089training that free training will be available by April 1st of this year CDE is preparing it um and it will be free to all districts and all um charter schools and the expectation is that it will be mandatorily training by December of next year so that's some of the discrimination and harassment stuff that we've been working on specifically that I'm I'm hoping that we can just kind of hold a solid line while also figuring out what to do if Federal Federal funding um goes away so we'll have to see how that goes I didn't hear any anything I didn't hear anything about taking away cell phones that's not high on your list um it's probably happening well it's kind of difficult whether that's a local control issue or whether the state enters it but there's
090some incredibly scary data out there now that would make me think this might be on somebody's radar it it is we're having conversations okay yeah did you want to hear what the priorities are at the department okay give you as quick as I can we have a relatively new commissioner as you know and she is going gang busters she and staff and so we have a number of things that are underway and then some of it is brought forward by you all so the uh accountability fra report has just come out we have a a chart that was prepared had 30 recommendations we have a chart that was repar prepared by one of our staff that identifies where the state board can take some action on some of those and where we need the legislation
091so that ought to be a hopefully will be a conversation um when you all get the report which I guess is do you get it now or I'll look for it I haven't I mean I've seen the we just got it I haven't seen that grid you're talking okay well that I don't know that was prepared for us okay so we would know what to do okay we're unlikely to tell the legislature what to do what to do um so at at the moment the the board has been of course uh finishing the Frameworks for the current year they've been a little bit confusing uh that the the cut points have been confusing because the SAT changed and that's made a little bit of a challenge especially in terms of growth how do you measure
092growth when you've got some different systems so we've been jumping doing cartwheels on that one um same with next year's cut cut scores we just approved them but they are there's going to be a two to three year time period while we get that all straightened out and then God forbid there one of the recommendations in the from the 1241 task force was to change the assessments so we can Muck up this framework for years if we keep doing that um the the legisl or let me put this way we've been looking at our legislative agenda we have one also I've been suggesting and maybe that's been heard that we should be doing that in September because the districts that we go and visit many of them have already identified their agenda it would be
093nice if you all knew what we were thinking about we're just still working on that partly because we're waiting we were waiting for the 1241 report but also last year the the 1215 task force which was the postsecondary recommendations how to blur the line between high school and higher ed Etc there's some Financial requests in there and so that may also be added so in December we will adopt that um legislative task force and we will um I don't know that we'll send it to school districts I have a hunch it'll end up I think it'll get sent to legislators and I think it'll sit on our on our website but it might be interesting to see where for school boards to know where the State Board is thinking about going um slowly but surely
094we are trying to align the work that we do in all different departments with the new strategic plan and I have I have a copy of the Strategic plan that I can leave here so one of our efforts with the legis legislative platform is going to be to please know what our strategic plan is so that the bills that are recommended align with that um I think that's really going to be helpful at the same time we're also looking at the grants I'm now forgetting the number of grants that there are there're like 40 or 50 grants that we distribute and most of them are not very big they may or may not align with what we want to what with a strategic plan and so it's there's an effort right now to look at
095what we first of all to do an inventory of what we have what's been passed um probably to discourage more grants um especially given the the budget restrictions but to also make it easier here for districts to apply smaller districts really feel like they can't apply because they don't have the resources to organize um I think that's all that I want to add in there I do want to say that I had a terrific visit to the high school pter high school for the Freshman plan [Music] I actually ran into a colleague from Indiana on another board national board that I'm on who came to visit just to see this program for freshmen this certainly aligns with our state actually our national uh agenda to improve attendance we've got a real problem uh our commissioner
096has joined I think 13 other states to work on a program on that but the Freshman program that you all have is really terrific it was a it was a great presentation I also got to visit Zach Elementary I think it's a blue ribbon school yeah you guys rock thank you go ahead Kathy hi thanks for inviting me I am the board member elect to the State Board of Education for the second CD so um not getting sworn in until January um but I'll make my comments really brief thank you for the school Finance comments those of you who know me will not be surprised to know that that will be a top priority um I am worried that we say we did away with the budget stabilization Factor but we're going to cut and
097we're not going to keep track of it and they going to be permanent cuts and I think they would impact districts like yours and mine I served on the Boulder Valley School District for eight years so I think we need to be really careful about how we talk about that by saying oh we finish the budget stabilization Factor we're going to cut $300 million out just in changing the way we count students um we also need to pay attention to best we've had record amounts of applications and best and the governor's proposal is to cut that so I think that's really scary as we go forward um and then the State Board as board um member schroer said had two really important reports we had one on grants um I was really proud one of
098my students actually did the work for that and I think looking at the reports from the grant report is going to be really important going forward and working in connection with our legislators as to how that looks and what we do going forward because I know we don't have the money to do the grant work that we want to do as much as we'd like to and then the same thing with accountability I'm really excited about that work so um I'm available happy to cooperate and work with all of you really excited to be here thank you thank you I'm Laura Garcia sander representative El for house District 65 a few of you know me I was actually um so excited to hear that you passed the mill every override because as a prin former
099principal of Timnath Elementary I know that we had 95 degrees heat up there on the third floor so excited for that um I I left pter school district a few years back and um went to alt Highland School District um where I was there for a few years as assistant principle and recently retired um and still work on contract there uh managing the CLD um ml program there in OCR compliance one day a week so uh preserving school funding is my big priority obviously um I also want to be that voice for somebody who actually still works in school district in schools um at the state house um I want to make sure that we protect local control um because having worked in suburban school districts and now rural school districts blanket um policy doesn't
100work a a lot of times and so we need to make sure that we're um attentive to what might work in pter school district may not work in Otis and vice versa so we need to to make sure that we're paying attention to those I'm a freshman so I'm going to be asking a lot of questions and I'm also here to listen so thank you for inviting us I appreciate all that um all that you do for our schools thank you fantastic thank you so much um everyone for for coming tonight and for sharing that top priority if if I may take the privilege of just jumping into this um it seems like most people's top priority and I think probably that includes us uh is of course budget um and so I I think
101you know the the questions that I have um for that is how do we protect that what help do you need from from people um like us at the school board what help do you need from our community who just proved that um education is very vital to them very important um and so how do we um bring that to the attention of our community our governor um to say that we cannot you know have this $ 1.2 billion for shortfall on the backs of k through2 um and what do we do about that so that's a I understand that's a big one to just sort of throw out there but that's what I'm starting with so anybody want to jump in yeah Kathy yeah so um whoa I think I'm not positioning this thing
102correctly um yeah so the way that it works in the legislature is the governor is statutorily obligated or maybe even the Constitution by November 1st of every year he has to present a budget which is sometimes really awkward because it's before you have an election sometimes you even have an entirely new governor but um that being said where we are this year is the governor presents his budget and then that budget goes to the Joint budget committee The Joint budget committee has a lot of hearings um they hear from all the Departments they'll be hearing from CDE the col Colorado Department of Education the Colorado Department of higher education they'll be hearing from their budget analysts um they'll be doing a lot and you know the feedback that I've gotten um and a lot of
103our JBC members remain the same we have I believe just one new one this year that's right um our we've had a joint budget committee that that's fairly committed to education or very committed to education and they've also been good about sifting through the things that the governor has asked for in his budget and um and making different choices when it's been appropriate um I I would say one of the really big things in um this year's budget is the um averaging so what has happened and Dave knows because um you know back before I was on the school board and I I I'm actually going to mention I was on the calendar committee for several years so thank you to the people who do calendar committee I mean you could get me started talking
104on that and I'd be talking for hours but we won't go there um but I was also on we had a something called the student-based budgeting committee back when I was doing all my volunteer work before I was on the school board and one of the things that that committee talked about was basically for the most part and not universally Bas but a lot of money goes to those students and so there's a lot of different factors that make kids more or less expensive to educate for instance they have um different needs different incomes they might be you know Title One students there there's a whole lot of different factors that go into that and so the student ba based budgeting committee when we first did the work we said well we'll assign these factors
105and then we'll come back and re-evaluate but one of the things that committee did and and Dave you can tell me where I get this wrong is we went to a system uh in puter school district of saying every year we're going to um look at the the composition of the students and the number of students in every school and make and say this is how much your budget is well honestly that led to a lot of really undesirable behaviors it led to people hoarding money because they're like well we don't know if we're gonna have money next year so we're going to save extra money in our budget instead of spending it on kids so that we can um maybe make make sure that we can maintain our staff next year and those types
106of things and and so we then and I don't know where you are now day if you can tell me is you went to we went to a three-year averaging um at the time and what the state has been doing we modeled that after the state's averaging which is a five-year averaging so you take that fiveyear averaging and so if you have like declining enrollment it's not like this major downshift it's like well let's see if the numbers rebound and we're going to go more Gra gradually um and so that's what we've done here now that's what we do at the state last year the new student um for this new student finance formula that we adopted went to a four-year averaging this year um the governor's budget proposes ripping the bandid off and doing
107no averaging and I'm just going to say and I've already told our budget um joint budget committee members I say we've been here before it didn't work and I really recommend commend that you try and maybe you can go to threeyear averaging but going all the way is going to be really devastating to a lot of different school districts so I would say that's one of the big conversations um you know to have and what you can do is um you know you can talk to those of us who serve in the legislature and we can certainly talk to our joint budget committee members and you can also you know write directly to the Joint budget committee members but usually it's more effective to talk to the people who actually represent you so I mean
108I'll be quiet I probably talk too much and I didn't know if you wanted to add anything there Dave did I get that wrong well um no I I think that that that's a current that that is a realistic view of how it was I I think there's been some changes since that time where um we've taken some of those incentives out of like hoing money and things like that and and being a lot more deliberate with budget planning with the schools so we've I think we've evolved quite a bit since then um but yeah your your topic still is your points still made go ahead Kathy I just want to remind people that as of Janu the beginning of January we'll have two adequacy studies that might help with this that have two different
109approaches to looking at what the adequate funding would be to meet our standards the report's out already we just it's not available for public so I think we should be able to use that as a way to capitalize this conversation to talk about what's going on um by looking at at what's in those adequacy studies the state has never done those we've had them before as part of litigation but never has a state sponsored um piece and so last year the the legislature thank you funded two of those studies and I'm really looking forward to seeing what's there and I think it might help with the conversation good Kathy thank you for bringing that up I was curious and and this really for anybody in the group that might have any insights as the adequat
110as the results of the two adequacy studies become more clear what would be the plan at the state level whether it's through legislature or State Board of Ed to better understand the implications that has with the recent Revision in the school Finance formula uh assuming that the studies are going to suggest that we are underfunded um and with the resources that you know limited resources are available I was just curious if there are particular groups of people assigned and ready to act upon those findings seeing what potential fine-tuning efforts might be necessary in the school Finance formula to make any appropriate adjustments any thoughts on that go ahead jannice um there's a thought that um given Taber given our type B budget constraints that are going to continue to exist that we look at possibly
111growing the pie and so that would involve a referred measure again those scare me me to death because they have not passed in in the past but I do think we can take solace in the fact that our voters rejected Amendment 80 handily and um hopefully looking at at moving forward there are people waiting to see the results of that and you are absolutely right everything I've seen so far says it is like far from adequate whatever the opposite word for adequate is that is where we are and that is how it would be pretty much Across the Nation we've always wanted to fund schools but when it comes down to doing it I think it's something we as a nation struggle with so I just want you to know there are people that are
112organizations outside of the capital who are engaging with legislators and talking about what would this what could this look like um you know in in future years to ask ask for more money go Kevin I just jump in that my two cents on that is that um there certain Representatives I think were intimately familiar with what we went through as a school district this last year but I I don't want to gloss over this fact because as superintendent Kingsley uh thanked our community for the passage of fora that is the most significant mevy override I believe this district has ever passed um so that's first and foremost the second was that it came on the heels of a very difficult conversation around consolidation school closures this morning at the gym I saw protest in Denver
113for the exact same thing so this is a very real concern a very real problem that's disrupting the fabric of our communities the stress that it's that I'm looking back at my my peers behind me the stress that it came on the heels of our teachers our staff that they still feel it's very poignant and so while we're we were resoundingly responsive and we as a district in in our community said we're going to do our part we're now looking to you and this is my my cheer to you is that we we feel locally we've done what we can do and now it's incumbent upon the conversations in Demmer to expand that pot so that we don't have to have this conversation every single year um and so again I want to congratulate our
114community for stepping up to the plate um and to cheer you on because now it's uh tag your turn sen Marchman I'll say one proposal that I have not gotten any motion on from the first floor the governor's office is the concept that Charter Schools currently by state law are not allowed to be considered for closure under the um declining enrollment that that all of our districts are facing so my first pit this year and last year was why don't we just make that um a requirement and that's not been been well received so quick follow that was a part of the charter school accountability act that didn't pass right that didn't get out of committee that was I I remember seeing that as a vehicle that school districts under local control excuse me could
115do unilaterally to start there in other words as opposed to with its own schools that correct yes and honestly there are a lot of ways to look at that bill and the way it went sometimes people introduce bills and they become like a point of negotiation and so we can make this thing go away by having this thing go away too and um because when I wanted to look at that bill um I wanted it to be really really narrow um and I also want to just address um CSI M Levy Equalization pter school district has a number of CSI schools and it is simply not sustainable for us to continue as a state to provide the mill Levy Equalization the governor has requested $50 million to go toward sending whatever the voters whatever you
116guys approved then our CSI schools are going to get it too and um and so I I I just share that um I share that because it is something that's not sustainable and when I've had conversations with the governor's office the conversation has come well maybe the district should be paying for that and so I just want you to be aware right now we are um we are actually encouraging charter schools to become authorized by CSI in instead of our school districts because school districts don't have to pay the M Levy Equalization but the time is going to come before long where that's not going to work anymore and so I just want you to be aware of those conversations that are going to continue to happen um because that's just one piece I'll tell
117you one other piece that's driving me crazy is this piece it's um Public School transportation um it's a 9.5 $5 million requests the governor's asked and there's a company it's a private company oh H skip go I think is the name of it they're the uh orchestrators of this so I will also say that um people who are working on bills including the governor's office which that is that proposal are going to court legislators so it may make sense for you to see who gets on the education committees in both the Senate and the house and actually work with them um you know to to try to put put put this on their radar because if if if people are told that bill is going to be rough I don't know if we're going to
118be able to convince people that we should send $10 million to you know private company to get our kids places um I I hope legislators don't pick that up but what happens every year is they do and so I just want to share feel free to my my Approach when I went to go lobby at the capital was to talk to the people on the education committee I didn't always go talk to my people but I always talked because I was in Lov one um but I always went to go talk to the education committee members so I would just share that I'm always open to talk to you go ahead just yes thank you and um I think it's important to recognize as well um that the conversations that are difficult around education are
119difficult in so many policy spaces that ultimately impact our students our families our community um and and quite frankly as a result of choices that voters in our state have made regarding fiscal policy and I I think we just need to level set about that and be clear about that because ultimately what it means for us as a legislature is that we are pitting against one another co-equal and and really important pieces of policy so last night we were at CSU and do you want to guess what the best or the the hottest Topic at CSU is tuition right with a limited budget pot can you hold the line on tuition here we're saying with a limited budget can you hold the line on the school the promises we have made as a legislature Medicaid
120and Medicare these are incredible Investments that we make to ensure access to health care and equity in our communities for so many folks that is also an incredible point of concern for so many of us to be able to say that folks who have access to services today will still have them tomorrow Transit housing air quality like these are noble goals that we have put forward as a community and I I want to just socialize that here to say that there are so many things that are unfairly competing for the same po of money and and I think this conversation is very important to be able to level set on some of those expectations from our board but please recognize as well that the handcuffs that were placed on us are not something we can
121take off by ourselves and that is something that really constrains these conversations and forces uncomfortable and difficult policy choices around areas where were we left to the ability to have a different way of doing that I think you would see different funding opportunities as a result in the state and ser boser the question I have for that then is how do we as a group as as um Representatives Senators board members how do we get that across to our constituents and and our communities you know because it is difficult for people to understand the handcuffs that are placed on you um if they don't see see it particularly you take our community who has just given us another $49 million every year which is you know again thank you and they're saying well I don't
122understand what the problem is you know we ex did a I think a fantastic job um Dave and Brian did a so many Road shows about how is our school funded and the thing that we heard time and time again was I had no idea I did not know that so everybody has the assumption that because our taxes went up on our houses on our properties that everybody the schools got all the money and so there's just there's that little understanding of how the taxes work in our state to fund schools to fund um higher education to fund roads how can we as a community work together to make sure that people do understand that so they they are understanding that we are having these difficult conversations and fighting for the same pot of money
123um while again asking them I I don't know is there a possibility of a Statewide Mill Levy overrides particularly for education or you know how do we work that together uh I guess is my question yeah go ahead Kathy just one more thing to Senator hickenlooper's office and our federal um because we haven't talked about the federal and I think it's up in the air but um we have never had the money that we need for idea and I think the stories that we had today they were really compelling and so I think we shouldn't lose sight of that um representative ngus has been a big supporter of that but our Senators have not supported increasing idea funding so I think that's another place that we might be able to look yeah good point if
124I could ask a quick question on budgeting and maybe not this specific year but in in years forward during the special session this year where property taxes were adjusted and there was you know we're going to go to The Ballot Box to cut taxes and whatnot are we in the position where we would have to go to the voters to go back to the same tax levels that we were last year that was binding yes it's the combination of SB 233 and then what we did with the 101b bill but yes now we have to go back and that's even if we want to start looking at um exempting primary you know primary residences versus other residences for um you know for housing and that kind of thing so and did that special session codify
125the $555,000 reduction in assessed value so because it wasn't the special session two sessions ago that was temporary and they were going to readjust it now have they codified that I I don't remember I will have to go look on that Connor but I can tell you what did get cified is a cap for schools and that's the painful thing that we did we put a cap it used to be back in the day we could de Bru and take more now there's a now there's a cap for our schools which also means we need to thank thank thank our voters but my fear is that every District every County every municipality based on the choices that we've made and the handcuffs that we're in are going to have to continue to ask their uh
126constituents for more money um so I would say this is not sustainable I will also say we're the only state in the nation with Taber and until we are able to have a productive conversation it has to do with what you're talking about Kristen like we have to educate our people but we're going to have to educate our people and then we're going to have to figure out what we can live with because there's this whole understanding that Taber is great I need my 500 bucks back or 52 bucks but now we're going to watch lots of services starve unfortunately if we don't fund them Scott did you have something quickly there's also a mevy override task force that we need to pay attention to because while thankfully you were all able to pass a
127miv over right there are many districts in the state that have such low wealth that they aren't able to actually pass mevy overrides um and so I think we need to pay attention to that as well and see what those reports show us go ahead Scott yeah this is a great conversation um I'm as people know here I run a small business so it's budget season for me a lot smaller budget but uh um and I'm reminded of what my boss the owner has said is you know you got to think about your wants versus your needs and I I think um at the state level with education funding there's um essential needs and there's aspirational wants and I think when we're in a situation right now that you guys are in where you're being
128asked to cut a billion dollars um we have to really focus on those essential needs so Transportation teacher pay uh integrated Services I think that's that's a big thing that we're uh facing uh recognizing Ida today U really brought that to the Forefront um those are essential things there there are other things that are aspirational and I think are are great um but I I hear questions about in I don't want to be controversial but Universal feeding that's there I know there's a stigma that we were trying to overcome with that there's other things I'm sure um but I have lots of parents questioning that like they feel bad taking a free lunch when they know very well and good they could their kid could bring their own lunch and so that's a that's just
129a one example of an aspiration versus a need and so I just would ask that you guys take a look at things like that that you have control of um so I just threw that grenade in the room have fun I was just going to say that actually would have to be the the school meals would have to be walked back cuz the photo voted on that yeah did you have the same yeah I was just yeah I was just going to say the voters did approve that and our legislature is very hesitant to go back on what the voters have mandated that we do so go ahead it's a point well taken I think um even if you look at the ballot this year so it it calls into question the role of direct
130democracy and directing fiscal policy at the state because I think at the end of the day you know when the voters approve hundreds of millions of dollars for certainly noble goals right ultimately then that is placed in the lap of the legislature to say how do you implement so 300 plus million dollar less right now is there a sustainable source of funding for that that is the question we ask in education all the time because we don't make false promises to our teachers right if we're we're going to pay you more we're going to be able to commit to that number be able to do it right and I think that's an important piece where you know there has to be a conversation at a certain point about where is that point of accountability in
131process you know if the point of accountability is simply to approve things at the ballot and put them on the ballot because an organization has enough money to put that on the ballot and Market it accordingly where is the accountability for that organization who will not have to balance that budget I think that is a critical point of failure and how we do fiscal policy in our state I would much rather have the point of accountability be November elections if you do not like how your state legislature is spending your dollars then make a different decision at The Ballot Box and you have every right to do that every election cycle but to Simply hold us accountable for decisions that we have no ability to interact with other than my one vote is a very
132dangerous proposition and you see this playing out as intended quite frankly um when we are faced with shrinking revenue and a situation where we have increased needs at the district level most certainly and just to add on to that let's be very clear um so the initiative process that people citizens can bring things to the ballot right by getting enough signatures and going through a a process um that's in the State Constitution that is very clearly in the State Constitution and there's not a whole lot you can do about it um other than go and take something to the voters to try and amend the state constitution because the state constitution can only be amended by a vote of the people but in the 2022 election we had our voters decide that we should have
133less revenue and in this most recent election our voters decided to spend $350 million on something that by the way wasn't being asked for by the groups that benefited $350 million from the state budget where we're going to be like okay so we're going to cut this $1.3 billion plus maybe 350 million it's really challenging and um frankly I think it's really problematic there are other states where they their voters can bring stuff but it doesn't defund the government the government it doesn't you know reduce revenue and it doesn't spend all the government's money either because make no mistake the other thing that's in the state constitution is we have to have a balanced budget we do not get to do what the federal government does we we have to have a balanced budget Kathy
134to to ask a question on that for the next legislative session would say this exact time next year um these same groups that pushed basically the legislature into a special session and it was they would stay off the ballot this time that's not binding in for next year correct these same groups can come back and say we we need another cut to the another cut to the budget and am I correct in saying that yes and no kind of um so there was an agreement made I believe for like a fiveyear Hiatus but that's only on property taxes that doesn't cover any any other times of taxes for instance income taxes so these folks can still that they those folks can still bring another measure to the ballot to say cut income taxes and here's
135the problem with that is that the groups who are working on this are very wealthy they have a lot of money and they have what they call their path to zero path to zero income taxes and great but how do we fund anything that yall care about how do we fund education how do we fund roads how do we fund um Human Services how do we fund those things that help our most vulnerable people in our state it's a real Challenge and um yeah I think a lot of people are wondering you know how you know how we go forward and I I guess that that comes back to the question of how can we help with that um because to me it's obvious that um even with our highly educated Colorado Society we still
136don't understand at some level the path to zero right that's the first time I've heard that um being said I've heard other things um you know various projects and whatnot um but I've never heard the path to zero and I feel like I'm fairly tuned into what's going on so I know that there are a lot of people out there that probably have never heard that and don't know what it means how do we educate people to say this is the goal which means that if you have zero income tax great you don't have tax on your income and be prepared not to have a functional School District or roads or um you know Health Care System anything like that and and not to be alarmist but there needs to be an education process I
137mean I really do feel like part of the reason we won um the mill Levy override is because it was a very carefully constructed um and easy to follow road map of if this then that and people really did understand after we had and particularly Dave and Brian had gone through and said um this is what happens with those tax monies even though it seems like it should be going directly over here it's not it's you know um and there was you know again there's so much like I had no idea in the room and these are these are smart people these are well educated people these are people who are paying attention and so I feel like how do we help with that to make sure we get the word out to those people
138who can then also educate others because it you know what we're talking about is sort of a doomsday spiral and and we don't have any control over anything and well I know that we all feel that way sometimes we do we need to go ahead and step up and say we have control over this let's go ahead and influence our community right now to understand what it means to CH to make those choices to Haves and Have Nots and and I think starting with a community like ours which have has very graciously you know been aware and and willingly learned what was happening um and why this was important for their school district maybe we can start there and have that progress forward so I'm just not sure if there's something that you know as
139a as a school board as individual it would be more as an individual members forgive me um but you know our community is also I think you know they they are ready to go I mean there our community came out for this mil Levy and I think that there's still some fight in them about um for instance if you were to bring back um the the uh the charter school accountability right um I think there would be people who if they knew about that bill and they knew that it was presented last year and that it didn't it didn't go through would be like I'll take that thank you and and they would run with it so again it's just it's a it's a question of how do we uh get this out there yeah
140I'll just say it is really hard to educate six million people that we have in the state in Colorado about tax policy because it's not exciting and you know after you guys went through your school um closure discussions we did um Andy and I sponsored um reper and I sponsored a session on on school Finance because we thought people want to understand that and we tried to make sure the people who were in these parent groups um were invited and we got what half a dozen people maybe so I mean I appreciate it it's just it's um if you figure it out how to get people's attention let us know I know how ask them about closing a school because if this gets as bad as it can be the path toward zero schools will
141close I mean that is inevitable and at some point the people have to understand that you have to touch the stove regrettably to Mr hda's point we touched the stove last year and it's not fun we apologize for that we shouldn't have done that and we went to the voters instead and as some point people in other communities like Loveland are going to have to realize that too and other and other communities all across the state are going to have to do that because it is a priority and if they want to keep cutting our budget and go to the path to zero there's going to be consequences I mean I think um I think the video that was um shared really highlights I think the points of connection we can make with our community
142and the importance of those Investments right because I think it's a continual sharing of those narratives which say because our community has made these choices these are the opportunities that are available to our students these are the opportunities that are available to Educators in her desire to teach in PSD I mean those points are really Salient because they land in a real tangible example it's it's hard to think about sometimes the theoretical I mean like conceptually I'm fine with a path to zero for certain income brackets right I mean like I think because I think a flat tax on income tax is Inc incredibly inequitable right so I think there's a conversation to be had there but it becomes sort of more theoretical in that regard right like I think the thing we can do
143as a community is say these are the choices we have made this is the difference in our community as a result these are the benefits to making these decisions and adequately investing our dollars in our public schools and if you like what we're doing here these are the impacts then if we consider something similar at the state level or if we take a different attct how it impacts our students negatively and I think that's a longstanding conversation and certainly a lot of work to Market those I think stories in a way that land with people but it's critical that folks know that the dollars we have invested in as a community are going to be stewarded well to the success of our students and our Educators go ahead representative repel repel weird um thank you
144for the the question director Draper I think it's a pretty large conversation um that yeah I as I sit here I I live in Eaton I grew up in Lal rural communities and my Mantra all year has been get out of your bubble um because I think the conversation here and along the Front Range is very different than rural areas one of the things that um you know as as principal in at Timnath I started there and we were at 276 kids I think when I started and when I left we were at 450 something I think um huge growth people from all over the country coming to Fort Collins area people from all over the country are saying wow our property taxes are so low it's great and people who have lived here for
145Generations don't have the same experience and people who are out in the rural areas don't have the same experience so there's two different conversations going on between Front Range districts and Rural districts and and those challenges my district where I work W R9 barely passed a bond um desperately need a new Elementary School barely passed um and that was a huge win but it is District by District by district and so it is such a huge conversation the path to zero you know when we look at states that do have zero income tax they've got really high other taxes and so that's a big conversation around educating the state and what are the values and where are we going to push pull because you can't we we can't just print money we got to you
146know take from Peter to pay Paul so um so there are some big conversations there and um like I said my Manor this year has been get out of your bubble and and reach out to other districts in your in your board meetings where you have opportunities to say what are the challenges that you're experiencing and how would we work across the state to figure out how are we going to fund schools now and in the future thank you I also think we have to um recognize that the traditional ways of reaching out aren't working um and that there's a huge wave of misinformation the charter school bill was a good example of that a lot of a lot of misinformation and you all are trusted in your community and we have to come up
147with altern I don't know what it is but I see huge numbers of people only get their information from social media and whether that's accurate or not is up for another debate but we have to figure out different ways to reach out to our community I think because the misinformation is killing us and then trying to get people I I understand the problem getting three people to come to school finances a victory but it doesn't really get us to the finish line so um I we we've centered a lot of this conversation both locally and at the state level and I appreciate that I do want to revert back to some comments about nationally um because I think we're all in a spot of we we're going to wait and see but we don't know
148with that comes a lot of concern and I'll express my own I've got a lot of concerns about what happens if there's an erosion of certain public dollars for federal programs that we rely upon here locally to do very necessary very important work I think we've all expressed some of that concept con Nation so instead of just putting more concern out into the ether I'm wondering if there's hard information that you're hearing on your end about what are some contingencies that we could explore if certain federal programs go kapo in the next um year two years what what are you hearing that's hard information that maybe we could assuage some of the folks that are relying on the those federal dollars um that may be listening tonight I'm optimistic that people listen to this conversation
149late at night um and I don't know who that's best directed at I don't want to pick on you Sally but oh Sally can you can you just um put your mic on sorry thank you Linda McMahon who is a a former WWE executive I think married to Vince McMahon okay um yeah so again there's a lot of chatter about the department of Ed it's not good so we would just be talking because we don't have anything concrete um so and I I think we need to wait we need to wait to see what is actually going to be in place if it is going to be I don't want to use the word gutted but um there is talk about aot a lot of things in regards to the Department of Ed and um
150and so I just don't want to I don't want to just like Happ in stance and start talking when we don't really have all the information yet yeah yeah um and I also think too you know a lot of these conversations when you're thinking about what ifs and you're looking at funding right um and we know how important education is right is that I think you really do need to look at what is in your power and your power is your voice and so nothing no even though we don't have any concrete information yet of what the future holds and what that's going to look like you as constituents you always have the right to be reaching out and writing letters of hey I'm on the you know pter School District Board of Ed and
151I'm concerned about this you know and so that you can definitely send to me that is something that you can do at any time time doesn't matter who what administration what what's happening because those are things that you're giving your Senators you know your federal Representatives something tangible that they can actually take to the floor when they're having these conversations and these are real coloradans that are talking to us these are real narratives these are real stories coming from Well County LMA County what have you right and that is something that I think across the board you should never forget that that is in your power at all times and I am very accessible all the time I'm here um but yeah I mean I'd be happy to take those letters and then bring it
152to the senator and then we would take that because I mean he's on he's he's on the health committee I mean this is a concern we don't know what that's going to look like so that's what I suggest but again I can't really give you anything because I we don't have any information yet so but but I appreciate I mean I appreciate it you know so sorry sorry I was going to do representative Kip and then I'm just real quick I wanted to follow up on what Sally said because um our governor when he was in Congress um and he used to be on the State Board of Education right he does care about education um he told me as I was talking to him about funding idea and things like that that he got
153maybe maybe 10 letters a year on education so just imagine if if we got 10 people in every school district to write to our Senators it would probably be almost like an earthquake right it would be in magnitude order of orders of magnitude greater than what they're getting now just want to make that point thank you for sharing that yeah because I I think we can write do a letter writing campaign yeah Kathy you had something as well I just am worried that we're going to see the roll back of all the title n protections and I'd like to see what we can do with our local legislators to shore up our own State protections for our students because I think that's one of the biggest scary places in the repeal I don't think they're
154going to actually be able to repeal the Department of Education I may be wrong but Congress has to vote on that but I think we're going to see a huge roll back of protections for students that we've worked really hard for so I would love to figure out what we can do leg atively to help protect those students go ahead Andy I I think that's an excellent point and really I think Dove Tales you know past a funding conversation which is of course critical and and a point of equity for so many communities I think there is also just a tangible fear in our communities and certainly in our school districts for how different students will be impacted by the actions or at least some of the um articulated uh vision of the incoming Administration
155um you know for my part it's been a couple meetings a week now with Community organizations or concerned community members who say if this then what right and and that hits across a lot of different demographics for a lot of folks who feel singled out or targeted or who have been subject quite frankly to millions of dollars in campaign ad spending um and I think it's really important to recognize that folks in our communities are scared they have a lot of anxiety because they don't know what next looks like um at the state level level there are already conversations happening around where are there protections needed in statute where are there gaps where sure there might be Federal action but what can we do as a state to make sure that folks in our community
156are safe that folks in our community recognize that we respect them for who they are for how they show up in spaces that folks have a right to expect dignity in spaces that they step into certainly in the educational space but in other spaces as well and that is not a certainty um certainly it's not something that we've fixed as a society as the earlier conversations articulated well but it is something that has been I think exacerbated and folks are feeling particularly vulnerable in this moment and so that is a place I think again where there is good dialogue needed to understand what are you seeing at the local level where are the gaps in State Statute what can we do to ensure that in Colorado students show up and they have a safe and
157respectful learning environment and and certainly that extends to other conversations as well thank you so much for that go ahead um Senator Senator Marchman you had something yeah I think um I you know we we definitely have to continue I totally agree we have to continue to codify um the things that could go away but we have to realize to the laws that bind our provision of idea and Essa so all of those systems like you say I don't think they can the laws are not going to go away just the funding by which which we do it so in my mind as the vice chair of the Senate education committee I'm in panic mode and I just want to call out that the governor's budget does not reflect that panic and so take that
158for what it's worth we had a press release yesterday about a $5 million Bridge that's going to connect the the capital to the uh Civic Center and that's $5 million and that was newsworthy and it was budget worthy and I am going to not I can't be the only person to call it out all the time but it is happening so as much as you can stay in tune with what you're hearing in terms of the I hope the governor comes back in January and he's scrapped the whole thing and he's only focusing on ways to shore up our Medicaid our provider rates our education but friends I don't think that's what's happening um and so I just want to sound that alarm um I am not serving on the JBC committee but I'm going
159to every single meeting because we are having conversations about yeah we're cutting $2 million in rural Healthcare and we have a $5 million Bridge next year because we're going to turn1 150 in Colorado and that's just one one example that's all I will say and nothing else needs to be said right yes go ahead um who is yes Caroline go ahead sorry hey so I I know there's a lot of consternation in our community around deportation and I have especially a lot of concern for our students in our district who might have one or two parents who who might not have um be here legally or have an questionable immigration status and so is there anything we can do to protect protect our children right of of or families that might have one or more
160parents that maybe have a questionable immigration status we really concerned about our children thank you yeah very much shared um I think you know in part I mean it's incredibly troubling because we know already that for our undocumented Community crimes are under reported right because there's a g eneral distrust of law enforcement there's concern that one thing could lead to another or anybody with a badge might be that linked to them uh being um detained or otherwise um subject to immigration action I think that's incredibly concerning um I have been very encouraged by our city leaders by our local law enforcement who continue to maintain a distance between the actions that they take to protect our community and to ensure that Justice is served and also then the role of the Federal Government um for
161our part obviously State resources will not be used for that and we've made sure that there is data sharing that is has spalls between it so that data isn't shared um intentionally or otherwise with um ice or other entities um but that that doesn't dispel the fear right or the lived experiences of folks and I think that's where it's critical that we continue to engage um as I know we have been with our um Advocates on the ground Circ being a great example but we have organizations here in for Collins as well um Forza Latina I mean like so many organizations that are working on this I think it's incumbent upon us personally as a legislature to follow their lead they will help us identify places where folks are feeling particularly vulnerable or if there's
162something we can do in statute to reinforce that um it that work is critical it's ongoing um I know Governor Nome called a special session which feels um I think maybe comforting in some ways I don't think personally my take is that we're there yet terms of having the solutions identified um and it will be ongoing we did have a conversation um as a caucus um last week um while late bills are typically very hard to come by this is an area where there has been a signaled interest to say that if additional protections are needed and it's not a part of a legislator's first five and there's a need for additional capacity in the system to make sure that we Shore up those protections there's a willingness to engage in that conversation and make
163sure that we're doing things the right way way and following the lead of the organizations on the ground I hope that helps because it's it's a very real and shared concern go ahead M K and I just wanted to mention that you know I've been in the legislature for six years now and I think it was my first or second year that we um took this on as an issue so we have been working over the last six years to try and make sure that it's to put in as many protections as we legally can to make sure that we are um putting Protections in place for for families for instance I believe um the was 11:34 something like that um is a law that prevents local law enforcement you know cooperating with ice essentially
164now I'm not going to say that they're all going to follow it depending on where you are in the state but I think up here we have um at least in lmer County I think people are are following what the law is absolutely absolutely go s and and I also want to say too that your federal legisl like your representatives we are aware of this they're and we are advocating and we will do everything that they like that we can to protect Colorado um and I mean but yeah I mean like they they do have the majority so we don't know what that's going to look like either if it's even going to happen um but I can tell you that your your senators your Congressman um will be part of the front lines so
165I mean and and you got state legislators and you already have some things in place I mean Colorado is a safe place and we will continue to make it so yeah good yeah so I really appreciate being a part of this conversation and listening and there I actually and as a followup to your conversation met with our local police chief and city manager about that very same topic today trying to figure out how can we work together school district and local community to reassure and be transparent with our public about what we know what we don't know uh to not Stoke fear while also continuing to be accessible to our community especially those like you all are engaging with that are very fearful right now and doing that in a transparent and thoughtful way uh
166I want to lift up our commissioner uh Cordova for the communications the draft Communications that she sent out to all school districts across the state last Friday around being really clear around how the US Supreme Court has ruled on school districts across the country not considering immigration status as a means of enrollment uh I think that was really really helpful I think we need to continue to do more of that and I was really really grateful I think one of the things I have like three asks if that's possible and I'll try to make them as concise as possible because I think one of the things that we can do and Senator elect Kip you brought this up really early on the evening and I want to just really overemphasize the importance of it as
167we continue to try to collectively work together to prioritize protecting all students but especially those who are most marginalized I do believe one thing that can happen in this legislative session is trying to figure out a way to hold the line and not having the end of averaging or slowing that down because when you think about conversation that we've just had around the potential closure of schools and consolidations and you think about what schools were repeatedly mentioned over and over many of those were our Title One schools and so when you think about school districts which is really relatively almost all of the school districts in the state of Colorado and the country are losing enrollment eliminating that averaging only accelerates our school systems back into having these really difficult conversations with unfort which unfortunately
168and disproportionately impact where our greatest concentrations of poverty live so I believe like holding the line on not eliminating averaging or at least slowing that down I don't know if the tradeoff is bringing back the budget stabilization Factor like that's not a I don't know what the tradeoffs are of that but I think what you mentioned in terms of like trying to figure out a way to keep averaging uh really makes a lot of sense especially when we don't know what might happen at the federal level with dollars that again all of those dollars are predominantly geared towards our most marginalized students and so this will have a compounding effect if we don't do that the other piece that I would say as our local elected leaders is when we are running for the next
169five to seven we we'll see how many years it is two parallel School Finance formulas it's really important to note that the pter school district is a floor funded District now we're a high performing District which I think doesn't bring a whole lot of compassion because we do great things and we're a gem of a school system but I do believe the reason we're doing that is because of our local community offering additional Financial Resources but with our declining enrollment uh this year we've lost 43 students compared to last year that's more than most of our elementary schools uh we have almost 7,000 empty seats across this district and so trying to figure out and recognizing that as we're making really hard decisions and the adequacy study becomes more clear and present trying to prioritize
170moving the floor funded districts if we're going to stay at the floor move the floor right so it's just trying to figure out ways uh when we're looking at whether it's the size of our district we're still the eighth largest District in the state we don't have the largest concentration of atrisk students but we're gaining and there's more and more of those students coming into our community uh and when you think of how the cost of living we have you know as you mentioned as legislators you're being put against other legislators as winners and losers uh School superintendents are doing the same thing and we're not working in a regionalism type methodology and mindset we're competing with each other based upon you know whether one's mevy passes and the other one doesn't you know we're
171going to end up probably seeing a surge of people working here that are right now living and working in Loveland which is really unfortunate the way that's set up so I just think anything that we can do to prioritize moving the floor funded districts elevating them without taking away from others I think that would be really really important and the last piece of advice I would give and this is really more directed towards our state board of education is I am really encouraged around the work that the task force provided regarding accountability uh I'm most encouraged by trying to identify different factors uh at the high school level to measure postsecondary and Workforce Readiness I think anything we can do to incentivize school systems like ours to blur the lines between the workforce and our
172classrooms and incentivize more industry certifications and apprenticeships and reward that in the school performance framework everybody wins in that particular space yeah yeah you think I know how to do that um getting the word out we have terrific things going on in the state it's not equitable different districts do different things and we were trying to figure out a way to make a number of things available big districts small districts north south east west kind of thing um but getting the word out and having the counselors to go to the parents to tell them about these opportunities I don't one of the things that the CDE has not done is used our local communication resources to talk about what's available for kids and this is one of them that I I feel real passionately about
173that I'm going to be going on to Community College work so that we can continue to just blur the line um but I'm wondering you might want to be a model School District on how to communicate with your kids and with your parents because especially in a highly educ ated community so many parents want their kids to go to college right away and the opportunities ought to be let kids try stuff maybe get a certificate what they learned in Texas was that very few of the kids that got certificates actually went into that profession but it kept them in high school it it taught them about college work and then they went on to often three and four year schools but yeah I'm really excited about that learning what we don't want to do in
174our future is as important as learning what we do want to do so I'm grateful that you said that thank you for listening thank you so much you know I I um I could stay here and have this conversation all night um it's I am so grateful that you're willing to to have this conversation with us I do also go by the rule that nothing good happens after 9 p.m. so I want to um let you all go if we you know the biggest thing that I'm taking away from this conversation is we need to do this more often uh more frequently um and have some things to ready to communicate to each other so that we can communicate to each other's constituents and say for instance a big takeaway is is a letter writing
175campaign I had no idea that they only get 10 letters um about education that's huge and I think I'm pretty sure that we can yeah we can we can fix that next week um so there there are definitely things that we can do um I think that will help and so I just want to say again thank you if anybody else would like to chime in I have one comment because I think it's fascinating that literally every single person elected official in this room has some deep connection to education and I appreciate that so much and I think it just speaks to how when you get invested in education you just can't stop so I really appreciate your efforts to support us and please to Kristen's point please let us know how we can also
176support you thank you all right yall are free thank you so much for coming we however still have one more item of business so quick [Laughter] run all right so we are going to go into uh 9.0 um executive session um for legal advice can I get a motion I moved that the board enter executive session for the purpose of receiving legal advice on specific legal questions relating to civil action number 123 cv- 0254 6-mr dnrn as authorized by CRS 24-6 424b individuals invited to join the board an executive session are superintendent Brian Kingsley lead assistant superintendent Tracy guile Chief of Staff Lauren Hoon Chief finance officer Dave Montoya Andrea Le and attorney gwenith whan can I get a second Jim for the second Jill can you call the vote please Jim brokish hi Kristen
177Draper hi Connor Duffy hi Kevin havelda hi Carolyn Reed Scott Shan hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 70 excellent and while everybody is saying their goodbys I let you know that 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 the adjournment will be recorded