Board of Education Meeting: September 10, 2024

001e e e e e e all right good evening everyone thank you so much for joining the Board of Education this evening um please mute your cell phones um as we begin the meeting Tuesday today is Tuesday September 10th 2024 and this meeting now call to order at 6:30 p.m. and if you would please join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance thank you all right thank you so much um we'll move on to the approval of the agenda would any board members like to make changes to the agenda okay see we will move on to recognitions and reports um those individuals being recognized tonight are invited to stay for a group photo at the end um and and the last recognition so if everybody could could stick around to the end we will come

002up and a group photo and let's um superintendent Kings we have somebody who's going to be introducing this yes thank you so much and good evening everybody this evening we're honored to recognize excellence in the Performing Arts and leading the celebration is our Communications coordinator miss Emily shley Emily welcome all right thank you everyone good evening good evening to the board of education and to superintendent Kingsley all you here in the audience and those of you watching us on YouTube tonight so tonight it's my honor to introduce our theater students from Fort Collins High School Fossil Ridge High School and pter High School and I'd like to bring up Melissa flail to talk about the variety of awards that they've collectively won thank you my name is Melissa fla and I'm the curriculum facilitator for

003music and the Performing Arts and it's always a pleasure when we get to recognize our students and our teachers for the Excellence that they bring to the Performing Arts and then everything that the Performing Arts to our students in terms of mental health and belonging especially career preparation you'll hear a lot of those things um in some of these theater Awards we have tonight so the first thing I'd like to do is to call up our Bobby G Award winners from Fossil Ridge High School and Fort Collins High School along with their teachers so if you all would head on up here so the Bobby G awards are um basically the Colorado High School level version of the Tony Awards so pretty prestigious um we often have a lot of nominees and winners in performance

004and we did have quite a few nominees this year as well but our winners um are all in the technical side of theater and those are actually really where we see a lot of the career Pathways and the in demand jobs um in the theater industry because as I through personal experience there are very very very many actors singers out there but not as many technicians so um I want to First recognize Fossil Ridge High School under the direction of Michaela Osmos and um our winners from there include Alexander heinik who was the winner for outstanding achievement in lighting design for Into the Woods Alexander would you wave and then we have a trio Alexa fritzler Hillary sesac and Christian cotay who won the award for outstanding achievement in Scenic Design for into the woods

005so three of you wave and um then I want to recognize Fort cullins High School their director is Jason Tyler and they have a pair who won a special award mallerie Clark and Stella Epstein would you two wait and they were the winner for outstanding special achievement in sound design for Heather's high school edition and while we're recognizing that part of um our theater world I also want to just note that the Fort Collins High School Tower Theater received a Colorado thespians troop Spotlight at Colorado thescon last year for their um theater for social change across the 2023 to 2024 season um they performed the prom which allowed opening of conversations around lgbtqia plus issues they performed I'm spacing out on the Neil Simon Play Bright and Beach Memoirs thank you which opened up potential

006conversations about what it was to be Jewish in the 1940s and also anti-Semitism in any sort of our um arena in history or now and then they also performed Heathers the musical which opened up opportunities to talk about suicide and suicide risk and suicide prevention so I think opening those spaces of belonging and inclusion and being able to open those conversations is something really important that theater does and so thank you to Jason and those students so if we could give a round of applause for all our Bobby G [Applause] winners and then a few of these students are going to stay here the next thing we're going to recognize as we transition Kristen are you going to say anything at Point we'll have student helpers sorry no you're good um so we're going to

007transition into the international thespian Festival so could keep our Fossil Ridge students and miss osmus and then have the rest of our Fossil Ridge students and Mr Smith and the pter high school students and Mr Barry join us so the international thespian Festival also known as ITF um was at Indiana University June 23rd through the 28th and part of this Festival is that students who perform individual events at Colorado thescon during the school year um are able to qualify to perform at the International sbian Festival um if they receive a superior rating at state so I'm just going to list those there were three qualifiers from pter high school and actually none of them could be here unfortunately um but Charlotte Baker for solo musical theater Leighton delman for costume design and Ma shinkle for

008costume construction and then we also had eight qualifiers many of whom did perform um from Fossil Ridge High School Hannah schnor for musical solo Fawn Barry musical solo Maddie Holloway for musical solo great Howell for sound design cat Smith Scenic Design Kaylee Bissell for musical solo and Cooper hand and Parker crop for a musical duet so if we could give a round of applause to all those students and then there are two things that are really special about what we want to recognize about the ITF experience in general and that is um particularly that Fossil Ridge High School's production their winter musical of Alice by heart was selected as just one of nine High School theater Productions from around the globe to perform as a mainstage show at international thespian Festival it's a huge accomplishment

009it was a huge passion project on the part of Miss osmus along with her collaborators John Garner Bri McCormick Nate wolt Rebecca spafford Christopher langri and then Joel Smith who joined from pter high school to collaborate with three of his students and the entire group traveled together to perform they raised funds and supported each other in that so if one person raised more they supported someone who hadn't been able to raise as much so that everyone could go without needing to pay an expense and um it's really just been amazing thing to win but I was not there and so we are going to ask um Mark Barry the principal from Fossil Ridge High School who did TR to the international theater um Festival international thespian Festival to say a few words about the experience

010for the students I'm going to try to keep this brief because there's a lot of talent in the room but it's behind me um so board president Kristen Draper board directors superintendent Kingsley cabinet community members my name is Mark Barry and I'm the principal of fost rid school and at fost high school we promote the values we call them Ridge values of respect Integrity determination gratitude and excellence and I had the privilege very distinct privilege to see all of those values embodied this summer in Indiana that Melissa was speaking about not just by our also students but by our pter high school colleagues as well I was just informed sitting in the audience that we are now calling ourselves saber paas is that right saber paas um but I did go to this festival and

011had the opportunity the privilege to watch not one but two shows of Alice by heart and um what I want to share is just a quick anecdote I was leaving my hotel room going to the evening performance and heard two people talking and just budded my way right into that conversation um and then they found out that I was the principal of Fossil Ridge and they said that's why we're going to this show and I said well who who are you um and it was the licensing agent for ITF international thespian festival and it was a musical theater professor and um I saidwell if you're here to watch them I would love to if we have a chance after the show to connect so I could hear your feedback um and after I left the

012show I heard Mark Mark Mark and they pretty much accosted me coming out with beaming beaming Smiles on their face and they explained to me that they go to a lot of these events around the country and around the world and they are put in a booth uh like a box seat at a sporting event and they have their computers and they work and they watch and they work and they watch and they told me right away they said we closed our computers and we could not take our eyes or our ears off of what was happening on the main stage um and then they proceeded to tell me how professional it was and they felt like they were at Broadway production so I sh that for you to hear um because I think that's

013super super impressive so I just want to say congratulations to you not only for going there um but for your well-deserved recognition and for the fact that we are collaborating um not just embodying Ridge values but embodying pter School District values and Fort Collins values so thank you to you and congratulations to everybody behind me so I just want to say really highlight what was so special about that was not only the achievement of the show being selected and Performing and the Excellence of that but the collaboration between the two schools and the way that they came together and just the way that theater can bring people together so I want to recognize all of our staff and also our from Fort Collins High School these schools collaborate together quite a bit all of the

014time and then our administrators who are here today and just to thank all of you as um District leadership for supporting us in these Endeavors so thank you everyone and I just want to say on behalf of the board congratulations um that is something that you will never forget um and theater just it's an amazing amazing place to be and so just hold that in your hearts because you will keep that forever and then I'm going to hand this um stack off um I think we got them all lined up pretty [Music] good congratulations everybody so proud let me go over here weing at the teal dress pick the camera in the middle awesome congratulations everybody all right thank you all um next up we have a resolution in support of Hispanic Heritage Month can

015I get a motion go ahead Jess I move the board approve a resolution in support of Hispanic heritage months September 15th to October 15 2024 great can I get a second thank you Connor all right and then yes we sorry we have a special guest tonight right yes yes we do joining us this evening to speak to Hispanic Heritage Month is Delia mahany our diversity equity and inclusion coordinator welcome Delia I believe she has some special guests to join her always welcome and Delia can we have everybody if that if it's okay can we have everybody stay we'll do photos at the end of all three resolutions but we'll do them individually perfect thank you yeah I'm going to stand this far back do you want them to do pictures in front or over here

016we'll do over here in front of the resolutions if that's okay so thank you everyone superintendent Kingsley board of directors cabinet I'm so thrilled to be here tonight to introduce speakers from Lopez Elementary School um starting last year and as recently as about 7even hours ago I was at Lopez huh Melanie I was at Lopez teaching lessons around how their leader and me habits can increase feelings of belonging for themselves and their classmates across differences especially for those students who sometimes feel alone because their identities are different from everybody else's I'm here to tell you that Lopez students would Amaze you with their insights into the world and our community and how we show up for one another the future is bright so without further Ado on behalf of Miss day and Miss noden who

017could not be here this evening and are so sad and jealous about it right now because they had other commitments I would like to introduce Miss Maria Elena Thomas to introduce you to our amazing young speakers [Applause] thank you good afternoon uh members of the board and honored guests my name is Maria Elena Thomas I'm a family liaison at Lopez Elementary School it's my privilege to introduce two exceptional young hispanic leaders from our school to express our heartfelt gratitude for your recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month as the daughter of refugees from Spain and Cuba I've experienced firsthand the transformative power of opportunity and the enduring Spirit of resilience having immigrated to the United States at the age of 14 I'm deeply proud to be an American my multilingual and Multicultural background has equipped me with

018a unique perspective that I strive to share with my community through my work as a family liaison I am to extend the same kindness generosity and guidance that my family received to others in need it is an honor to present two young leaders from Lopez Elementary School who embody this very essence of kindness generosity and a commitment to their education as one of their teachers eloquently stated these girls lives are going to light up the world please join me in welcoming fourth grader Ariana Duarte and fifth grader Melanie Michel [Applause] sosia primaria um Lopez n Washington thank you for inviting us to speak in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month my name is Melanie and I'm a fifth grader at Lopez Elementary I was born in Seattle Washington I speak two languages Spanish and English most

019of my family are Spanish speakers my culture is special to me because I have the ability to communicate to many people my parents own the cathic girl and we love being a part of the four of the four colins Community hello my name is Ariana and I am a fourth grader also in at Lopez Elementary I was born here in Fort Collins and I speak English and some Spanish most of my family are also so um Spanish speakers my culture is special to me because I can understand and relate to many [Applause] people we are going to tell you a little bit about William Lopez the namesake of our school in 1950 William lopezz graduated with honors from Colorado A&M which is now called Colorado State University he began his career as a teacher the

020following year when he was hired as the first Mexican amican educator in pter school in P in the pter school district bill was recognized for his connection with students and received national and local Awards before leaving his teacher career Mr Lopez developed a model foreign language program for the school district as a young man in 1940s William Lopez fought against racism by writing a letter urging businesses to take down signs that refu refuse services to Mexican amans following his time as an educator Bill worked in local government continuing to advocate for local Hispanic groups Colorado State universary University recognized William Lopez lasting Legacy as a Hispanic civil rights leader with an El Cent achievement awards my mom's friend told me he actually knew William Lopez it feels really special to attend a school where the

021namesake was such an ad Advocate thank you again for having us here this evening and for recognizing Hispanic Heritage Month do you feel good job stay here for a second stay here Ariana and Melanie thank you so much for coming tonight you really are going to light up the world you already do so thank you does it um board have any questions or any statements they want to make before we call the vote go ahead Jess and sweet but you guys are awesome thank you for coming ahead Brian Maria Elena I want to say thank you for being a wonderful part of our school district as a family leaon we appreciate your efforts and Melanie and Ariana your smile is lighting up this room and our YouTube channel so on behalf of the entire School

022District I want to say thank you and and I believe at Lopez Elementary School you follow many different habits correct as a leader in me school and I think the one habit that you taught me tonight was synergize because I believe synergize reminds us to make sure that we focus on our strengths and we look to find the strengths in others and celebrate them and make sure that they Thrive as a result of it you did that so well tonight we're so proud of you congratulations all right Jill can you call the vote Jim brish hi Kristen Draper hi Connor Duffy hi Carolyn Reed hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 5 z y [Applause] y all right thank you so much and don't go anywhere we'll take pictures at the end so um next up

023we have resolution and report of National Suicide Prevention month can I get a motion go ahead Caroline see resolution in support of National Suicide Prevention months I move that the board approved a resolution in support of National Suicide Prevention month and can I get a second looks like Jim is beating us to it fantastic all right and we have a special guest for this resolution as well yes I think we have two uh speaking to the National Suicide Prevention month resolution our Sarah mder Wilkins our mental health and prevention coordinator and Christine eping one of our uh prized Mental Health Specialists welcome both of you thank you so much superintendent Kingsley members of the board and cabinet like you said I'm Sarah mder Wilkins and I'm proud to be standing next to Christine eping a

024PSD mental health specialist who has been key in providing many of the trainings that we'll be speaking about tonight suicide is a deeply sensitive and challenging topic that touches countless lives yet it's it's essential to also recognize and celebrate the efforts made towards Suicide Prevention tonight we'll share some of the amazing work happening within pter school district and our wi wider Community to to support Suicide Prevention our focus in PSD has been on training and Alignment to build capacity ensuring more professionals are equipped to recognize and support students and families experiencing a crisis we train all staff on QPR a nationally recognized program based on the belief that anyone can gain the skills to recognize warning signs and take life saving action our students genuinely care about one another and want to know how to

025support their peer safety PSD collaborates with the Alliance For Suicide Prevention to offer students the opportunity to learn how to recognize concerns in themselves and others and connect them with an adult who can help over 200 mental health ssps including our school counselors Mental Health Specialists School psychologists School social workers and mental health fellows are trained in how to conduct suicide screenings they know how to ask the right questions gain a better understanding connect to resources and support the safety of of students and families in critical moments we've utilized grant funding to purchase lockboxes for families to securely store items that could present safety concerns during a crisis to date we've distributed around 300 lock boxes and have more available as needed we've collaborated with the larer County Juvenile gun safety coalition to distribute materials

026on safe and responsible gun ownership discussing this subject wouldn't be complete without focusing on what our PSD students are saying every other year in PSD and across the state of Colorado students take the healthy kids Colorado survey one question asks if students have seriously considered attempting suicide in the past 12 months from 2021 to 2023 the number of students responding yes to this question at the middle school level was reduced by 33% and by 48% at the high school level although these numbers instill hope we recognize that there are those in our community who may be struggling with a mental health crisis or know someone who is we have people in every school to support you you can share this information with a trusted adult use safe to tell or call or text 988 the

027National Suicide and crisis Lifeline You Are Not Alone we are incredibly grateful to all of our PSD staff members who care deeply about students and recognize when there are concerns we're grateful to our mental health ssps who show up day after day and lean into difficult moments to support the safety of our students we're grateful to our students and families who truly care about one another and are brave brave enough to share when someone needs help thank you to our board cabinet and superintendent Kingsley for your ongoing dedication to mental health and belonging in [Applause] PSD and I just want to say thank you to all the work that you are doing um over the course of the years I know it's been um a long haul particularly since Co and that it has been

028um a lot of work and I really appreciate all that you are doing for our students all that you are doing for our staff um and to see those numbers dip the way that they have dipped is absolutely unbelievable and that is a testament to you all so thank you um other board members would you like to speak no all right so if Jill could we call the vote please unless did you yeah absolutely Sarah and Christine I want to to say thank you not only for your presentation tonight but representing life-saving statistics that are a part of this entire Community our emotional well-being and our whole and our health is not the role solely of the school district to help improve for all of our students it is the role of all of us

029as a community to come together to talk about our vulnerabilities to be able to be courageous and getting the help that we all need and you in partnership with this district has allowed a lot more young people to have an opportunity to have a future so I just want to say on behalf of the district district and our ssps uh that you all represent I'm just so proud of the work that you're collectively doing keep us keep us moving forward thank you okay Jill could you call the vote Jim bookish hi Kristen Draper hi Connor Duffy hi Carolyn Reed hi Jessica Zamora I motion passes 5 Z all right thank you [Applause] all right we have now 5.3 resolution and support of attendance awareness month can I get a motion sure go ahead Jen I

030move the board approve a resolution in support of attendance awareness month and can I get a second all right thanks Jess and once again I have a special guest yes uh joining us this evening to speak to attendance awareness month is one of our assistant superintendents Dr Julie Chaplan uh Julie welcome thank you thank you so much for having me here this evening and um just want to thank you for taking uh taking the initiative to put this resolution in recognition of attendance Awareness Month um as we um have been experiencing uh since covid uh attendance absenteeism has been on a rise not only in our district and in our state but around the nation and so we do want to acknowledge that um there are a lot of challenges facing our families um and

031we realize that and so while attendance is important we do want to be a partner with them um in helping understand their experiences um that are you know contributing to their absenteeism and ways that we can help um break down those barriers for students to attend because we also know um that uh the attendance is directly correlated with student achievement graduation rates and retention in school um and also that attendances can be one of the first signs of students and families feeling disconnected and not feeling like they belong in our school system so we have a lot of work to do in our system um around all of our practices and that's a focus for um one of our strategic action plan um you know uh goals but uh but we're really excited we've you

032know started a attendance kickoff campaign PSD attendant counts um and we're just really hoping to invite schools into positively reinforcing students who with um you know attendance or who have improved their attendance to really work with families to find ways um to really help them identify like what it is that we can do to help them get to school so um so we have a lot more work to do in this space but we want to just make sure we're really um saying out to our community we are here we want to listen we know there's lots of experiences and that really impacts a lot of the attendance and we're ready to come to the table and partner with you so anyway thank you tonight to the board thank you so much and thank you

033for so much for um being willing to wrap your arms around this and and and um bring people along with you so really appreciate that anybody else all right if we can go ahead and call the vote then Jim brokish hi Kristen Draper I Connor Duffy hi Carolyn Reed hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes Z and if we could get up and go ahead and do our picture now that would be wonderful get oh look at that [Applause] Trooper really apprciate thank you so much everyone that was just wonderful we're going to move on now to 6.0 superintendent report um and so superintendent kingy you have remarks to make to the board of education and to the community yes thank you um I love my job I just love it so much I mean just

034like I am so proud to be the superintendent of the pter school district not only are we celebrating incredible accomplishments but we're showing we're willing to have conversations about really difficult but necessary things too um whether it's Suicide Prevention attendance awareness month you know as a statistic you know we really know that we can't teach and help engage students unless they're in our schools and while we have 90% or more of our students in attendance every day we have we have over 30% of our students chronically absent and that's not just a PSD challenge I participated in a Statewide call with all superintendant across the state of Colorado it's a Statewide National challenge uh the state has set a very ambitious goal of reducing chronic absenteeism down to 17% I think in the next five

035years and so I really appreciate that our District's strategic plan is working in alignment with these efforts to make sure we can continue to provide the wraparound supports to all of our young people in a way that's meaningful uh the work that we're here celebrating tonight doesn't happen by accident it happens by Design um and it happens with a lot of people that are involved and I want to cue our Communications team to show a quick win video around actually what our start successful start of the school year has looked like up to this point [Music] m [Music] oh [Music] our videographers can tell when us can't they in a short period of time uh I am so proud of how they help symbolically represent all of what this community is about from our employees

036our parents our students uh our board uh community members who trust us I want to thank our operations team who worked tirelessly over the course of the the summer to make sure all of our facilities were ready to go on day one I want to thank all of our teachers and administrators for not only greeting but we started academic business on day one in this District too and I want to thank our community when you have a chance to look at all of the various projects that were briefly illuminated those projects wouldn't be possible without voter support in 2016 and a bond so I just think it's really really important as we think about what makes this District great it's all of us contributing 1% more every day to try to figure out how do

037we continue to make quality improvements and I have a chance not just in video but as the superintendent to go out to our schools engage with our community uh see that firsthand I've had so many experiences across the community the last two weeks that I wish I can talk about all of them that I can't I had a chance for the first time in my uh time in Colorado to go to the governor's mansion last week because we were recognized as one of the few districts to be the recipients of a rise grant for about $600,000 that is making it possible for students in our Automotive Pathways and our information technology Pathways to have paid apprenticeships uh it also paid for all of the equipment to start our Automotive pathway and watching students in our

038transportation building learn how to do their first oil change uh was quite inspiring over the last couple of weeks I had an opportunity uh just last week to celebrate Canard Middle School's 20th anniversary uh and the highlight of that event was sitting down uh with sandri Canard the wife of Hal Canard and listening to her story and talk about her husband's Legacy her family's Legacy and what makes that Community great um I just thought that was super special this morning I had a chance to go to the Lincoln Center with an incredible amount of staff there wasn't an empty seat in the building as many of our leaders who are classified staff members had an opportunity to provide Capstone presentations to the district's cabinet and to their peers and other leadership I want to thank

039Joanie I want to thank Judy Kenner for their leadership and support I learned I was able to see two presentations that we all in the spirit of how do we be how can we be better as a district in supporting our newcomer population we have over 300 newcomers who have joined this community the PSD community in just the past year and listening to our classified staff members who are boots on the ground and in many instances closest to those families trying to figure out how we can be more compassionate responsive to those families really touched my heart and inspired me also had opportunities to learn about classified mentorship programs today recognizing ing that as we look at employee turnover how how can we continue to invest in our employees in meaningful ways that was amazing

040and I just I'm really really looking forward to figuring out creative ways to fund some of those proposals across the district I have probably been in close to eight schools in the last two weeks I wish I could talk about all of them uh I'm going to talk about putham elementary school um we talked about putham a lot last year as as a student enrollment um is maybe not at the level of a lot of other neighborhood schools but as Cass our state assessment scores were uh published over the last week or so I'm proud to acknowledge that putam elementary school for its fourth and fifth grade students had the highest academic growth in the entire school district and I would say on average the growth was four times the rate of an average school

041in this District it's that high so I had an opportunity to talk to their principal Steve apaka he gives all of the credit to his teachers and he talks about the mindset of the teachers at putam elementary school is they approach their day-to-day work like scientists and they're really hard in a professional way on each other that when they're having their high impact teams work there is a rule at putam elementary school that in order for a teacher to suggest an idea around their way of work they have to provide first evidence that is backed by research that's the standard at putham elementary school now what's great about the leadership there is they've been in place for 16 years they've been building these systems but one of the takeaways that I've had around from Steve's

042leadership um and his assistant principal's leadership is they believe in hitting singles every day getting 1% better every day it's not about taking big home run swings they are really fundamentally clear that we have limited time with our children and what we do every second of the day matters and if we take every second of that day and make sure what we do is research based and we do it in collaboration and with some level of consistency these results come and he has proven year over year this is not the first time that they will be eventually recognized by the state but for every single subgroup at putam elementary school they have exceeded State expectations for growth which means an academic year of gains in one year's worth of time because of where their rate

043of growth is they are actually closing achievement gaps as a result of their effort so a tremendous amount of work that is going on there I've been I've been to Johnson Elementary School where great great work is going on there I met a first grader named Emerson who was doing his first science lab of the school year and they were designing boats out of foil and testing weight to see and learn about density and masc they putting pennies in the boat and I asked him what inspired he had a really cool almost like a viking design of his boat and I asked him Emerson you know what inspired you to make it like that he said the Titanic which really startled me as a first grader talking to me about the Titanic but sometimes inspiration

044could be a non-example of design uh and he taught that to me uh as well and I went to lesser who was celebrating uh their Spirit Week yesterday it was so impressive to see the balance of joy as well as Academic Press that is a school of historic high expectations in terms of student outcomes but to see how they're you know just engaging joy and collaboration and Humanity at the center of that was inspiring and I closed my day yesterday visiting uh Bennett Elementary School another great school another school who had a very difficult year last year as a result of our community conversations and I had an informal superintendent chat at the end of the day that not only there many of their teachers decided to participate in where we can just talk and

045engage with each other but a parent came and she represented eight other parents and asked a series of questions of just wanting to know what to expect so I just that level of Engagement amongst our staff is what makes that video possible the engagement level of our parents is what makes that video and our current realities and celebrations possible and I couldn't be more proud to be a part of it and that's what tonight's presentations of learning and informational type discussions are going to be about uh our community we are going to talk about the realities of our school district's budget and how we get financed by the state and we want to demystify not just tonight but every day that there's a lot of assumptions that we need to unpack as a school Community

046one is that we are a floor funded District that's not a myth that's a fact that when you look at the amount per pupil that we debt it is at the lowest amount compared to any other District across the state of Colorado and our finance director will do do a much better job of articulating why that is tonight but I think it's important for our community to know that I've also come across in many of my engagement sessions with members of our community and we're a highly educated community that there's this misconception that when property taxes goes up which has happened locally that our school district experiences a windfall of cash as a result that is not the case in fact it actually just allows the state to provide us less to keep that per

047pupil amount the only way that our district can raise more money beyond our per pupil allocations is through M Levy overrides and bonds and that's one of the reasons that we've been talking about that as a governance team it's no surprise members of the community that recently are members of our board my eyes are getting really bad uh re referred a mil Levy ballot question to the ballot um and we wanted want to make sure that our community has factual information about that measure so I want to just again signal to the community that if you're interested in learning more we do have a 2024 mil Levy page on our school district's website I would encourage all of you that are interested to learn more to go there uh we are continuing to post more

048and more information and assets so people can understand the factual information behind uh that particular ballot question and I also want to signal that the district will be hosting uh in the next couple of weeks a series of informational sessions for people who want to learn just more about the facts um there may be a lot of different engagement sessions regarding uh but staff can only provide uh the factual information and we want to make sure that we invite you uh to attend those so please look forward to hearing more information from The District in the next week or two around the specific locations and times and availability for all of those sessions but thank you so much for allowing me again the opportunity to rest the community it's it's I really appreciate it thank

049you absolutely and thank you so much for sharing those remarks it's been a a fabulous week uh here in PSD a couple of weeks yeah um so we now move on to community comment um welcome to the community comment section of the board meeting the board desires to hear the viewpoints of all stakeholders including students employees parents Guardians and community members public comment is designed to address issues not personalities or Personnel matters please keep your concerns and comments focused upon the district and appropriate for a K12 audience please note that the board does not generally respond to remarks made during Community comments our lack of response should not be construed to mean that we agree or disagree with what was said or with the description or interpretation of events as presented by any speaker further

050even if some remarks may be factually inaccurate we generally choose not to respond or correct the record here because formal board meetings are not the time or place for back and forth dialogue as we begin this community comment session let us model for our entire community how to listen and how to interact respectfully even with those with whom we disagree for we all have the students best interests at heart and so this opportunity for public comment is for members of the community who register to speak by the designated deadline those people will be called on to make remarks in the order that they signed up and each speaker will be allowed three minutes to address the board so first up we have Joshua riing welcome hi thank you for uh pronouncing my last name right

051A lot of people get it wrong um actually I'm definitely not going to take up three minutes because uh some of what I wanted to address uh Mr Kingsley you just addressed and that was uh the amount of information on the mil lovey site um and just kind of transparency in general and I had I had a few concerns um just based on how much information I wasn't seeing but uh based on your comments it seems like there will be more and more um forthcoming which which I am personally very appreciative of um the second part that I was slightly concerned with was just the messaging it did take me a lot of time to go through that mil Levy website um and and get the information that was there and most people don't have

052the time to do that um and and so I I have a concern about how messaging how information is getting out to the public um it's easy to send an email it's hard to send an email that someone can get the important information they need in less than three minutes uh and and while I do applaud the effort I I would hope that maybe you guys can spend and and this is not to the board necessarily but just kind of to the to the school district at large spend a little more time uh working on that messaging and and making sure that it's that it's coming across quickly and the way you want it to um and then finally one other point on the mil Levy site was kind of a some people that I

053uh talked with thought it was kind of threatening um to see the saying you know if if the mil Levy doesn't pass then then school closures are back on the back on on the menu um and that's not we haven't received any sort of feedback about any of the things that you all agreed would be important before revisiting something like that you know going over the budget with a fine tooth comb finding efficiencies in other places um we haven't heard anything else about that and so for someone to say well we're going to look at closures again I don't know how there's an expectation that it would turn out any differently than it did earlier um the previous two times it was attempted so if you could be more forthcoming with information and transparency regarding

054that that would be greatly appreciated uh that's all I had thank you thank you next up we have Anna leetta welcome just a little bit here it's just feedback just good evening tonight I would like to follow up with some thoughts on psd's working Equity def definition as presented by Mr Kingsley at the last Board of Education meeting during the Strategic framework update Mr Kingsley you talked about how we need to take a hard look at why we are not meeting the needs of 100% of our students yet you pointed out that we need to have a hard and hard and honest conversations around why the needs of certain students are not being met you said let's be be frank about it it's predictable you went on to list a list of students whose needs

055are not being met that fall under various categories race sexual orientation socioeconomic status whether they are receiving integrated services or whether they are multilingual Or Hispanic I would like you to consider including another category of students which no doubt includes students from every one of the groups that were mentioned by you and also includes kids from every socioeconomic background in race I'm talking about the students whose number number one factor in their academic struggle is rooted in having a persistent significant reading deficiency it is clear that the district is beaming With Pride over the 22% gains that you've seen in elementary literacy scores in K through three in such a short period of time as a result of changing from balanced literacy practices to the science of reading but this should cause us to pause

056and ask hard questions about how we can support our older Learners who are still not proficient in literacy and are academically delayed as a result of less effective literacy curriculum psd's Equity def definition states that educational Equity exists when all students have access to the resources and opportunities they need to to be college career and Community ready I would challenge you to consider how our district is specifically meeting the needs of the many kids who have left Elementary School completely IL equipped from middle and Beyond due to poor literacy skills often times these kids are diagnosed with learning disabilities in a clinical sense yet still not identified fi as kids with disabilities in a school sense because our district gets to make the call on whether or not they consider a given student struggles to

057be considered a disability in truth a kid can be years behind and still not be considered as having a disability in PSD so what happens to these students with lagging skills who exist in a district that touts high performance as the ultimate means of belonging when education isn't geared toward lagging skills I'm asking this because I'm standing here this year as a parent of a PSD middle schooler who has been adversely affected by psd's balanced literacy and policies around dyslexia I want you to know I want to know how you can help my child be College ready and career and Community ready when it doesn't even feel like our neighborhood Middle School is equipped to be a safe and supportive environment in which she can continue to close the learning gaps from elementary Basics we

058have a long road ahead of us to educational equity in our district if PSD cannot acknowledge and close its own gap of underidentification of learning disabilities and provide effective instruction to a spectrum of Learners thank you next up we have Megan Mullen welcome it's really lovely to see the board members again today um I come kind of as a messenger I'm one of the administrators for an online group of PSD parents and Associated Community members and we took a straw poll within the group about feelings toward and against the mil Levy I thought I'd share the results with you and read you some of the comments that were echoed multiple times uh my goal is to provide you a broad overview of community sentiment versus my own individual feelings in case it helps you craft

059an approach toward community outreach or affects or changes the board's internal priority points for discussion prior to the M Levy vote the reach of the poll was 700 people with a response rate of about 50% the good news is that 50% of the respondents viewed the mil Levy in a positive or potentially positive light when asked a comment about what factors would push a respondent from favorable to a yes uh then in theory the person would kind of help evangelize the people that they know um uh there were clear criteria that echoed across responses first and foremost was the concern about fiduciary responsibility uh no fine tooth comb review has been n of the existing budget and the preponderance of community members parents teachers they're concerned that none will happen how can we trust that

060this extra money will be used appropriately along the same lines many asked for a publicly stated list of priorities to be followed for spending placing teacher salaries in building improvements over over Central staff spending many comments go so far as to say they will be voting no for this measure unless it is explicitly stated that the mevy money will not be used for cabinet raises one comment Likens this distrust of f iary responsibility to giving a drunk a drink that is how deep the community distrust of spending this money appropriately goes the common consensus is that the detailed plan sent out to the public for how the money will be used or a detailed plan would be helpful the school update uh the planning document that has been shared on the mil Levy website uh

061is useful but it only quantifies a portion of the expected money uh it seems logical sorry I'm going to have to hurry uh based on gathered responses that transparency regarding budget review is vital in gaining support uh the word trust comes up a lot people have asked has the board and superintendent yet visited the schools marked for consolidation last year all of them and talk to the administration about the schools uh to the administration to begin building trust again how can we trust the same PE people who put forward the plan last year um and how can we uh quantify that they have truly changed their approach um will school school closures have a moratorium for a certain number number of years while the other procedures are put in place how will these decisions be

062made and finally there's a big conversation about public P perception the conversation surrounding how unpalatable raises and property taxes will be uh how to reach the people who don't actively have children within the um District right now uh presenting the M ly a positive light not just a moratorium on consol consolidations for a year or two is vital for everyone it will take grit and Leadership from within the cabinet and board and um we have to help push the messaging out with cohesive vision and plan for the M Levy for this to have a chance of passing I have uh I will attach for you all I came loaded for bear I have a whole bunch of comments uh screenshotted and emails from community members and I'm available afterwards if you want to talk in

063detail about it but thank you thank you if you could actually give those to um Jill here that would be great thank you all right next up we have Taylor Unwin welcome before I write my remarks I always ask myself what can I say today to be a change agent what can I ask that will get my audience to listen I know there's an element of empathy fatigue radiating in this room right now while I'm not sure all the power this board truly has to affect meaningful change I make these remarks with a small glimmer of hope that if you hear me if you hear us you'll care and you'll do something I reject the idea that you're bad people I don't think you are but I do think you have a difficult time deciphering

064priority and asserting yourself when it matters for these reasons I fear your M Levy override May Fail the focus from what has been said by a board member is on the masses you are trying to help the greatest number of students at once that makes superficial sense but there are problems with that logic taking a note from legal Performance Management and I'm sure Mr schmidtz who's not here today will agree you actually want to focus on the outliers you want to look at what is most deeply and directly negatively impacting your average in psd's case those would be your minority populations with failing graduation rates including your struggling integrated Services students this thought process is the reason the perspective of the disabled child is not understood before WID sweeping policies are made like cell phones

065or attendance it's the reason why students in integrated services are woefully underrepresented in all of your data on Mental Health ask the Zella families about finding trauma therapy for their non able children imagine trying to find that outside of school hours it's the reason why children with the severest needs in your autism site based programming aren't immediately thought of with boundary changes of a school that Services them it is the reason we have repeatedly asked for changes to your transportation policies it is the reason we have asked for Urgent changes to cak and it's also the reason that this community including the steering committee did not feel the eak committee was representative enough you all have expressed concerned about continuity for children during the banford boundary shift but fail to realize that the outliers those

066in the autism site based program have it worse than their neurotypical peers if your child is zoned by Timnath or for Tim or Bethy Elementary but placed at banford by the district for site based programming they are then sent to Weber or Boltz for Middle School a notably easy time for a child while their school peers at banford under this proposal attend Preston and their neighborhood peers attend timoth Middle High School in essence they are completely divorced from all of their communities in this boundary ship I hope that you will ask yourself how these locations for site based programming are decided and evaluated it seems to me that the district could save money on transportation and Logistics while also helping create continuity for these children by making Preston a location for the autism site based

067programming thank you thank you next up we have Danny Lawrence welcome after the last meeting I left feeling pretty defeated and your resolutions here tonight don't really alleviate that feeling for me it was shocking for me to learn how little influence or institutional Direction you all have as a board on the administration you think an Ask of 50% of the topics chosen for seak was huge you know frankly it was ridiculous and the conversation that took place following was plating let me save you the suspense of an update none of the parents who continue to speak publicly were chosen to participate on the cak committee although all of us applied and the is department will do nothing to address its structure uh more private committee meetings that report to no one will be your outcome

068so this while holding resolutions for attendance while completely discriminating and excluding children who struggle with mental health school avoidance as a disability kids with complex medical situations like my son those in foster care or those families that are dealing with addiction divorce illness all those kids just struggling to get in the building no longer feel welcome in their District in the email that went out to doctor's uh in the email that went out doctor's appointments were no longer considered excused because parents should be able to schedule medical appointments around the school day I don't know you guys should try to tell that to a doctor tomorrow morning my son will have his corneos measured at his at as his medical condition has continued to advance over the summer I'm certain a moment of celebration for

069all those in is that took away his IEP and brail literacy access last spring I'll make sure to tell my cornea specialist in Boulder tomorrow that PSD thinks they should extend their office hours Beyond 9: to4 quit making policies and resolutions designed to exclude those without at least having the respect of a conversation of those people that you're affecting likewise Hispanic Heritage Month is a slap in the face after revealing last meeting that the Hispanic graduation rate in the district is below State average your comments about Harris bilingual last meeting were absolutely revolting when Hispanic students in this District become more than heartwarming or La Familia maybe you all doing something to specifically Target the district to help them graduate and I doubt your performative resolution will do that after the meeting I had a

070conversation with one of you where we talked about the need to educate the masses in response to my complaint about the cell phone policy being discriminatory so I'm asking you to just take the sign down in the lobby it's a lie you all look like liars for having it there educating the masses defies every child every day it craps on inclusion I no longer believe that inclusion or Equity is the intent of the board or the administration you educate the 70% the White and the privileged the rest of us with medical conditions or racial and cultural diversity will sit on the fringes where we have been with our declining graduation rates please get some inclusion training I can't think of a group who needs it more when the district spends more time excluding than finding

071ways to include you've all abandoned your vision and a lot of really good children in the process I'm ashamed to be alumni of this District we've all lost our purpose thank you thank you next up we have Fred kersch welcome thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight uh my name is Fred kers I'm the director of community for sustainable energy we are a citizen um based Grassroots campaign here in Northern Colorado uh we knock on doors talk to people raise public awareness about energy issues and organized support for sustainable energy policies um I am here again we were uh here quite a bit in 2022 two we generated over 3,000 signatures and letters to the board then um asking to maximize the potential for solar um to save money to help prepare students for

072jobs in the industry um it's obviously better for the environment and the outcome in 2022 was that um PSD hired mckinster to do a solar feasibility study and that study identified six projects that are ready to go they were ready to go in 2023 there're still ready to go right now um that can save the district $270,000 a year now obviously that's not a whole lot compared to the $49 million that you're asking people to um pay and increase taxes but it is it's a cost-saving measure it's a step in the right direction and it's really that study was the floor not the ceiling those six projects are really just the beginning um if the district were to maximize solar potential following the lead of districts like Denver and 9,000 other schools around the country

073ENT um the savings could be well over a million dollars a year annually um so we are back again this year bringing the signatures and the letters to you we're also um stepping up our technology this year we're doing emails as well so you'll be seeing a lot of those um and uh we are asking that you include the implementation of the six identified financially feasible um solar projects include that in the 5year plan um if you're going to be asking people for more money in taxes it would be nice if you are also pursuing the cost um effective measures that you've identified we are going to be talking to people about this between now and election day we're going to knock on 7 8,000 doors um our election newsletter will get at least 5,000

074opens and we would love to be encouraging people to vote for the mil Levy increase because you've put solar in the fiveyear plan and you've demonstrated that you're not just asking for money but you're also taking the cost saving measures um but if solar is not included in that then we can't tell people that we are going to be talking to people and generating all of these letters um about about solar and yeah we you know please include it so that we can encourage people to vote for the M ly increase instead of telling people that you missed the opportunity and that you have ignored their voice we definitely don't want be telling people that um wow time flies when you're having fun thank you thank you next up we have Charles Fitzpatrick welcome good

075evening uh my name is Charlie Fitzpatrick and I'm a community organizer uh for the community for sustainable energy today I'm here to talk about prioritizing cost of effective spending measures highlighted in your 2023 solar feasibility study before increasing property taxes to fund the school district I want to thank you for completing this study but the study ignores the opportunity to educate students on a career in the Solar industry PSD could follow in the footsteps of Denver public schools in 2022 DPS was awarded a three-year Grant by the city of Denver for career preparation and exploration focused on green construction and sustainability DPS partners with grid Alternatives Colorado to run a 4-we summer program called the renewable energy Academy grid Alternatives is a nonprofit organization that focuses on installing solar electric systems to provide families needed

076Energy savings and to give workers training required for a growing solar industry working together this four-week program gives high school students the basic understanding of construction electricity and solar system design by the end of the course students will have completed a solar installation on a m ground based roof array wired a small offgrid solar system uh and engaged labs to measure solar panel output they will also learned about career Pathways that are available from industry Professionals in the Solar industry at the end of the four weeks stud students earn a certificate from grid to demonstrate that they have a basic entry-level understanding of solar installation after completion of this certificate students have the opportunity to further their education in solar installation by taking more courses with grid and those credits are recognized by several solar

077installation companies this certificate gives high school students a head start in the Solar industry which which can lead to inter internships or more skilled training in the future I hope after hearing about DPS is commitment to educating students about topics related to the green industry you'll consider adding the six projects to the school district's budget the inclusion of these solar uh projects not only save taxpayers money and the environment but the projects could also be used as a classroom tool to invest in students future careers with that being said now I'm going to read a letter from a citizen in favor of starting the six solar project pter board of education I write write this letter to ask you to maximize our solar potential at PSD and maintain transparency through public updates we need to

078lead by example in our community as a teacher at pter high school we already looked to the Future in preparing our students to be relevant with 21st century skills what an opportunity to teach SL train students and yet another tradeit of the future help put us on The Cutting Edge as a district that walks the walk thank you for your time have a good evening thank you next up we have Amelia Freeman welcome hello my name is Emma uh I work for sea Force um and I'll be talking about the district's photo photovoltaic potential my other colleagues spoke about the benefits of mckinstry's proposals to the district's budget and the student body but I will touch on the benefit that just the six primary solar projects would have on our community directly in 2023 PSD

079commission mininstry to do the solar feasibility study and they identified six projects that are financially advantageous and like Fred said ready to go right now um it's estimated that just these six projects would result in an annual reduction of 1223 metric tons of carbon dioxide and that's a really hard figure to wrap your mind around um so I've come up with some examples of just what those six solar projects would actually be doing for our community um 1223 metric tons could be visualized in the following ways 2,446 th000 lb or the weight of 489,000 adult male Asian elephants one person flying from Boston to London 612 times um an amount that would take 61,000 150 trees a year to capture the average car driving 3, 57,500 miles uh charging your iPhone 147 million times um

080or a bubble 7 and2 miles across or a bubble that would cover the entirety of Fort Collins all of those things in just one year of having six solar projects that would save schools money and these are projects that will bear these results every year for the next 30 Years the fact that these projects would save the district more than a quarter of a million dollars every year makes psds in action untenable as the school district that serves 30,000 children across for uh Northern Colorado you bear the responsibility not only to make Common Sense decisions but also to act as an example for generation of children that will have to confront the Fallout of 200 years of particularly heinous human exploitation of our natural resources as Educators PSD acts as the Keystone of our community

081and you know better than I do how life-changing the impacts that Educators and faculty um can have on youth um we implore you if not for your bottom line to move forward with the renewable energy projects for the sake of Fort Collins's wildlife and Fort Collins is Young um to quote a letter addressed to the school board ecological collapse is here and Exel accelerating the only justifiable action is PSD taking immediate steps to transition to solar and more renewable energy sources for the Next Generation signed app parent thank you so much for your time thank you and last up we have chrisen Hillard welcome thank you for the opportunity to speak today uh my name is Christen Hillyard and I'm here today with SE Force uh I want to first thank you guys for finishing

082the solar feasibility study it has identified some great strategies to save money for the district The Next Step that we need to take is to put these solar projects into the 5-year plan for the mil Levy since you are once again asking asking constituents for funding the least you could do is Implement cost-saving measures shown in the study the annual utility savings for just the minimum amount of solar panels would be $270,000 a year as stated by Fred and this is money that our schools need um as identified in the study PSD need not even pay any of The Upfront costs for these savings one of the many possible solutions is an energy savings performant contract or espc this would allow the schools to pay The Upfront cost of installing solar with the Future Energy

083savings um the tellure IDE R1 school district has implemented the espc strategy with great success um um toride signed a contract with year out energy in 2022 for $6.5 million um through this contract year out energy installed about a th000 new LED light fixtures Wireless thermostats new HVAC equipment and all of that on top of 208 kilow of solar panels This was also on top of facility maintenance and upkeep um with the new solar panels tell ride saves more than $5 million annually on utilities as a result of the upgrades and they save about $75,000 more in operations and maintenance cost combined with grant funding of about a million dollars from the state and the national government the tellure ride R1 School District was able to easily Finance these upgrades um if Telly ride can

084do it so can we and since we are are in a position where saving money for our schools is necessary to keep them running installing solar is an opportunity we can't pass up I'd now like to read another letter from a Community member um to the pter Board of Education as a taxpayer from this community as well as a former longtime School District employee I am requesting that you seriously consider maximizing the solar energy potential for all buildings within the district I feel that this is an important option to further explore as it contributes to cleaner energy and also can be economically advantageous please consider this option and keep the public informed by transparency and Future opportunities for public comment and discussion I would much appreciate a reply in this regard um thank you for

085your time today thank you thank you all for coming tonight to community comment really appreciate it um and if you'd like to stick around we're going to have a couple of presentations um about just how schools are funded um but next up we have board oh I'm so sorry yes yes you wanted to make a comment it's okay I um one I want to thank all of the nine members of the community who came to address the board and staff here tonight I know it is atypical for me to address a specific comment um but I do think it's important as we as a district take responsibility for some conflicting information that exists across some of our stakeholders so uh just a bit earlier we heard uh a comment made about doctor's appointments not being

086excused absences and I want to take responsibility that I have received feedback that a recent correspondence that came from the district to our uh members of our community and our parents was internalized in different ways which created some confusion we are going to send out some clarifying information to make sure we Rectify that that is on the district not on any members of our community uh but I want to just be explicit that doctor's appointments are excusable absences um so again we will remedy that situation send out updated information to all of our important stakeholders but I just thought it was important to discuss that in the event somebody uh was listening here tonight I just thought uh acknowledging that and me addressing this one particular item uh by no means means that it's more

087important than the other uh items that were brought to our attention tonight but I just appreciate time to correct the record thank you thank you all right moving on to um board topics and committee reports uh let's see well that makes it much better this agenda item is an opportunity for board members to provide an update on committee work or speak to board topics do any members have something they would like to report nothing all right um I'll just jump in that I got to um go to a couple of schools myself this past couple of weeks and um it was fabulous I was able to go to uh D Elementary um for um a wonderful talk um with Abby the principal there um and see some of the kiddos um in action and it

088was just absolutely amazing um I also was at lesser um earlier here this week and um got to speak to um Don the principal there and what a um a fabulous uh school that is and um I just want to say thank you to Don and your staff for letting me pull the fire alarm um as the they were doing a fire drill and there waited for me to allow me to pull the firearm so it was a yes it was a special privilege um but just to to see just how orderly and organized everything was and um how seriously the kids took that and um and the whole thing was over in 5 minutes and they were back in school and ready to go and ready to learn so it was just a it

089was a great um experience so I just want to thank them both for that anything else from anybody okay in that case we'll move on to our consent agena would any members like to pull an item from consent seeing none can I get a motion go ahead I move that the board approve and adopt the recommended actions for the items on the consent agenda can I get a second Jim thank you and Jill can you call the vote Jim bookish hi Kristen Draper hi Connor Duffy hi Carolyn Reed hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 5 thank you all right and now we have um 10.0 informational reports and discussions 10.1 is Bamford feeder pattern modifications update on transportation and I believe we have a special guest for this yes we do I'm waiting for some

090elevator music um we have a presenting on our banford feeder pattern modifications update tonight uh is our assistant superintendent Dr Julie chaplain I know you were addressing a constituent out there so thank you please take your time catch your breath uh really grateful that you're here yeah is your mic on Julie and members as Julie gets started members of the board as I buy her time to catch her breath uh I just want to reiterate and I know president Draper addressed this in the 10.0 items but tonight is purely a discussion um so as we think about continuing to go deeper around what we're learning what we're thinking about tonight is about discussion we are not uh proposing anything to vote on on this particular item tonight thank you thanks Julie thanks thanks for your

091grace I've CAU my breath so now I will try to be slow articulate and uh help you all uh understand the presentation before you so you can really have a thoughtful discussion um between yourselves before we do bring and ask for a vote so here tonight to talk about the Bamford feeder proposal update and I really just want to go back through our previous history for those in the community who may not have watched all of these board meetings just sort of retell the story and retrace our steps so thinking back to June that last board meeting on June 11th um we were asked by you to continue discussions related to changes east of I25 to present information to community members and then present recommendations so one of our pieces that we looked at was

092Timnath middle high school and the overutilization of that space available and again to rorm current enrollment um and this was even updated um as of 82624 when prior to when we had to turn the presentation in was 1474 and they're projected to be 1538 next year now they are above currently now the National Standard capacity of 1424 and in 2526 we will see just a natural growth of a 100 students because the current senior class will graduate and it is 100 students fewer than all the other classes behind them so there's just a natural of 100 more students regardless of what we do or don't do so the recommendation was that we look at moving students in Bamford attendance area to Preston and Fossil Ridge feeder system where there is space available okay we also

093for the charge of going out and getting Community feedback we gave Community presentations we put two out at um Bamford and those top priority of of feedback were Transportation concerns and those were really related to questions about how my student might get to school if I were to be asked to change a boundary or if I wanted to stay within the boundary we also got feedback regarding enrollment and choice and again those were very much related if I chose to stay or I did a choice option um you know how would that enrollment how would that impact also my students academics because they're now going to be changed or enrolled to a different school or I'm going to have to choice in um and again there's more Transportation impacts we heard feedback regarded communication and

094transparency um and that was just helping understand um for our community clearer understanding of decision-making process and plans that will follow the fourth major theme was an impact on students and families of multiple boundary changes so it is true we have students who have changed boundaries once and would be impacted by a second boundary change within their course of 6th through 12th grade so that is a true statement and that's been represented in our community comments that we've received and then the third theme was just an overall ask for long-term strategy and planning which I know the board has addressed at our last meeting when we're looking at putting that charge to a longer task force you would also see similar results we did um conduct the survey we sent that out to students all

095students K10 and then based upon Community feedback from my last presentation realized there was integrated Services families missing from that survey because they weren't in the attendance area so we did send survey out to those families as well we had 94 responses and the themes were sort of similar a little bit different Transportation concerns were the same sibling cohesion in that one rose because um some families would experience students maybe staying at Tim nith middle high for their high school and then students maybe moving to the feeder excuse me a separate feeder for middle school and so just that was just a naming in in those pieces then of course very much um consistent with um the fourth bullet point from the community session is just that impact of the multiple boundary changes for some

096of the students that they will experience with this change the next was the emotional emotional and social impact on students this is again related to the those multiple changes having students move and then move again and how those transitions are sometimes double transitions um especially as we look at the current ninth graders um you know that they've you know they may have started at nth grade and now they might be transitioning to a different grade at a different high school and then the other one was school environment and preferences and that was really feedback and that theme really looked at um summarizing really past experiences of families that some have had in the hle feeder and they communicated that their their experiences and their concerns about changing the environment from Tim the middle high school

097and moving back to the Preston feeder so I just wanted to summarize those and if the board would like any of the detailed survey results I'd be happy to provide all those to you okay so ah then we move forward to August 13th and so at that time uh we were asked I was asked to look at how we could present information and be very clear about placement processes for students with integrated Services supports excuse me and then the second charge was to explore additional Transportation options there were two specific asks one was to explore Choice busing potentially now this school year for sixth and ninth grade students who have currently made the decision to school choice to Preston and fossil the second Transportation request was to explore what it would be what the impact

098would be for more busing in 2526 for students who stay at Timnath Middle High School beyond what we presented so here we are today just reminding you that our our job is to give you a recommendation um and then you will then vote on that change which is actually the the Tim nith boundary middle change so to be very clear our cabinet recommendation is to move students to the Bamford attendance area um to Preston and Fossil Ridge system where there is space available at Preston and Fossil Ridge and utilize those buildings and we would be asking for a board vote on that change to the Bamford feeder system on 924 um you know one of the things is that you know without looking at this move the reason for our recommendation to move the students

099is that we'll see continued overutilization of Tim nith Middle High School um and currently the impact is being felt um you know as staff need to travel between classrooms and they don't have really consistent work spaces um in those buildings and so as overutilization increases however students are going to start to feel the impacts as well and right now they currently don't feel it as much but continued utilization will start to will start to impact students they'll feel they'll feel they'll see more kids in their classrooms there'll be much more um constraints to current location and spaces because we have turned in non-traditional classroom instructional spaces already into instructional spaces to accommodate the current overutilization okay so let's talk about the first question so the question what is the process for students with integrated service

100supports what's that placement process look like so I think it's really important to help um first build the context of how does it work for all students we're regardless of what program you're in if you're in integrated services so every student who transitions from one middle from middle school to high school or Elementary to Middle School okay at those transition points student transitions um meetings are held and so um not all schools currently have all the programs to meet the needs of all students you I think many are aware we have certain center-based programs throughout the district um and so when when those considerations happen some schools have specific Center based programs that are unique to their schools um and some don't and so trans transition meetings are held with every single student their family

101the service providers the case managers um all from their current School of attendance and then their future School of attendance for enrollment okay that is what happens for all students on IEPs regardless of services so currently in b for when we look at the ex integrated Services programs that are specific and unique to banford we have two programs Bamford has a center-based autism program and they have an affective needs program currently timmith Middle High School does not have either of these unique programs so what does that mean currently options for students next year um to go to their continuation school would be again a transition meeting with the IEP team to look at the needs of the students but if there's a if there is a placement that should be at a community based or

102center-based Autism program those current options are bolts and Weber if it is determined that the student can be supported in maybe at a high school level ILS or center-based Autism combined program that's currently at Fossil Ridge High School if the students are best served in an effective needs program program those Services currently for students at Bamford would be either at Preston at the middle school level or Fossil Ridge at the high school level and then if students are best supported just solely in an integrated learn learning Services support those services are available at Canard middle school and they also are available at Tim nith Middle High School that's the service program that would meet their needs so the big question will the options change for students with the move of students from Bamford from the

103Timnath feeder system to the Preston and fott fossil feeder feeder system and based upon current locations of programming the answer is no the current options would remain the same so students in the affective needs or the center-based autism program needs would have the same options for continuing their education whether it's in Tim nith or in the fossil feeder and again if it's C based autism at middle school that's Bolton Weber um at Fossil Ridge they can support center-based autism in ILS at the high school level affective needs it's Preston and Fossil Ridge and then if it's ILS only um that's looking at Canard or currently Tim nith Middle High School for the high school level for that again the IEP team would determine the placement of all the students based on their needs and the

104supports available at each site so it is not not a predetermined decision and just because a student might be in a center-based autism program now it's not 100% check the box lock in guarantee that that's the best place for them when they transition to the next level they look at the services they look at the supports we have some students who might be able to be supported in an ILS program instead of a center-based autism program that again would be a team decision um made in that process so that's how that works um and I'm glad to take questions at the end if we need to so the second question that we I was charged with coming with more information was um really can Choice busing be provided now so what would that look like

105Choice busing factors can to consider So currently we have 13 students who have choiced to Preston and we have I'm in sixth grade and we have 32 who have choic to Fossil Ridge in n9th grade so if if we were to look at providing Choice busing for students now um it would require new routes um and those new routes um there are no existing routes going to over to there they could transition within a tiered route but it would be one route total at an additional cost of $110,000 for those 45 students okay so our recommendation from cabinet would be that the board not consider that at this time um and not necessarily because of the financial implications only but really just looking at the global landscape in our district of choice busing Choice busing

106needs are extensive in PSD and so any changes made we really feel should be parter part of that larger more collaborative discussion and process about what choice busing look busing looks like in the district instead of just this one small population um for right now the second question can more busing options be provided for families who choose to stay at timn middle high school so before I talk about that I want to re rorm us on the original proposal that we have come to you with in this proposal um students in 6 through 10 would move to the fossil feeder system and the district would provide transportation to Preston and Fossil Ridge students in grades 11 and 12 they would stay at Timnath Middle High School through graduation and PSD would provide transportation for the

107next two school years for those students we would also at we proposed an option for students and families who would want to stay at timn Middle High School to be able to do so in two categories the first would be if a student um is currently enrolled this year at Timnath Middle High School they could complete an intent to stay an intent to enroll or intent to stay form it would be an automatic process it's not something that needs approval per se um but would happen Okay the second population would be current fifth grade students who would be sixth grade students next year those students if they have siblings attending Timnath middle high school next year they could apply to be a do a tent to stay with their older sibling um for that family

108okay in both both of those scenarios the students would be allowed to stay However PSD would not be providing transportation to M Tim nith Middle High School for those students so that was the original proposal and you were asked what else could we think of so as we look at additional uh grade level uh Transportation this chart I want to explain it has grade level um that you'll see going down the left side sixth grade seventh grade 8th 9th through 10th grade I did not include 11th and we because we know right based on the proposal now those students would be staying and they would have transportation okay so currently we have looked at grades six through 10 not having transportation so if we were to look at an alternative option okay we would recommend

109that students in sixth grade and Ninth Grade because those are natural transition years students are moving to high school at or middle school at sixth grade high school at 9th grade those two transition years students would move to the fossil feeder okay and transportation would follow them there okay when we look at students in sixth and seventh grade The Proposal would be that um there is an option where what would we could look at providing transportation for students um that would be in seventh and eth grade next year so that's this year's sixth and seventh grade students um and that would be an option that we'd look at that would then keep them at Timnath middle through their middle school years once they hit ninth grade however they would move to the fossil feeder system

110and that's where Transportation would be provided if they chose to do that intent to stay form at Tim nith they can stay but once they hit ninth grade there's not going to be transportation from PSD at that ninth grade transition year okay um the other piece is that as I said nth grade students next year should would move to the Fossil Ridge High School fossil feeder system transportation would be provided there also for 10th graders and I will name that is a double trans like that is a double that's an impact for those students that Cod coder students has switched from fossil and now they're moving back so we know that um we also know that providing 10th grade Transportation would really put us into looking at transportation for three years um which would one

111year beond beyond what we currently are committed for transportation in grades 11 and 12 so we really wanted to look at what would be aligned with providing Transportation the next two years and which students would be able to have that okay now as I said all that just because Transportation wouldn't be automatically provided families would still be able to apply for transportation and it would be provided on a space available basis we do anticipate with the majority of 11th graders and 12th graders that are being provided transportation that we may not see that request be very high because many of those especially in 12th grade are driving um some in 11th grade really really into the sophomore year students will start to already get their license so that will also impact the ridership in those

112grades and we anticipate there would be room for additional students on buses okay so what is the implica what are the implications of adding more Transportation so in the original proposal um we have 45 students in grades 11 and 12 who would receive transportation and that is based on current enrollment of 10th and 11th graders who receive Transportation okay that is one route for students and it's $110,000 per route and that cost really breaks down to not only um the obviously the the salary um and the cost for maintenance the cost for uh gas TR gr gas of the transportation but that is the average cost of one route okay so in the original proposal if we were providing Transportation only for 11th and 12th graders we're looking at $110,000 if we look at the

113additional proposal that I just discussed we would be transporting students in sth 8th 11th and 12th grade based on current enrollment in this year's sixth 7th 10th and 11th my brain got stuck there um there are 116 students who currently receive Transportation so we can estimate there'd be 116 of those we would need two routes to fulfill that number of Transportation requests and so we're doubling the cost of Transportation um as we are adding and doubling two more grade levels into that Transportation Route that would also potentially impact the space availability um on those routes to add for more students so in addition to cost imp lications I want to talk about enrollment implications because again our main goal here was to really address the overutilization of space at Timnath Middle High School and so

114we want to be mindful that we are also accomplishing our goal and that we're making space um and we're we're we're kind of relieving the overcrowding nature of that so in the original proposal um we had 50 students per grade that's what we that's what we estimate per grade that come out of B that come out of Bamford that's about 250 students in grades 6 through 12 that would potentially be leaving Tim nith middle high school now based on that survey we sent out we know of those respondents 40% at middle school and 50% at high school said already they in they intend to stay at Timnath middle high school so that really dials back the the amount of impact we're going to see in the reduction of student enrollment and so the potential relief

115based upon that just with the original proposal already decreases from 250 to approximately 110 students okay I want to remind you we're naturally increasing 100 kids just with the current level of students so we're really only getting a relief of 10 kids even with the original proposal it's not great but it buys us time for the year after because every year after this 5050 students per grade level doesn't go to Tim nith they go to the fossil feeder system okay in the additional proposal again 50 students per grade level now we're looking at only students in sixth grade n9th grade and 10th grade leaving so our potential was 150 survey again 40 to 50% of those families would want to stay at Timnath Middle High so here our potential relief in this proposal is only

116about 70 students may leave um and again we have that 100 increase so we're really not getting a relief at all we're still going to have 30 more students approximately um than currently current enrollment this year um with all of those pieces so just want to bring both of the cost implications and the enrollment implications into that picture um and again when if we're not decreasing the utilization we really are looking at adding more seats into existing classroom spaces um and um you know I don't know where we would be at for a potential for a modular but if the enrollment were really to go to that piece those are we're talking 500,000 so that's it's it's it's it's just a question mark that nobody has the crystal ball on whether we would do that

117whether we even have the finances to do that and so then we're going to be accommodating and just adding more kids into the spaces that are there so we'll have an impacted student experience at Timnath Middle High School in that situation so so recommendation from us would be set the students in Bamford attendance area um that they move to Preston and Fossil Ridge feeder where there's space available um and implement the original proposal where we would provide transportation in 11th and 12th grade students in sixth seventh and 10th grade would get transportation to Preston and fossil and students in grades six through 10 would um ride could uh could ride PSD Transportation only if there's a space available basis for the next couple of years and that really is only for two years because once

118this current 12th grade 11th and 12th grade class goes we're not going to have continued Transportation running into from Bamford to timoth Middle High School as potentially those would only be Choice unless by then there's that's figured out but I can't speak to that so we're asking for the bo the board for you guys to really vote um we're really asking for a vote on the feeder change that's really in the policy and the the purview of the board but I know the board has been wrestling with Transportation as a part of that um but either way we're asking for a vote for you know at the next meeting um to change that Bamford um attendance area into the fossil feeder system so I gave lots of information I'm happy to start taking on the

119questions and doing my best to answer I'll just start off with thank you so much for um bringing this back to us and letting us see what what it is that you studied and and taking um some of the suggestions that you heard from the board and really diving into it and seeing what is possible I truly appreciate that sure um the other thing I really appreciate is the fact that you went into in- depth on on what those um I don't want to say feeders but what they looks like when you're when you're in um your um ILS programs yeah your integrated services and um you know just exactly what that what would happen there regardless of what the feeder system looks like and I think it's I think it's entirely possible that families

120of young younger students at Bamford because they don't know about Tim neth Middle High don't even realize the programs aren't there so they wouldn't be transitioning necess like wouldn't it's not an automatic that they just go to timoth Middle High so I think that's good information for our families to have now especially for the younger ones and you know just to clarify that is that that's on our website correct of like what what um yeah there's all the programs and what's located at each school that is part of that that is part of okay so people can find that but it's hard to know sometimes what your feeder might be so it yeah no so I appreciate that so much yep um I know that we probably have some questions and so I wanted to

121open it up go ahead um Jim did you have a question go for it if you could go back to your integrated Services slide for just one second yes sorry I was try not to make Whiplash here okay so all students or you want me to move to um yes current state I think that one great correct so when I look at this slide it looks to me like this change that we're proposing does not really put any integrated Services family in worse shape would that be a reasonable summary based on the current program placement of the you know for center-based autism programming and affective needs that's correct nothing changes for those families um outside of actually changing those placement of Center based programs which to my knowledge is not something in current discussion um

122to add more programs to I either Preston or Tim neth middle high or Fossil Ridge so yeah that's something we could look at in the future but as things stand this change doesn't correct not for next year so any integrated Services parent should either feel like this is the same or my life maybe got a little bit better because affected needs at preced and Fossil Ridge actually is a good thing right they most likely would be going there anyways because Tim nith doesn't have an effect exactly yeah and but then in that case their friends come with to fil to in the programs yeah so yeah thanks yeah jul a clarifying one on that I'm not sure if I'm reading the slide correct or not but if there is a current sixth grader at Tim

123Middle High School who is in an ILS program and they are their feeder changes their transportation out of Timnath Middle High School where is the ILS program that they go to because I don't see that on the slide I see you know so if they're in Middle School Canard has an ILS program and that's not a school of choice so they they could go to the ILS program there um because but they they wouldn't there wouldn't be transportation to Canard correct sometimes our students in ILS it really depends on the team but they can request an individualize transportation ation plan um uh it's very common in students with the ILS program supports and our center-based autism supports that the district provides transportation to those center-based programs just on the fact that they're not able to

124ride um the larger more um you know the larger buses with more students and more noise and they really need a different Transportation experience to help support them to get to school so it depends on the student is what I would say so the change then in boundaries for timoth Middle High there isn't a natural ILS program with Transportation so that would be Preston pre Preston does not have an ILS program do I have that correct they do not right so in the fossil feeder Canard has an ILS program and then Fossil Ridge have an is program so that would be the middle and the high school programs for the for students in program it would essentially be that Middle School portion of the Timnath Middle School that would have to switch to you're correct

125Canard which is a school of choice but we could figure out transportation for that if need be in the ILS program if the team feels like that's part of what is through the IEP and an individual we call it an ITP individualized Transportation request okay and then just to kind of clear it up for for gimini that but that is true we we're solid on transportation for all students with IEPs to there's a program and transportation to those programs if need be if they yes if the team decides and it qualifies for that individual Transportation request that is an option districtwide so we have students currently coming out of their neighborhood feeder to a different school where the a center-based programs are and many of them receive individual ice transportation for that for those pieces

126it is it's automatically it's not just like you automatic but the team submits that and reviews that um and has those pieces but you are correct I want to be very clear current students in ILS at Tim nith um if we're saying no you know no more transportation we want to move now if they wanted to do the intent to stay at Tim nith which I think many would um in my my experience they're not going to want to have a transition I think that's where we need to be thoughtful um I know Jesse would be very accommodating to say yeah we would want to keep those families and so that may be a Nuance that we might need to work through um I can't anticipate that integrated Services would have any problem with trying

127to help students who are currently in an ILS program at Timnath Middle High School stay if that's what's the best for that student and we provide transportation for them just as long as we sure on the transportation piece yeah but but on the cuff right it does look like we we're saying they should move I think that is an individual conversation that we have to have and again not speaking for Jesse but just knowing Jesse and integrated Services that's they're going to want to have consistency and and keep in place whatever we can for students who are most significantly impacted the best that we can with programs that are already available to them and Julie to that to that end I feel like um you know when we do go and and vote for this

128on the 20 or vote um to this on the 24th um that it would be good to have something in place to talk to those parents individually and make sure that they understand that there will be options and um you know including um the individual Transportation yes well as stated if there is going to be a change of school we're going to have a transition meeting for all of those families but to your point and Jesse's here to hear that as well we can make sure we're not forgetting that but even if families are stay or like how do we reach out so families know if they want to stay that we will do what we can to help them stay at Tim nith Middle High in that ILS program so that would be fantastic

129thank you really appreciate can work together to think through that that would be great thank you are there other questions okay oh you okay go ahead Connor my questions don't pertain to ILS anymore to that's okay generals okay um so when it comes to the net numbers that you're talking about here yeah what's not calculated in there that I can see on the slide is the 11th and 12th graders who are eligible for the bus that is going to go to Tim nith Middle High School is is that a full bus of kids no currently excuse me currently we predict we predict that would be about 45 students based upon the transportation now of that 45 some may have licenses that may change you know I think um you know but that that's the number

130of current 10th graders and 11th graders who live in Bamford who are receiving transportation to Tim nith Middle High so we took those current numbers of students getting transported and just took that those would be the same kids with that's the same cohort we're talking about that's where we came up with the 45 students Okay the reason why I asked that on the net numbers of students is when would families know that there is a seat available on the bus for a 10th grader because the bus I just I see it very hard for us saying okay you're only an 11th grader 10th grader you got to get in your mom's car and go over to Tim middle high school so at what point do we kind of know that there's going to be some

131seats available because I I just see that causing a lot of heartburn in the community saying you know so and so got on the bus and my kid didn't and my kid has to be switched or taken out of Tim neth middle and going to Preston but this person doesn't and they're on the boss it's a fair question I'm going to start to answer it and answer it and then I may ask um David Montoya to chim in we do not have confirmation on routing um much until a couple weeks before school starts so it is not very early that we would know what space available is and I don't even know if they start looking at space available in tier one when they route or when they do the second tier routing because sometimes

132the requests don't come through by the first deadline so they're getting at the second deadline so again that is not it's not a very um you're not going to have early notification in in in what we have now Dave would you adjust that I I I don't think I would I think you got it yep so it may be two weeks before school starts or it may be like we're just now routing the second tier of Transportation this week so some families if that's when they're looking at when they can add more kids it might be you know a few weeks into school before we knew if there was space available on those buses that so any family who's filling out the intent to stay should not assume that there's a chance that their child

133will be eligible for the bus that's kind of the don't take that there may be a seat available there may not don't take that in that's true there's no guarantee there is no guarantee you're you're absolutely yep want to be real clear about that last one on on the numbers with your increases and decreases on there uhhuh for enrollment yeah okay so where you have the The Net 10 decrease for op proposal number one and a positive increase of 30 MH deciphering through those numbers can you tell us how many students that will be in the middle and high school change um have not filled out that intent to stay and are going to be quote unquote transportation out or let me a range of students let me can I restate what I what I'm

134hearing you ask um are you asking if we know now how many would fill an intent to stay and what who would be on the list for not having transportation so so we don't have that in process yet to do a request for an intent to stay we can only predict that there's about 50 students at each grade level that live in the Bamford area who would be impacted so it's about 50 per grade levels so so current sixth graders seventh graders eighth graders nth graders of that total class um in each of those that class enrollment for your whole sixth grade about 50 of them are Bamford attendance area and from the survey data 40 to 50% 40 to 50% so we have 25 kids per grade approximately who will be quote unquote Transportation

135potentially based upon the survey feedback and the the survey was given with the idea that they wouldn't be receiving so these families have already said we we still intent to stay whether transportation is provided or not so yeah is that answer is that helping yeah so well there's there's roughly 50% of middle school and high school kids who say intent to stay I don't care about Transportation I'm going to get there myself that's right the other 50% they they're being transportation out if if I'm using that term or they're for whatever reasons they're saying hey my kids's coming out of where they're at and they're going somewhere else presumably because of Transportation I would say of the comments um that were given that was the response my student will go wherever transportation's provided so that

136would be that would be that that population that would be not everybody answered it that way those were just from the open responses but when it we asked the question um if you haven't if you said you're undecided what information do you need a lot of those respondents were like my kid will go over wherever transportation is provided so this may even increase if Transportation were provided at seventh and e8th grade then we may see few if any families decide to leave Tim middle high school so it would be even like could be almost all 50 which would be almost a hundred of those students that wouldn't be leaving if we were if they knew they were going to get Transportation so so it it does potentially again diminish the goal of addressing overutilization at

137Timnath Middle High School by by providing more Transportation um so that's that's those are the implications and then I I think for probably Brian when we see this at the next meeting are we going to have a a motion to adopt solely the original proposal or are we going to have a double motion that has original proposal yes up or down vote or additional proposal up and down vote because I'll tell you I'm not I'm still on the fence and I I I don't want to be at the point where we show up at next meeting and it's again you know the it's it's ice cream and you're going to have some right you're only G get one flavor I I appreciate the question I think that's one of the reasons why Dr chaplain is

138letting the board as an entirety like in its entirety know that where cabinet's current recommendation is we want wanted to glean your insights here tonight to see if we need to consider revising that prior to coming back at the collective will of the board um but I do think we're the initial intent was to bring back like one particular motion uh based upon how the current policy reads yes um we will not be including the transportation component in that vote that would be not inclusive of what the policy standards State um but I again want to continue to listen to the feedback from the board on you know if you believe as a collective that we need to think about these recommendations differently uh we'd love to hear that feedback here tonight because it'll inform

139what we bring back to you I think and and to that end um there are a couple of things um I think to the point of the the first question that we had asked about um providing busing now um at um $110,000 per route at the possibility of two routes um that mean that's between $2,500 and $5,000 per kid to get them there um and so I don't see that as feasible um or or good uh good use of that money um especially since we are now in week three um of the school year and so those um kid kiddos right now are figuring that out of how to get to where they need to be um and as far as going back to that but um as we're talking about the original proposal um

140for busting for next years um students um I would say that it's you know the the cost is one thing um but the fact that it just doesn't alleviate the need um at tenith Middle High School I think is something that we really have to take in consideration um we're talking about not giving you any relief there and having it cost potentially $220,000 um and so and then if we're looking at that then we're also looking at the fact that if there's no relief given that we may have to look at putting in a modular which you know I don't want to do that either um even if we owned it and moved it it's still $250,000 um roughly so it it seems to me to be that the original proposal that you have brought

141I mean I really appreciate the fact that you dove into it that you took our suggestions and you ran with them and you see how far it is that we could go with that what the the results would be um but it does seem to me that it's um and obvious that we need to go ahead and go with that original proposal to give the relief that is needed and make sure that we're being fici um fiscally responsible okay I I'll say and this isn't any indictment on the work that you've done um the objective to reduce enrollment at timoth Middle High School in either proposal is falling short in my estimation if I put my kesin hat on I hope I'm wrong but I think there's modular going in there in the next three

142years it's just how it is the other thing is and when we have some students regret that have been flip-flopped back and forth from feeder systems they lose those connections and we know from the surveys that we have those connections are the most important thing that's for the student that's student focusing for the parents this is just another thing where there is no consistency right they just want consistency right they want their kids to go there I understand and Jesse I'm I'm on your side I know that place is packed and I just don't see this minor of a change really impacting the numbers next year and if there was a proposal where it was like we were really going to impact it then I would say it's worth having those kids lose that connection

143but with this small of a projected decrease it's just not there for me on that aspect of pulling those kids away from their connections you get to think there was a let me and Julie correct me if I'm wrong on this yeah there was a potentially in this hypothetical there was a third grader at Beth key who was boundaried out of Beth key not provided Transportation because they were boundaried into Bamford they were there for fourth grade fifth grade now they're in sixth grade right next year they're going to get boundaried out of Timnath Middle High School and into Preston and you can do that also with somebody who was at Preston who went got boundaried into Timnath Middle High School and now has to go back to Fossil right it's those connection points for

144these kids that it it's I understand it's it it's money I I get that and it is it's a lot of money but if we're subjecting the kids to being severed from the connections of their friendships then I got a big problem with that I think that's worth the money now whether or not we got to stick modulars out there I like I said krisin I think they're coming no matter what so if I hear you correctly you're not saying no per se but without transportation it's no without giving the option here it's getting it it's it's not as late as normal but it is getting late um it's picking between the lesser of two evils on either of these proposals right and I'll vote for one of them I have to vote for one

145of them right and regrettably I'm going to do it holding my breath because I don't think that either of them solve what we're really trying to do and that's give relief at Timnath Middle High School from some of that so if that means we go back to the drawing board and we look at um taking transportation out for everybody I I I don't know what that is but I I I don't again I'm on the fence I'm I just don't think it's Connor can I add into the space that you know as as you look at the slides I have projected now this is the enrollment for 2526 it will every year after that 50 students less will be coming to timn so over time we will see that you know that decline as that

146new sixth grade comes in and they become so so it will take time um but the initial year impact I understand what you're saying I just wanted to make sure I was putting in the room that both of these are a long-term strategy one makes it longer and less less relief next year than um the other so yeah I I I understand that as well I I think that considering the location yeah of these schools and people just in a survey filing that tent to stay they're going to be staying I think there'll probably be more people staying there and providing their own transportation and that doesn't go to the objective that we're trying to achieve either go ahead Carolyn so I've just been sitting here listening um to you talk Conor about all the

147considerations for parents and how many times kids have been moved and I understand that's going to be really hard for students but we also have to remember that we have the taxpayers and the whole District watching us right now wondering why we have schools that are empty or almost empty that we're talking about closing and then we have a school on the other side of the interstate that's over full and we have a school that we could put them in and we're not doing it and that's not being a good Financial Steward we're talking about putting a modular out where the last time we got a bid to move a modular it was 200 $50,000 a quarter of a million dollars that was the bid just to move it and set up the infrastructure we're

148not even talking about the modular so if if we're talking about we're out of money and we need to consolidate and we need to make good use of the space we have we're not doing our duty here I mean so we have to get back to thinking about we're talking about a Mill and with that we need money and then we're up here talking about like not using the space we have we just heard people in the in like um some of the parents that came and talked said what are you doing to save money now what are the cost-saving things you're doing now I mean we have to listen to everybody so I would just say that we need to think about this a little more um you gave us a lot to think

149about Julie and and I'm not sure how I'm going to wrap my head around all of this I really haven't come to any kind of a decision but I don't want us to lose um sight of the fact that we need to be good Financial stewards here too so that's just go ahead Jess so can I get clarity on how many kids can ride a bus yes I'm gonna say 62 62 sounds right I think it's 62 so Kristen I would push back on your thinking that maybe that extra route for just this year isn't worth it I I get that we're weeks into school um but we had students and families who made a choice early to try and maintain that continuity and if it's possible to figure out a way to make their

150them leaning into this potential decision easier I would like to continue to explore it that's my first comment sorry you're saying for for right now this current year most of those students have already figured out how to get to the school that they're going to at this point sure week three and I mean we've also heard that students fill out the hope to get busing and they might be just getting letters right now that they actually are going to receive Transportation even though their families have figured it out for the previous three weeks at other schools so if we're still kind of opening up seats and families are tapping into those at other spaces I'm not saying it's a guarantee I don't think it's actually up to us to make that guarantee but I still

151would like to explore it if at all possible the um one point of clarification the middle school and the high school routes they don't run at the same time so it is running to Preston coming back running to Fossil so even though there's 60 two on his face just just want to clarify that we're not putting 45 on the bus together it's run in two different routes back and forth for that so just to put that in the space the other piece I would name just on behalf of parents who didn't do a choice request to Preston and fossel because they couldn't do the transportation I I don't know how this will sit with them now that the families would get transportation and I really want to be clear that I don't know the capacity

152of Preston and fossil to just absorb a whole new request for school of choice in Sixth and nth grade because they're already in the school year classes are start staffing has started so um so that would be the other piece and if I was a family and I thought well I would have might have applied for school just speaking on the families that didn't apply because Transportation wasn't on the table I I I think that's just something I want to put into the space of consideration Dave quick question of clarity is that 62 high school kids or is that 62 elementary school kids different with Elementary right there's like three to a seat in elementary and potentially 90 you're correct it's three to a seat in elementary and it's two to a seat Middle High

153and that 62 I do believe when we talked about Transportation was the middle high because that's all we've been talking about is Middle High yeah it was the middle high that we were talking about for sure yeah go ahead and just to also clarify we don't we're not voting on options between like we're when we vote we're going to vote on the boundary shift not what options go into her policy that's that is where the board's purview lands is voting on the shift of the boundary not Transportation associated with the shift so there will need to be a boat that is had and the transportation piece doesn't line maybe line up well with that I don't know if anybody else wants to Brian or you want add to that but your feedback around how we

154think about Transportation matters which is the reason why we're including it in the presentation here tonight and this is another one of those uh really difficult decisions this is not easy and I want to be empathetic towards that I think one of the things I want to emphasize that Dr Chaplan talked about earlier on in the presentation and I think it was this slide is one of the tradeoffs of starting a choice busing option this year next year uh is that it's there's implications around where we're not doing that in other places in the system um I I've given an example around my first day of school I visited bolts Middle School which was great and I visited their dual language program and I was kind of Blown Away by how many students were in

155that program from Thompson School District at Cottonwood Elementary School that came or driving their children up to attend a middle school dual language program a tremendous amount of Harris student students but no students from Irish and we don't currently provide transportation so I think as and I just use that as an example of like when we do it for one and not for others there are trade-offs in that that I think you as a board as you're thinking about and continuing to give us feedback and direction I just want to be clear that's just one example of a trade-off there's other scenarios that are similar to that as well um so but your feedback in this space is really really helpful to us in terms of bringing back a thoughtful recommendation and thinking about how

156we look at as Transportation uh offerings as a staff I know it's already a shared value of this entire board to think about Choice busing more robustly and we continue to study those opportunities as a staff but Brian on that as well and Julie for clarity too where when we vote on a boundary change um that's within our perview the details in there such as you know we're going to let 10 and 11th and 12th stay that's how we've always kind of done it as as a district but we can change that if we want right we're just not entertaining that we're just also not entertaining introducing more Choice busing right now because it's not prudent right now I mean there's a a myriad of choice busting options that would most likely reduce the amount

157of students over at Timnath Middle High School right if you started providing Choice busing all over that side of the highway people would opt out there right and but we're just I guess it's we're just not going to look at that right now um I don't know if that's the right thing to do but that's kind of where we're at because we need to make a vote on this next meeting correct like we don't have any more time after that we will start we want we want time to get our choice um we want to get time to get the intent to enrollment form out and to families and so that there isn't a gap between Choice opening and all of those pieces and that happens right in November so leaving us any any later

158is pushing us into we're already in a month to get all that done so yeah we would yeah go ahead Jus s right I just want to push on the choice busing thought process simply because it's not Choice busing indefinitely it's for a specific reason for a specific time period um so to compare it to B Choice busing for Irish to go to dual language like that would be an ongoing project that we would need to figure out year over- year so I while I understand the point I also not sure that those correlate as well as the example portrays I'll just point out though that that $110,000 per route is per year so every year that we extend the busing choice we are extending you know at that point roughly a quarter of a

159million per year as well so just keep that in mind if it's $220,000 uh for two routes and we're doing that for four years instead of two right no we would do it for no we are the even the adjusted proposal keeps it still within two years it just adds more routes within those two years which is why it doubles the cost okay but it still double it it still doubles the cost that's my sorry that is my my point is that it does it doubles the cost on that but I'm I'm only talking about this one year I'm not talking about the choice busing back to Tim I'm talking about families that have already choiced into Preston and fossil so it would be one year they're already going to like if they wait anybody

160who's currently in the Bamford feeder for next year would get busting to pre if we vote on this to Preston and fossil anyway if they already qualify so all right so if I'm going to I'm going to go ahead and and play Devil's Advocate on that how long would that if we if if were to be the will of um the board to say we need to provide Choice busing for this year how long would it take for us to actually route and then hire and then um get the buses in get those routes in place I I think the push is a healthy push so I want to just name that right um I think the implications that as we as a staff need to continue to think through it's it's not us necessarily

161being opposed to not trying to help people it's trying to figure out at the third week in the school year how to ensure we also if there's an influx of students uh that we need to think about is there Staffing implications at Preston and fossil that we need to think through I also think we as a staff and as a community are sensitive to the fact that we just came out of a school year where we talked about potential boundary changes in a very significant way and I'm hopeful that we don't have to revisit it in the same way moving forward that's my greatest hope as the superintendent but I also want to be cautious about setting a precedent that in the event that we set a expectation here where we're trying to do the

162right thing to help as many people as we can um but we're not able to do that in future conversations because the scale the SC the size the scope that's something that we grappled with as a staff prior to making this recommendation and it's part of the story that needed to be shared as well bam uh just for me the problem that we set out to solve is the overcrowding at Tim Middle High School and for me the cabinet recommendations feels like a very uh strong um proposal to do that I like what Carolyn said around being good stewards of our um financial resources and also what Connor said about huh are we we don't know everything about how many middle school and high school kids might be coming in right but um it seems

163like this proposal gives us the best shot at not needing modulars there in the future so um I like that anyone else okay thank you really appreciate it and appreciate the discussion okay thank you thank you um I think if we could take a um a 10-minute break and if we could come back at let's see it's 50 we'll come back at 900 p.m. um so we'll just go ahead and do that e e e all right we're going to go ahead and get started um it is now 9:01 on Tuesday September 10th and we'll go ahead and get started with 10.2 School Finance formula and new Finance formula and we have a special guest for this one as well yes we do uh I'm really excited that for our school Finance formula and new

164Finance formula presentation is our budget director uh Brian gustofson welcome Brian thank you for being here thank than Brian is your mic on there we go thank sir thank you all right so I'm I'm glad to be here to kick off a four-part series we're going to be talking some different Finance topics here in September and October with the board uh tonight as uh as mentioned GNA talk about the school Finance formula uh and you know the cats out of the bag there's an old one that we're working on right now and a new one that's coming up soon so going to touch on both of those and uh I know a lot of this will be review for uh board members and and for folks in the room but I'm hoping you you glean

165a few things out of it I'm hoping you come away with a little bit of a deeper understanding of the formula uh especially some of the uh variables that impact PSD specifically uh and what makes us a floor funded district and um a reaffirmation particularly of that relationship of local and state funding okay that'll be the focus of really what I talk about uh as as we go through this series uh we'll focus next time in two weeks on property tax and other sources so I'm not going to get into a whole lot of the local funding uh angle of things property taxes and bonds and Mills and all that hey that that'll be more next time and then as we get into October we'll talk about how we spend money right how we allocate

166funds to the schools and departments and and how we spend and so as uh board members are thinking ahead if there are specific sort of angles topics items that that you'd like to learn more about or hear more about especially when we're talking about expenditures please let us know and as we're preparing those those presentations we can make sure we try and hit some of those things but today going to talk primarily about revenue and specifically the school Finance formula this really only takes up about six lines of our budget but it's the the majority of how our our school district is funded okay 74% of our general fund comes from the school Finance formula and it's it's based primarily on three Revenue areas local state and federal local as I mentioned Pro property taxes

167are the primary driver of local funding specific ownership taxes those are taxes uh that are paid by residents people in the district uh to license Motor Vehicles okay we receive a portion of that funding and there are some other local revenues like investment earnings participation fees for athletics so on and so forth hey state revenue that's what I'm going to focus on primarily uh Equalization is what I'm going to talk about a lot tonight the state backfill of the formula how that's determined where does that come from how does that get to us those kinds of things there's also State categorical funding those are directed um streams of revenue for specific I guess areas uh of uh need like Transportation special education vocational education we're going to save that a little for the next time

168and focus primarily on that state Equalization then lastly we do receive federal revenue in the general fund but it's less than 1% of of what we make in the general fund primarily any federal revenue we see ends up in our grants fund uh in in the general fund it's Medicaid dollars and that's like I said a little less than 1% of what we'll will'll generate in the the overall um general fund and and that's about $2 million or so so we won't spend much time uh beyond my comments right there on federal programs tonight okay so this total program also known as formula funding or the program or the formula hey that is really um a formulaic determination of how all districts in the state are funded okay and I'm going to get into the

169Dynamics of it but ultimately it comes to a formula you see on the screen screen and let's let's kind of work backwards on that formula on the right side it says equals total program right the result result of that formula a each year we're going to get a number established in the legislative process as far as what that number should be and then the process becomes well how can the local dollars satisfy that number of total program calculations so let's throw out a number $300 million let's say that's the total program he then it's up to um economics it's up to us to see okay how much can the local property taxes and specific ownership taxes contribute towards that $300 uh value in our case it's about half this year and what property taxes Ando

170taxes can't satisfy then the state of Colorado has to backfill or equalize and it's important to understand there's an inverse relationship between property taxes and that at State Equalization the more property taxes that are infused into this equation to satisfy that total program the fewer Equalization dollars get plugged in the total program number does not increase with more property taxes right the fewer property taxes that can come in that equals more State Equalization right so more property taxes do not equal more total program funding dollars and I'll hit that I know uh superintendent Kingsley mentioned that earlier tonight he teed it up okay butth we'll hit that multiple times okay so thinking about that state Equalization number how does the the state uh divide up their budget and they call it their big six and

171there's really seven items on this pie chart but the the big six are K12 education these are the categories primary categories in the state general fund Health Care policy and financing Higher Education Human Services correction and the judicial system okay in the the current fiscal year 25 state of Colorado general fund budget that's a $ 15.6 billion budget a 29% is allocated to K12 education if you think about early childhood education that's going to fall into the other pie of 11% hey but K12 education is the second largest category of the big six uh spending spending wedges there in the Colorado general fund on the screen here breaks down those big six categories into horizontal bar charts and what I really find interesting here is that each one of these each category Education Health Care

172policy and financing Compares that percentage allocation of the state general fund budget in 2015 versus 2025 and in 2015 I can attest we were having lot of the same conversation man we're looking for more funding we're trying to figure out how can we make this formula work a lot of the same stuff but when when I start I started to look into this and I saw how things have changed it it really caught my attention that education in the last 10 years has gone from being the largest wedge in that pie to the second largest an 8% drop he gone from it used to uh make up 37% to down to about 29% hey whereas healthc care policy and financing increased from about 26% back in 2015 to 32% in 20 2025 and so right

173there you can surmise that there was a pretty significant shift in the last decade probably some external factors that uh changed the the way the state uh has allocated funds right and prioritize funding right but I I find that fascinating to look at and then you can see some of the other categories human Services slight changes Corrections uh a decrease there as well judicial similar but uh it's really noticeable how education um the education allocation has changed right so that the formula gets established the state has to to balance conflicting interests in all those different categories and then determine okay how's this formula going to work and how are we going to backfill uh what the the districts so let's look to that formula just a little more deeply and actually this this very first

174slide is a pretty simplified look at it this really shows the the bare bones of the formula is number of students times dollars per student okay that turns in that total program funding I gave the example of $300 million hey it's number of kids times per pupil rate to get the 300 million but there's more that's behind especially that per pupil rate but even that enrollment count there's a lot more to it than those things and I want to dive into those just a little bit more deeply it's complex there are a lot of variables he now I don't want you to panic at this slide hey it's hard to see there's a lot going on there but this is the same formula that was just on the previous slide just extended out and broken

175down into more categories and really all that all that you really need to focus on is that at the very left hand side you see some multiplication symbols and what's happening there is there's a base per pupil funding amount and it's being multiplied by a size factor and a cost of living Factor these are additional factors that add on to a per a base per pupil rate that will end up turning into a total per pupil rate for funding hey those things are what get multiplied by that funded pupil count and what's important to note here is that that multip multiplicative nature of this formula is what's got PSD in kind of just sort of a me spot when it comes to funding right we don't really benefit from a great cost of living factor

176it's fairly low compared to what we all know the cost of living to be like here he we really don't benefit from a tremendous size Factor we're one of the larger districts in the state we don't benefit from a tremendously high at risk factor we're we're just not quite in a spot where our numbers move the needle there but what happens is those factors that aren't super beneficial kind of compound as they move through this this uh flowchart that's on your screen and what that gets us to is is what also was mentioned earlier tonight is a floor funding level right that turns into PSD being at the lowest of the per pupil funding rates and I'm going to come back to that in a little bit what I want to focus on first is

177how do we count kids and you would think gosh that'd be easy right right they just show up you count them one two three 35 so on and so forth on October 1st and it's good and what you find out is if you look through the the multiple line uh Finance formula that the state of Colorado produces student counts are different throughout that entire formula in multiple ways probably at least a half dozen or more times and I'm going to point out four ways that they differ the first thing is what's called October membership okay and October membership if you look in the formula and it's important to know the the nman clature October membership is really a headcount that's the number of kids in the district that's the number of kids in all of

178our district schools that's the number of kids in the district charter schools and in the charter school institute schools all together that's an N okay but in the formula then that starts to to uh progress to what's called an October FTE count so in October when we start to do our counting and our our data analysis team does a really hard and and good job of counting processing going through data with the state of Colorado um they did they have to start drilling down into our kids full-time students halftime students are they online students are they extended high school students uh are they part of the charter school Institute okay and a lot of those categories get peeled out and we get a number called an October FTE count that's a bit smaller than that

179October membership count and then that October FTE count gets plugged into a fiveyear average because in the current School Finance formula it's the current FTE count plus the previous four will turn into a fiveyear average hey and that's called student FTE averaging so that gets plugged in we now have an average number of funded pupils and that's important because in the current model A districts benefit from either whe well whichever is greater your current October FTE count or your averaged FTE count okay up to five years and that that starts to get confusing for sure hey but if you have a really good year and your October is strong then that's how you're going to get funded but you've been traditionally in declining enrollment status hey but there's a protection for school districts that are

180in declining enrollment status of this averaging mechanism those districts get funded on an average which basically means that they are funded for students who are no longer in the district okay it's a softening mechanism to allows uh districts to adjust plan um recover from enrollment declines as opposed to a harsh year-over-year up and down sort of nature okay so what's on the screen now is the fourth count the district funded pupil count hey that's the determination of which one is greater is it October FTE or is it your averaged and then as this progresses from left to right you add back in a lot of those factors that were peeled out so you add back in online students you add back in extended high school students those are kids that go to like Ascent programs

181and some of our career and Innovation programming for uh Beyond High School kids and you add back in a little factor for kindergarten funding and that all turns into a funded pupil count so there's a lot really that goes into that part okay and so now you get established account and it's different than certainly your membership number and the other accounts that have popped up and they can be hard to keep track of sometimes okay so we got to take that number we've got to have some dollars to multiply it with to get to our total program or our formula funding here in FIS school year 25 uh the legislative process that occurred last spring established a base per pupil funding rate of 8,496 38 per pupil and that's the base rate every pupil uh

182generates that amount of Revenue at that's every 1.0 pupil generates that amount of revenue for a district then I mentioned these factors before like cost of living size at risk elll uh those are multipliers they add additional funds in and you look at our the second bullet there our PSD funding including factors of $1,791 65 per pupil and you think wow that's great right that's higher than that base well I'll show you how those compare to some other districts here in a second hey that base funding rate that's what's called the floor hey there aren't any other districts that make lower than that per pupil in Colorado this year in fact we built our budget on $1,778 31 which was the base back in the spring or the floor I'm sorry the floor he that's

183been adjusted slightly which happens throughout the course of a school year and so even though our calculation still turns into 10,778 and change we get an adjusted funding level to get us to that floor and it's because especially that cost of living factor is just not so helpful the size factor is not so helpful and we've been a floor funded district for a long long time I think uh about a dozen maybe just fewer than a dozen districts are in this situation so this is interesting on the screen here this is comparison of current fiscal year per people rates PSD at the floor 10,791 65 two other floor funded districts our neighbors Thompson and Windsor and I I found it fascinating that in the actual formula sheet they come in at 10791619 level he just

184not getting enough out of those those factors if you start to compare with Jeff Co they are just over $1,040 as pupil St rain another $53 higher than that Boulder Valley you can see starts to get up into $1,220 in change if I were to throw Cherry Creek in here we'd be in the 11,400 range gy $1,467 30 then I put in Estus Park not as a comparable District so much but that's a district in larer County a $1,730 193 per pupil hey so you're you're looking at PSD factors at about $2,000 to that base and you start to get into some bigger numbers know 4,000 plus when you're looking at smaller school districts that benefit from size factors higher cost of living what not so that that's just an interesting comparison um there we're

185going to talk briefly about a new formula here coming up where it'll be interesting to see how this all plays out in a number of years down the road how the cost of living and size factors will change the impacts on districts so we multiply that $1,791 65 times our per pupil count and we get our total program or our formula funding and that means we're fully funded right no no when and you know that's that's a setup we've talked about this before we know that there's one other factor in the current Formula that is the factor to adjust all factors and that was implemented back in the 2008 2009 range uh called the budget stabilization Factor when the state of Colorado was wrestling with their piie at that time dealing with a Great Recession

186hey how are they going to balance the budget this was one of the mechanisms that that was generated the bar chart on the screen represents a bar for each fiscal year from 2009 to 2025 a and each bar represents 100% funding for that year he what's reflected then is the budget stabilization Factor portion of each Year's funding that budget stabilization Factor was not funded it was withheld okay so that's a negative funding so at its lowest point in 2012-13 32 just over $32 million was part of our formula here at PSD but not actually forwarded in our formula to the district because the budget had to be balanced at the state level because property taxes local taxes couldn't satisfy the entire formula here in pstd so as we think about property taxes funding the formula

187if they can't make up the whole formula then we are reliant upon the state of Colorado in a spot where we really don't have a whole lot of control to backfill the rest and if there are other economic circumstances that impact Colorado this tool this BS Factor tool Still Remains as of this year July 1 uh the budget stabilization Factor was eliminated and so it's Z dollar right now but the mechanism still exists so if next year two years down the road wherever it is we run into different economic difficulty hey it's still something that could creep its way back into the formula all told the impact since 2009 here at PSD 338 million 379,000 and that is just higher than our compensation obligation this year so that that's a tremendous impact over a decade

188and a half fortunately again that's at zero right now so as we look into our current numbers here in the total program fiscal year 25 he the total program calculation generates just under $314 million for us this year that's 74% of our general fund and again I want to point out something that it's a little bit interesting the total program this is the largest source of our Revenue comes in $17 million shy of our compensation obligation right so we've got to have other sources of revenue and again we're going to get into that in two weeks you know where where does other money come from but the program does not cover our entire compensation obligation right now ask question Brian you're doing phenomenal I really appreciate um how accessible you're making a very complex presentation

189for the general public who's listening either here in person or watching can you just at a very very high level allude to what the other where what's the funding source of the other 26% of our general fund yeah yeah great yeah thank you um additional funding source Es are the categorical funding that I mentioned earlier okay that's going to be another 17 or so perc I believe and that's dedicated revenue streams Transportation special education um those kinds of things additional funding beyond that about $65 million this year are M Levy overrides okay that currently there are six that we we utilize and receive funding for hey that that's the second largest chunk of our revenue and and those gosh are the lifeblood right if you're thinking about how do you get this above um or

190or to meet your your obligations and what it takes to to run your school system those are those are critical in what we do right now in the current program uh what's what's pretty interesting to note is that our property tax and specific ownership tax which are represented in the left two wedges of that pie the gold and the gray wedge uh come to about 50% of that program funding the state has to backfill the other 50% and when you start to take a step back kind of like we did with the the state overall budget and you look back to fy15 which is at the top left of the screen that that pie property tax and so tax the local portion was 4 40% and the state was having to back fill 60% of

191that that funding and and when you see numbers like that you can start to kind of grasp with okay here here's what the state was wrestling with they just can't afford to do this at District over District over District uh just two years ago at the center um illustration there Property Tax Plus Soo tax that's the local portion was 43% the state was equalizing 57% of our program and then this year we're at 5050 well what's changed primarily what has changed is increase in assessed valuation right we we've experienced that all in the last year or so uh if you're a property owner and know that the property tax obligation has gotten larger hey which hey that's going to schools but it's not increasing the overall funding to schools it's simply reducing what the state

192is having to back fill right so if you're a a budget guy budget gal you know at the state level this is what you want to see you want to see those local dollars taking care of local districts but from our perspective you know it's it's hard to it's it's hard to keep communicating you know how how those increases in property tax don't necessarily mean more money for the schools right that that's a hard one to overcome another way to look at it is if uh and we've done this before we have this in one of our videos you think of a couple glasses of water district A's glass of water let's use that same $300 million example right to fill that glass of water uh for with $300 million of funding the local share

193can satisfy $100 million of property tax great that gets poured in first that's the dark the dark color at the bottom of District A's glass there that's made up of property and ownership taxes then this State share of that Equalization gets poured in on top another 200 $200 million okay but District B could be vastly different this could be the Cherry Creek or the jeffo compared to the um you know Windsor or Thompson right where the local share generates more property tax that gets poured in first that generates two-thirds in this in this example so the state only has to back fill a third right so the state is constantly wrestling with all right what are the these backfill amounts looking like they're trying to project that out based on enrollment counts there are a

194lot of variables here right but again the top of that glass is the top of that glass there there's no extra dollars coming in to roll over unless a district is capable to go above and beyond the formula with tools like M Levy overrides bonds other sources of revenue all right and it's important to note that the state Equalization comes from um primarily income tax and sales tax revenues at the state level there are other uh tax taxes collected to the state like excise taxes and whatnot uh but primarily it's income and sales taxes and we get this question somewhat regularly well what about the marijuana money because the state taxes marijuana sales and what's on the screen now is really just a uh kind of a brief history of when marijuana taxes started to

195come into place here in Colorado okay starting back with a vote in 2012 that would have been the 1314 fiscal year and different tax rates have been imposed with different votes uh and different uh legislation over the last decade or so hey and that has led to some additional funding at schools primarily that comes in the the form of Capital Construction funding in best grants best stands for building excellent schools today okay those are capital funding grants where the first $40 million of marijuana tax revenue goes toward that program and I don't know off the top of my head how much it cost to build our most recent new schools but $40 million uh probably wasn't going to scratch the surface especially on those two larg ones okay now where this has been really impactful

196is in rural communities I've been really impactful in rural communities that are able to um go and pursue these grants and just demonstrate the need and maybe not have uh the the funds to match as much as maybe a district like ours would and they've been able to to benefit from these grants but our most recent uh best Grant participation was in 2018 where we um received the best Grant to deal with installing some dust collection systems in middle schools and high schools that Grant was worth I think about $130,000 that sound about right and we had to match $260,000 right so to get those projects done we actually had to provide a much greater match than what we were able to to gain and and so the you know you see the challenge for

197for large districts if you want to take on larger projects you still have to come up with your own cash to to benefit from some of these grants okay there is some marijuana Revenue that flows into State Equalization because now some of their taxing structures have it going into a cash fund that gets distributed out and uh we really don't see a a quantification of what that looks like it's important to note that um just two years ago this Revenue as a whole was 7% of the state budget right so it's not a tremendous amount and I think um something that may be of concern is that the peak levels of collection were in 2021 at the state level of about $425 million of tax revenue and just two years ago that was down to

198282 million right so that Revenue source is changing too and while it's not extremely influential it's it's important to know that that is being altered as well okay and if there aren't enough variables let's add another school Finance formula so in this last spring uh the governor signed into law House Bill 24-1 1448 that came out of the legislative session which created a new school Finance formula to be implemented in fiscal year 26 so that's next year so here we are in September and we're starting to talk about fiscal year 26 funding and some of the highlights here this will have a six-year Implement implementation period concurrent with our existing formula and so that's going to be interesting for us to figure out how to navigate and so we're going to be learning um for

199sure additionally there will be some similarities there will be a base per pupil amount they'll call this the foundation and that should increase by the rate of inflation annually there will still be factors with increased weights for atrisk um elll special education uh and the the the order is going to be what changes here uh additionally I wanted to point out this cost of living Factor mentioned that a few times and how that's helped really get us to the floor as far as funding well right now there will be a cost of living Factor cap at 23% a 23% multiplier currently PSD we're at about 19% so you think well maybe that doesn't impact us too much because we're not at that cap well there are other districts are above that cap uh you take

200an aspen for example or other districts who are going to be reduced down to 23% and really what starts to happen is there's going to be a redistribution of some of those funds throughout the rest of the system right and so other districts that are below start to benefit a little bit in cost of living uh there will be a size Factor but only for districts up to 6,500 students so we won't receive additional funding for size a new Factor this will replace um what is currently in the formula for Rural funding will be called the local Factor this is based on federal designations this is not so much a state determined Factor but federally and this will provide additional funds for those uh locations designated as rural or towns a currently Ford Collins PST

201we're listed as a midsize City local Factor based on this Federal designation so we won't benefit from those funds either uh The Five-Year averaging the up to five-year averaging mechanism will re will be reduced to a four-year averaging mechanism for declining enrollments and it's hard to figure out exactly how that's going to impact us I'd like to start looking at that especially once we get into or we start to receive our October count and our projections for next year that are updated then I think we can start to to model a little bit and and see how if that might impact us depending on what our our uh enrollment projections look like and there will be a phase in Period as I mentioned six years with a hold harmless provision he what that means is

202there will be an understanding by CDE that it has to figure out how to get districts from the current formula to the new formula in sort of a tiered approach and so on the screen is a a chart that basically shows two parallel lines uh each going from the current fiscal year through six years the bottom one being current law the top being new formula and a strategy on how to move a district from the current to the new an example would be if a district wouldn't already be um benefiting from that new formula okay then the district would use their current program uh plus 18% of the differential between the two and they have this sort of tiered approach built now I would expect that we're going to see some changes and adjustments as

203this goes but um we'll have to start to see how what what does this look like for us we really don't know beyond a one-year projection right now as I mentioned uh there will still be some of the same factors at risk elll special education cost of living size talked about local and online and extended High School the difference with how this formula will work is they don't have the compounding impact of multiplication at the very beginning it'll basically be each factor times the foundation or the base then you add that to the next factor which was multiplied times the foundation of the base and so it's a little more evenly distributed a little more summative as opposed to uh the compounding multiplicative nature of the current will that benefit us hard to tell hard

204to tell right now there are estimators out there the CDE has run has produced some runs estimates on what this would look like for all districts in 25 26 of course there are a lot of variables who knows what the enrollment really looks like okay who knows what the those times but um you know year-over-year trying to keep variables similar CDE estimates maybe up to a million dollars of new Revenue there's another estimator that uh actually is really cool you can go online the uh School Finance formula simulator tool and there's a a link here at the back of the the presentation and you can start to mess with some of the different U I guess factors and see how they impact District hey but uh that that shows maybe up to a $1.8 million

205addition of funding honestly right now though there's just so many variables we just don't know could be zero I would hope it's not negative it's not supposed to be negative they're supposed to be hold Harless but uh we just we're not sure and so we're going to go through this phas in Period of having two two formulas for a while starting next year and uh we'll start of course planning for that here middle of this year as we start building our budget and again some resources and there are a couple others if uh you know board members if you ever have you know the need to want to go look for for Stuff there's some there's pretty interesting stuff out there there's a legislative summary of the school Finance formula that's about 85 pages but

206it's it's actually pretty good as far as good pictures and um you know it's pretty sequential and it certainly helps helpful currently uh there are still ongoing adequacy studies dealing with uh the funding formulas so this new formula was implemented prior to the completion of these adequacy studies that are looking at at risk um factors at at what it would take to provide equity in the formula and adequately fund public schools in Colorado so we're expecting to see some results or recommendations from those studies in January and my guess is that we would start to see those impact changes in the new formula moving forward all right with that it's a high hopefully a pretty high level look at current Formula new formula what's in in in between and would love to take some questions

207and see what else we can answer Brian thank you so much for um that it's just it's amazing me how you come in and you think okay well it's got to be easy right it's it's pure multiplication it's number of people times money and that's how you what you get and it's really more like differential equations got multivariable calculus or something's happening here that is much more difficult for um for those of us who are simply trying to pay our taxes and get better schools to understand so thank you so much for breaking it down for us and um really helping us understand that um I love the analogy of it's a glass and we can fill the glass but we can't do any more than that and it doesn't matter how much water is

208ours or how much water is the states the glass is the glass and that's itly so yeah so thank you so much for that um any questions that the board may have I actually do have one then if nobody um how does this work with the um special session law that was just signed um I know that there were some questions going in and do we have any better answers now that it's been a whole week since we've been able to study the the new law I I don't know that there are many more answers uh and um we'll cue that up for next time so we we'll talk a little bit more next time about that that's more on the property tax side of things and how that might be impactful um but we

209just don't know a lot yet thank you other questions yeah Connor Brian on the uh per pupil funding slide we have all the different comparative districts um do you have any insight on what's pushing um gy School District um up we have almost $1,500 or or at least $1,000 do over us well I would think um I without having it right in front of me I would I would think the at risk factor is much higher there um and that might be the largest driver honestly as I'm just thinking about other thoughts Dave yeah that that is accurate and they with the new Finance formula will benefit even greater as a result of that change um um so stay tuned for that and then other one so they moved from fiveyear Rolling average on the

210decline to four is that that was the big thing correct we've had decline in enrollment U um the fiveyear average is beneficial to us the four-year average is a little less beneficial to us any material impact from that change hard to know right now uh as I was mentioning really would like to get our this fiscal year October count and and pair it with some updated enrollment projections that will be coming out middle of this year to start plugging into both formulas to see uh before I can really weigh in on what would that impact look like as you mentioned I I agree in that um it certainly benefits the state Equalization side of the formula right it's less it it would provide less that the state would have to equalize if you're not giving

211as much of a cushion to declining enrollment districts so we'll we'll do some projecting and see what that looks like as we prepare our budget other questions Jim did you have a question okay I think you know the one other thing that I'd really like to point out um is when you start looking at State comparisons Colorado is not at the top it's not in the top 50% um we are in the bottom 25% depending on how you look and it you know where can be number as far as I can tell anywhere from about number 35 to number about 48 depending on how you fund um count the funding um and so when we're talking about um additional funds for schools I mean we are nowhere near the top of the list of $24,000

212per pupil or even Midway at $166,000 per pupil we're not close to that and so I just want to put that out there as well that we are a very highly educated Community we all value education highly and yet as a state we don't pay for it and I just want to throw that out there as as well yeah go ahead Brian I just uh I want to thank you our Core Business as a school system is learning and teaching and I want to say that you are one incredible teacher and your presentation tonight helped a lot of us learn in meaningful ways this District's really lucky to have you so thank you for your leadership thanks for your nice comments thank you so much all right we will now move on to 11.0 executive

213session can I get a motion okay go ahead I move the board enter executive session to develop the strategy of the school district for negotiations relating to the 2025 2026 collective bargaining agreement or employee contracts as authorized by CRS 24-6 4243 individuals invited to join the board in executive session are superintendent Brian Kingsley Chief of Staff Lauren hon assistant superintendent Tracy guile Chief Financial Officer Dave Montoya and general counsel Autumn asman can I get a second thanks Connor Jill can you please call the vote Jim broish I Kristen Draper I Connor Duffy hi Carolyn Reed I Jessica Zamora I motion passes 5- Z thank you we will now convene in a closed session this is the last agenda item before adjournment at the conclusion of the executive session we will come back to this room

214to publicly adjourn the meeting the adjournment will be recorded but not be televised thank you and have a great night e e e