001e all set wonderful all right well thank you so much for joining us tonight for the Board of Education meeting tonight uh first one of 2024 welcome to the new year um so today Tuesday January 9th 2024 and this meeting is now called to order at 6:32 p.m. so the first thing we'll do is recite the Pledge of Allegiance so if you'll join me all right thank you would any board members like to make changes to the agenda tonight okay seeing none we will move on um so to Mo move on to our recognitions and reports all right thanks Brian yeah you bet so tonight we are honored to recognize celebrate staff Excellence across our district and leading me in this celebration is our communication coordinator miss Emily shley well welcome Emily and it might
002looks looks like another family member which are really excited to have too a it helps with it on is doesn't it uh I'm Emily shley and tonight I am honed to present our recognitions uh we only have one for tonight um but it's a great way to start off our meetings so thank you superintendent Kingsley and the members of the Board of Education all those gathered here tonight and all those who are watching us online and on television uh tonight we are recognizing one of our excellent Educators uh Sue Davidson uh and so now I'd like to bring her up as well as our principal from Lincoln Middle School Ryan Thompson and assistant principal from Lincoln Middle School uh Kathy Samson thank you and this is really low but um you know the last time
003I was here I was really fighting the urge to run down and high five everybody because it's an a perfect layout but I will continue to resist this time unless oh it's very tempting I'm a big celebrator so um next time good evening superintendent Mr Kingsley uh board president Draper and other members of the board and others gathered tonight and again TV and streaming is a new edition for me that's great to see you here um thank you for the opportunity tonight to honor one of the most outstanding teachers in the district we are honored to speak about Sue Davidson recognizing her outstanding contributions as a middle school math teacher with an impressive 26 years of dedicated service she is also an outstanding person who cares deeply about her students and contributing to their education
004we're going to do a little Duo here um Miss Samson's gonna come and say a few words and then I'll wrap it up with Sue so miss Samson well I hope that I do her justice because um anyone that walks into her classroom knows that she is one heck of a teacher so I've had the privilege to know her as a student side by side getting our m Ms in mathematics and she is a lifelong learner who cares deeply not only about math but cares deeply about the knowledge that kids have about math and just the knowledge that they bring to education in general so I get to see that side by side every day as her colleague um I worked with her as Math teachers side by side um I got to see the
005leadership that she has um she is incredibly passionate about differentiation and she has been leading not only her the buildings that she works in but she's been leading the district with how do we meet all students needs and when we say all students TR she truly means all students um she was able to bring flexible grouping to um the building that we worked at to you know um together a while ago and to the district to um dreaming and having what if she's a risk Aker so for seven years we work side by side as co-teachers and I got to see every day every minute what she is as a teacher um the passion she brings to bring education to life to Break Down The Walls and say it's not just about math but how
006can we build the community together um we were able to partner together to raise over 20 $20,000 for um to help the homeless in Fort Collins and to do that in the math classroom so community and um students everything about students is what is at the heart of Sue Davidson now as her supervisor I get to see her on a whole different light of her leading this work um it is honestly an honor that we get to call her um a teacher at at Lincoln to say that she's a Lancer but we are lucky to have her in pter school district as a math teacher and our students every day that walk into her classroom they know what gifts they have so this complete honor and it is so welld deserved and also a person
007who truly believes all students can learn which um she has a variety of students in her classrooms and she's starting a new rocketry class this next semester to um give students another opportunity at Lincoln um but just to frame it out a on entering Sue's math classroom or collaborative space as she calls it one witness as a teacher deeply committed to Student Success her high expectations and caring approach consistently yield remarkable results Sue exemplifies an educator who goes above and beyond to provide an enriching and impactful educational experience to all students I can say enough about Sue um but please help me welcome up to to the mic um Colorado's second congressional district service educator of the Year Sue [Applause] Davidson it's not so low down for me um I'm so very honored um to
008be recognized for this Congressional service award um and also so humbled by the amazing Educators administrators and students that I get to work with every day at p in pter school district I've worked um really hard um and you know through the 26 years um collaborating with my educ my colleagues and my administrators and constantly and continuously they have the students and the teachers continue to enrich My Life um and also my teaching practice with tech technological advances at such a rapid Pace stem education um is becoming ever more important and I am very very passionate about stem education um and I'm hopeful that my experience and my passion for stem education can help prepare our students for their future while also helping to close that opportunity Gap that so many of our students have
009in our school district I'm so thankful and proud to be a part of the PSD Village that inspires Ed edes and sorry INSP inspires and educates every child every day so thank you very much I just want to say um on behalf of the board thank you so but just also this past fall I got to go with um superintendent Kingsley to your classroom and it was the first time in I won't say how many years that I absolutely wanted to be back in a math classroom but what was even better was just that you could see just how much you cared for your students you could see just how much you wanted those kids to thrive in there not just do the work but to thrive and you could see that it was palpable
010so thank you for all that you do thank you I'd like to invite superintendent Kingsley on the board down for a photo I call you right M you're in the middle [Laughter] yeah thank [Applause] you where is she so as members of our board are returning to their seats I just want to take a a brief moment uh as president Draper mentioned Sue I had an opportunity to come into your classroom before the holidays and I am so grateful there are teachers so many teachers of your caliber in PSD it is people like you that make it just amazing for parents to send their children into our schools and watching you interact with your students through your level of questioning and your engagement they were hanging on every single one of your your words because
011not only were you teaching them you were showing them how to that they belonged you were showing them how to treat them with dignity and you modeled what that looked like for each other so on behalf of not just PSD I want to thank Congressman Joe ngus and his office and his leadership for honoring teachers like yourself it's a big deal and just thank you for making us better job well done all right thank you uh next up on the agenda we have the resolution and support of Dr Martin Luther King Jr day can I get a motion I'll make the motion but I don't want to read the enre gotta all right so we have a motion from Kevin have a second Scrat all right Connor's got the second and would somebody like to
012read that I'm happy to read it all right thank you Jim our resolution oh oh hold on just one moment sorry I thank you go for it I moved the board approve a resolution in support of Dr Martin Luther King Junior Day January 15 2024 thank you and now the second from Connor all right and Jim we read all right we'll go for it a resolution in support of Martin Luther King Junior Day January 15th 2024 whereas Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr was born in January 15th 19 19 29 and was assassinated on April 4th 1968 and whereas Dr King was the leader of the American Civil Rights Movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 and whereas Dr king led the Montgomery Alabama bus boycott for 381 days to protest the arrest of
013Rosa Parks and the segregation of us system during which time Dr King was arrested and his home was was bombed and whereas while experiencing racism arrests and violence Dr King courageously and fervently advocated a non-violent resistance strategy and Civil Disobedience to end segregation and racial discrimination in America and in 1964 at age 35 became the youngest man to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his efforts and where at through his work and Reliance on nonviolent protest Dr King was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and whereas for his work in elating racial inequality through non-violent resistance Dr Martin Luther King Jr day was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 and whereas Dr King will be remember remembered
014for awakening the conscience and consciousness of the United States and using his message of Hope to bring people together to build the Beloved Community a community of justice and whereas the black and other communities we have traditionally unserved face cultural and systemic barriers to an inclusive and Equitable education puter School District strives to close the equity and opportunity gaps for students and Promises to commemorate the legacy of Dr King by creating and uping Equitable inclusive and rigorous educational opportunities experiences and outcomes whereas the theme for this year's celebration for Dr King's Life and Legacy is it starts with us diversity equity and inclusion are fundamental values in pter school district and we're committed to ensuring that students families and staff who have been historically underrepresented are valued seen and heard and empowered now therefore be
015it resolved the pter School District board of education does hereby Proclaim January 15th 2024 as Martin Luther King Jr day in pter school district we encourage students staff and the community celebrate R Dr Martin Luther King Jr and those who have followed in the reverend's footsteps expanding social Justice and civil rights in our community and throughout the United States of America thank you Jim and Brian we have somebody to speak to us yes uh joining us this evening to speak to the resolution in support of Dr Martin Luther King Junior Day is our District's mtss social emotional Behavior coach Miss jilda Gallagher welcome jilda button okay how about that okay thank you superintendent Kingsley and bordered for having me here today as um superintendent Kingsley said my name is jela Gallagher and I serve as
016mtss social emotional Behavior coach and in addition to that I'm a co- facilitator of the staff Equity Coalition with Delia mahaney who can't be here tonight um I'm honored to be here tonight because um want to share progress last year's res resolution honoring Dr King's Legacy and to introduce our student speaker is coming up in a second as our wonderful students mentioned last year Dr King's Legacy is about honest teaching of our nation's complicated history with race and civil rights as well as how come together as a community and support one another no matter what identities we hold as was mentioned this year's foco theme is it starts with us it does start with us and that's including our students that's why we're proud to say we started a student at Coalition too we have
01744 members and all 10 high schools are represented our first event was December 11th and 30 students were there and who attended the Future Ready Center and some of you actually visited so thank you Mr draer uh it was great to say I was in awe is an understatement um anyone who was there would probably agree with me and principles of community and Norms of collaboration were brought to life in that brave space where students just showed up authentically and they shared experiences and their common commitment to change their voices and work will inform our future actions together and we have work to do and there's much to do and we're going to do it together so of our student Equity Coalition members is actually here tonight and her name is Kina Molina Perez she's
018a junior at Fort Collins High School and she has been selected to represent present PSD as our student March leader at the annual Dr MLK march on January 15th for those of you who don't know they changed the space this year so it's actually starting at the CSU oval at 11 and it's ending at 12:45 at the Lincoln Center for the celebration so it used to be in the past like Oldtown going down so just check on before you go to the wrong place um Kina is a member of multiple School clubs and organizations Equity Advocates student Equity Coalition Latin American Alliance and National Honor Society to name a few and so she's returning to be brave again and share her voice and so I just want to bring her up and say thank you
019for being here come on up Kina hello and thank you for having me tonight I am so honored to be chosen to be the student representative for the parade um commemorating The Life and Legacy of Dr Martin Luther King Jr um as Gilda said my name is Kina camil Perez and I'm the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants for me Dr King's Legacy wasn't always something that I was super passionate about in country school I went to a school with a very diverse student body and it wasn't until middle school when I moved that I learned it was a bad thing to be brown I would get bullied for something I couldn't control part of my identity and who I was wasn't good enough and the bullying was so difficult that as a 12-year-old I was struggling
020with depression and suicidal thoughts um and it wasn't just the students um it was some of my teachers specifically my history teacher uh I remember one time it was Mexico's independence day and he wanted me to tell the whole class on why that day was significant to means and when I did he said um well this is US history class so I guess it's irrelevant anyways and he also didn't correct the kid who told me to go back to my country right after that in my sophomore year oh in my sophomore year I took my first AP class and a automatically felt unwelcomed there was no kid that looked like me and I got treated differently because of that my teacher offered me a chance to switch to regular classes because it would be too
021difficult for me um and she would call me irresponsible because I missed a day of class and didn't give me extra days to do my homework but gave my white who was also gone two other days um but it wasn't until she saw me with my Hispanic friend walking me to class that she said why aren't you going to ditch class with your friend that I knew I was being targeted because of my race since I been in high school I've done everything I can to make sure no other child of color has to deal with the things I have because no child should want to die at 12 years old and no kid should feel as if they aren't capable because of the color of their skin I've been a part of my school's
022student Equity Advocates and Latin American student Alliance clubs for going on 3 years now I recently joined my school's student advocacy board and student Equity Coalition for PSD these clubs have played a big role in my passion for diversity equity and inclusion because it's a sense of community typically during these clubs um it's a space where we can share our experiences and relate to other and it's super important because we have diversity everybody's from different backgrounds and has faced different prejudices but we all have the same passion of addressing them um it's so important because not only do we address the problem but we try to find Solutions where everyone's voice is heard I have been I have attended did the youth celebrate diversity conference and youth are csu's bip Youth and Wildlife Conservation program
023and have had such amazing opportunities like presenting at faculty meetings and joining leadership programs in and out of school and I am so honored to be part of spreading MLK's Legacy and to be able to share the importance of diversity Equity inclusion and Justice here today the theme for this year's Community celebration of Dr King's Legacy as it starts with us my favorite part about this theme is the importance of diversity and youth because we are very aware of the biases in the world around us and watching a group of students from all backgrounds come together to address a common issue of maltreatment and Injustice is proof that it starts with us I choose to believe that everyone is born with a kind heart we are taught how to have biases and how to be
024Prejudice and when we don't bring up these uncomfortable conversations we don't see the true importance of change because ignorance is what Fosters hate the same hate that made me not want to be alive and the same hate that children in our schools still face today the good thing is those traits can be untaught it's physically emotionally and biologically impossible to be anyone other than yourself and that in itself should be celebrated and histories of all people should be honored I believe that youth like me are capable of the change we need and if you don't believe that you need to because we are the future and we are making history M and others alike fought for equality and I'm fighting for Equity because preservations of one own one's own culture does not require contempt or
025disrespect for other cultures I also want to acknowledge the special significance Dr King holds for my classmates teachers and fellow community members who are black he is an important part of your history and fight for justice and equality his in the black community's fearlessness in the face of racism and discrimination was a fight for everyone if it only took one person to create change then I would be that one person but it's not that simple it takes all of us as people to have empathy for each other and challenge inequities in our community so if I can't be the one person that creates change I can be the one person that encourag you to be part of that change every day I wake up and Lead all the work I do with one quote and
026one question that I want to leave here with you today the quote is my experiences Trump Your Truth for me this quote means that biases and stereotypes come fromont what we are taught and not what we experience our own opinions and experiences of are of more importance than that what we are told and what we learn from other people who perpetuate stereotypes and spread hate we can only have real opinions on something that we have experienced and that doesn't mean our opinion is true for someone else the question is how many times have you talked to someone different from you today this question has impacted me and my passion to continue Dr King's Legacy because if you only talk to like-minded people then you can only learn what you know it's when you talk to
027people who are different from you that you truly grow wiser and learn the importance of diversity equity and inclusion before I end my speech I would like to take a moment to thank all my family friends and admin members who came to support me here today and all the teachers who nominated me to lead the parade I'd like to thank Delia for inviting me to give my speech and everyone here today who listened to my speech thank [Applause] you yeah actually if we could do a um we'll call the vote uh and then and if anybody has anything to say but if we could uh take a picture after we call the vote that would be awesome thank you so does anybody have any anything to say I I can't say anything better than you
028just did but thank you so much like you have a very powerful voice I am so proud that you're one of our PSD students I'm so proud that you're going to be in the MLK March like representing us thank you so much for being exactly who you are thank you Jess anyone else okay Brian would like to say something Kina I is this your family that's sitting by your side and supporters from school and I know I can't imagine how proud you are but I can just feel it in the room and you know Kina we have just under 30,000 students in PSD we have several thousand employees what just happened is incredibly rare and special it is so uncommon but so special and unique which I mean you for being being not just vulnerable
029but showing strength in the midst of your vulnerability to be committed to not just advancing yourself but fighting for the advancement of others and what I love most about your speech is how you closed which is a challenge for us as a community and for us as individuals to interrogate how we might be complicit and not advancing Justice for other people for all people we are so proud of you congratulations and thank you for being here and thank you for representing Dr King's Legacy with such honor and dignity all right we'll come up for picture I just wanted to say Kina um I I can I believe in you I you are the future so thank you all right we're going to go for a picture now vote for us sorry I'm all confused so
030let's see Jill can you call the vote Jim brokish hi Kristen Draper I Connor Duffy I Kevin havalda I Carolyn Reed I Scott Shen Bower I Jessica Zamora I motion passes [Applause] 70 stand in the middle it's an honor to meet you you what gr are you at I'm a junior you're a junior we get you for one more year one more you start thinking about what you're going to do after graduation yeah definitely public celebration you're going be all right love it keep the work going ready thank Youk you [Applause] all right I believe now is the board report so thanks superintendent King you bet thank you for the opportunity and thank you again for all that's been involved in the various celebrations and uh acknowledgements this evening it's a great start to 2024
031so happy New Year to everybody um I'm hopeful as we reopened our schools to students today that everybody had an opportunity to enjoy loved ones and celebrations over the holiday and winter season I know I personally had the opportunity to spend time resting uh reflecting uh on all that I am personally grateful for as the superintendent of the school system but for just having each other and being a part of this incredible Community uh as we think about the work that we will be talking about tonight and the work throughout the course of this year it's no there's no question about it uh that what's on the horizon uh for us as a district and for us as a community uh there will be some difficult challenges ahead um but like our students and teachers
032who just represented us so proudly I stand Here strong sit here strongly uh with hope with optimism and the deep understanding that we can do hard things together and I know that we will uh I'm so grateful that we had a chance to recognize the significance of Monday uh honoring the and celebrating the Legacy and the memory of Dr Martin Luther King Jr I do want to invite our entire Community to join uh the march at the oval that starts promptly at 1100 a.m. Jilla thank you for the acknowledgement of the shift in venues um there's a celebration event that is open to the whole community at 12:45 uh at the Lincoln Center and I look forward to seeing many members if not all of us uh there that afternoon you know as I've been
033thinking about the importance of that day and the importance of our work uh some writings that I came across were by a scholar at the University a scholar and professor at the University of Tennessee by the name of Dr Shayla Nali and she talks about in some of her works that Dr King acknowledged the complicity of American institutions in racial discrimination but he also believed in their power to facilitate in democracy in theory and practice again as jilda said it starts with us I share in Dr King's optimism and hope I know that this entire District does as well and as you think about the significance of his work his campaign at the time of his life was to reorder our national priorities to think differently Al together together about them to recognize that every
034person deserves a great education access to great health care a decent job and a viable income not just as a member of this great nation but as a human right when I think about and reflect over the course of this past several weeks that's what this District embodies what it's trying to accomplish for all of its students through great work with teachers and Partnerships with parents and families uh and we have to continue to be courageous to be informed and to be intentional in all of our efforts and recog recognizing that access is not enough that belonging and dignity is equally are equally as vital as access as we talk about tonight about our District budget there's no doubt that we are resource constrainted I still think it's Our obligation as leaders and servant leaders
035in this community to lead from a place of abundance but as we talk about our budget today I want us to think about some of the misnomers that exist in our community that we need to fight for to Advocate to ensure that we have all of the resources not to just to impact everybody but especially our most marginalized you know there's an assumption that exists in our community that as a result of property increases that have taken place over the past year that there is going to be a windfall of cash into the coffers of our district and I want to acknowledge that we get that question a lot and the answer to that is simple we don't get any more money as a result of new new property taxes what happens is the state
036actually decreases their share to the proportion of they what they give per pupil to our district and we need to continue to Advocate and fight and there's stances and charges that are happening at the state level to advance more money coming into public education which we collectively are grateful for but I also want to advance the message we still need to do more I'm also incredibly proud that as we think about our budget our values are aligned to how we spend our money and our district has prioritized uh several things over the course of the last past several years uh but one of the other presentations tonight that I'm excited about is talking about our literacy efforts and continuing to invest and engage and think thoughtfully around how we resource our schools and resource our
037teachers and so later on this evening we will have a presentation on the future of curriculum uh for our 9th and 10th grade English language arts courses we know that that's not just an important conversation for our teachers and for principles and for you as a governance team but we know families parents um students want to know what they will be learning about what they will be reading about what they'll be thinking about in those particular courses and so the significance of tonight's presentation is to be transparent around how to get engaged in that particular process moving forward so I'm excited to be back uh I know a lot of people were under the weather including myself throughout the holiday season but to have the opportunity to sit on the day with all of you
038it feels really good and I'm looking forward to a great meeting tonight so thank you everybody all right thank you superintendent Kingsley um we are now toward the community comment section of the board meeting and I will just read a statement here uh the board desires to hear the viewpoints of all stakeholders including students employees parents Guardians and community members public comment is designed to address issues not personalities or Personnel matters please keep your concerns and comments focused upon the district please know 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 the description or interpretation of events as presented by any speaker further even if some remarks may be factually inaccurate
039we 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 how to interact respectfully even with those with whom we disagree agree for we all have the students best interest interests at heart um and this opportunity is for public comment is for members of the community who registered to speak by the designated deadline those people will be called upon to make remarks in the order they signed up each speaker will be allowed 3 minutes and our first speaker is Jeff after Heidi welcome my name is Jeff after from Wellington Colorado tonight I would like to address item 9.2 on the agenda referring to
040the December 9th meeting at the Broadmore Hotel for the Colorado Association of school boards convention the agenda mentions a future discussions on restructuring Community comment I request clarification from president Draper or vice president Zamora on the motive and intent behind restructuring during public comment in the specific date the topic will be discussed in an open public for the past board's interactions are rather their lack of with those challenging their Authority raises concerns the pter School District Board of Directors spends $25,000 annually on a casby membership that also includes political lobbying yet key topics discussed in subcommittee meetings held in August such as website accessibility core requests and elements of the Tyler Zella case were not pre uh presented in recent meetings in November with legislators this lack of alignment between discuss and presented topics calls
041for an explanation another cause for concern are your calendars as someone who's filed multiple core requests I've noticed inaccuracies in the calendars of board members and executive cabinet members in one case I reviewed a calendar for one of your assigned reports and discovered there were only a handful of events for this person for an entire year this discrepancy is troubling and it suggests in my opinion decisions are being made outside of the public eye Kevin havalda is the official Delegate for casby and he must ensure transparency of what happens in uh those particular uh subcommittees given the fact that uh the uh the overlap with legal representation in the zanella case by lions Gattis who also has representation or members on casby's legislative board my son's experience uh with Zella and other districts uh withholding
042information highlights a larger issue of transparency other families too have faced similar challenges we need full disclosure from our elected board members this means accurate up-to-date calendars including all subcommittee meetings that are uh that your calendars are updated with those accessibility of those calendars on the district's website and publication of all your board expenses including your catered meals and traveled accommodations this is especially important because Mr Kingsley repeatedly States as he did tonight to the community that pter school district is under Financial strain therefore it's imperative to us that you demonstrate good judgment so show us instead of telling us in conclusion our community deserves openness from you and we expect accountability especially in matters that directly affect their children thank you next we have Danny Lawrence welcome uh tonight I come with a couple
043of requests because I could really use your help over the break I learned that our case manager at my son's school operates in a different name than she is licensed under and it's got me very worried for several reasons first this individual is alone in a room with my visually impaired child weekly and has been for two years tonight I'm not sure what her legal name is only what her license name is my obvious worry is that the case manager has not been fingerprinted in the name that she is using in the district on her emails or in the legally binding documents she creates in our IEP process professionally I'm a realtor I must fingerprint affirm my name legally and register my own nickname it's hard to trust people alone with your child if you
044can't even trust that they're using their name transparently I found that she isn't the only licensed staff with this issue so board members could you please help by questioning the processes of the human resources department to assure that those licensed individuals are using their legal names in our schools can you demand that folks working with child with children participate in fingerprinting processes in my sphere I just haven't found a single pair of professional that reports that they're being fingerprinted in their position in the district which appears to me to be a possible violation of State Statute protecting the most vulnerable is your job it's everybody's job it's my job too my next ask is for some support for the teachers of of the VIS visually impaired in your email tonight you should find a written
045request from me PSC employees about roughly four teachers uh many schools contract outside of the district for their services but our school district has created its own department just before Christmas our teacher expressed uh the need to have the same technology that my son does so that she could practice um and so she could effectively teach him his lessons I sat speechless and baffled silence as she indicated in front of Administrators that she had been asking for 2 years for the district to purchase refreshable Braille display so that the tvi had the ability to practice the technology that they have to teach my son all of her asks have gone ignored when we heard about this issue we loaned our personal technology from home rentree with zero acknowledgement or thanks from the integrated Services administrator
046she still has that device today and we are not allowed to supply our son's technology home device giving her the school device because PSD won't allow us to use our own technology in your schools my son's learning is affected by having having a teacher learning in real time with him simply because of the refusal to purchase a piece of technology those teachers were also in need of an additional embosser that device prints Braille um that should be here tonight but isn't and the need for uh Braille for students has outgrown the capacity of just the one device the district has teaching these children how to use a refreshable braille display would minimize the need for embossed material but as it stands there's no technology for either so no solution if PSC is going to play
047vision service provider then you all need to invest in the technology that that meets a bare minimum expectation for visually impaired children in a public school district truthfully I find it really a waste of my time and insane to make public comments about obvious matters please make licensed teachers use their real names and fingerprinted identities and please get some needed technology to help support visually impaired children I'm sick of the closed door attitude of leadership in the district is destructive to helping every child every day thank you thank you next up we have Sabrina herck tonight the agenda includes a recommendation from Kingsley for PSD to join a lawsuit because social media is making students depressed I had a good laugh the first time I heard about this lawsuit and again when I saw this
048on your agenda first off I don't know why these lawyers are targeting school districts with their advertising when students are being damaged parents can easily pay contingency Fe just like PSD can and the pro and probably have a better claim the whole thing screams ambulance Chaser who seeks to represent the EMTs second let's talk about what counseling looks like in this District when I found out my daughter was assaulted by Tyler Anella I immediately asked for help getting her counseling principal Thorne swore up and down I'd get it what I got was ignored over Memorial Day weekend and when I started seeking people out Emily bickerton gave me a form letter directing me to kayak and an unfulfilled promise that Dennis rasad and and Desiree Fischer would reach out fun fact the first time I
049spoke to Dennis rastad was on November 7th and he had no idea who I was until I told him and just to be clear I hadn't lawyered up when these promises were being made I lawyered up because they were broken but setting aside the 11 students and their families who are abandoned to their trauma last may we also have Anna who's here tonight who pulled her child from this District because your D dyslexia policies drove for child to suicidal ideations and I recently met another parent who claims their autistic child committed suicide because Preston Middle School staff abused him and then publicly blamed him for their abuse we could sit here all night guessing whether wag staff at alsb sure is accurate or not but one thing is certain this district is damaging students mental
050health and it's not their Facebook and Instagram pages that are doing it there's an old saying first take the log out of your own eye and you'll see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye it feels applicable spend some time reflecting on your own failures to write reasonable policy failure to follow your rare good policy and failure to find leadership who's willing to help to commit to helping kids Jeff Connell and then had come talk to me about how Tik Tock and meta owe you money for making kids sad thank you next we have Anna leetta welcome thank you good evening and happy New Year I've heard it said multiple times in this board room that PSD is a high performance District our gold standard is high performance and having the numbers
051to prove it is clearly important during the October special ed update the trending numbers were celebrated as great and encouraging progress in PSD most of us who have kids who require special in education including those with learning disabilities like my family has or those who hover just enough above the 12th percentile to not qualify for special education realize that that you have to take any test scores with a grain of salt those of us who have kids who have who suffer from Reading failure know that the anxiety around standardized testing is so high and the subsequent emotional Fallout is so intense that it leads most of us parents to um to opt our kids out of testing and save them from the pointless humiliation for those struggling kids who do test it often comes down
052to luck and what creative guessing pattern they come up with on a particular day to keep the testing more interesting I've never even thought about the fact that those numbers or the lack of those numbers would be used for the district as a measure of progress much less a continued means of justification for ignoring the serious reading issues that exist throughout PSD on account of unidentified dyslexia I'd like to know what the percentage of overall students are who are opted out of testing altogether for each data point that we see on charts those are the kids that we need to hear more about I read this week that the mark of a good teacher or a good system is the output of their bottom students not their top it's been perplexing to me to see
053the district continue to choose silence over being proactive with helping the most struggling readers gained the most ground during the most crucial window for intervention for the sake of both their literacy and their mental health and belonging our our district lacks the vision to see that the earliest intervention with earliest intervention these same struggling readers in kindergarten could be some of the top performers starting in third grade it's possible the only thing that makes sense to me about this resistance is that to even entertain the conversation is that when you lose the families with the kids who are struggling readers it actually makes your numbers look higher every kid that leaves this District who's struggling makes the district look like a better performer I'm asking the Board of Education to please initiate the for formation
054of a dyslexia task force like our comparison District I can't believe how much I need water right now I'm so sorry um so that we can start moving toward meaningful interventions for our kids who can't read we will not catch up with other districts until we start acknowledging that like we have to say it we have to say the words look at d11 look at I'm going to stop because I'm so thirsty right now but like we needed we need a task force we need it than thank you and next up we have uh Samantha louns thank you thank you Samantha Samantha LS 20y year District employee former PSD student um I recently attended a professional development and as we were sitting around the table warming up to get started I overheard one of my
055colleagues telling a story um about a recent visit to her doctor and um as he prepared her for her colonoscopy she was telling him how excited she was to have the day off and we all laughed like it was hysterical but is it funny that it takes a schedule colonoscopy to feel okay about taking the day off the truth is we do this work every single day because we love it and we believe that it's meaningful so what's my point why am I here I'm really concerned about our ability to retain staff teachers must maximize every minute of every day and teach with urgency this job requires careful preparation and thoughtful instruction we are provided mere minutes a day for Preparation so why is this job so hard there's several reasons first student-based budgeting this
056has forced principles to be concerned about filling classes to secure operational funding last year our kindergarten classes had 28 kids per class if you've ever spent any time in a kindergarten classroom that's ridiculous they are not even proficient at knowing when they need to use the bathroom actually nor are second graders I had a accident today um next it's demanding career I teach Reading Writing math social studies science and social emotional learning that's six different platforms I need to efficiently navigate and be familiar with that's just the written curriculum how about the unwritten curriculum teaching thinking skills how to focus how to um stay on task listen and um Express needs and ideas and function in a group setting this career has never been more challenging or important impacts from the digital age poverty neurod
057Divergence victims of circumstances all our classrooms today have youth that are struggling it's classroom teachers that hold tight and um to build Bridges by holding tight to our commitment to educate last we have the 2018 State Board of Education came out with new rules 45 hours of culturally um culturally and linguistic def diverse professional development followed up with the science of reading which is another 45 hours of professional development all of which is great work but not paid um and then there's the implementation of our new curriculum which is fabulous but requires time time to become familiar with the resources time to analyze the data time to plan time to prep the materials time to coll collaborate with literacy if you w you so addressing um Elementary planning time is a critical um is critical
058for um helping improving our working conditions thank you thank you very much all right and thank you to everyone who came out to speak tonight really appreciate it so we are going to move on to um board topics and committee reports um this agenda item is an opportunity for board members to provide an update on committee work or speak to board topics uh do any board members have anything to report let's see it was a it was a good break for all excellent all right uh so we move on to our consent agenda would any board members like to pull an item from consent okay seeing none can I get a motion Jim I'll go uh I move that the board approve and adopt the recommended actions for the items on the consent agenda excellent
059do I have a second oh all right Kevin you get the second all right Jill will you please call the vote Jim brokish hi Kristen Draper I Connor Duffy I Kevin havalda I Carolyn Reed I Scott Shan Bower I Jessica Zamora I motion passes 70 thank you Joe all right our next item is the annual M Levy certification can I get a motion yeah Conor I move that the board certify the M Levy by the following resolution be it resolved by the Board of Education of pter school district R1 that the secretary of the Board of Education formally certify the to the board of larer County Commissioners the mill Levy as presented to the in the board packet in the following manner for the tax year 2023 collectible in 2024 the governing board of the
060pter school district R1 hereby certifies a total Levy of 53.4 34 Ms to be extended by you upon the total net assessed valuation of 4 b877 mil 226,000 in Revenue do I have a second Jess all right and I believe we have a presentation for this yes we do presenting information on the annual Mill Levy certification this evening is our Chief Financial Officer Dave Montoya welcome Dave good evening um tonight we're going to go through the mevy certification again uh we actually did this in a lot of detail at the December meeting so I'm going to do the exact same presentation except I'm going to do it with a little bit more speed going through some of the things we'll slow down on where some things have changed um but the the good news is
061I guess from my standpoint is the projections that we were using in December were almost spot-on spooky scary spoton it was like 0.25% difference in assessed valuation so so most of what we talked about in December is still accurate but there the calculation is just slightly different now um so tonight we are again uh asking the board to certify the ly um we are required to report that mevy to the board of County commissioners of which we will do tomorrow at the deadline of January 10th um we have some key values and key ter or key terms within the um within the milert um we went through this in some detail last time they're just they're available for people that need to refer back to what does a term mean like assessed valuation assessment rate
062M Levy all of those terms um we talked also about the the the reason why we're doing this so late usually we certify the mil Levy in December um but there was a special session that the um that that that started up after the ballot initiative uh property HH failed um in that special session um they revived many of the concepts from property prop proposition HH um specifically lowering the assessment rate to 6.7% where it was 6.95% um expands residential exemptions to 55,000 where they were legislated to be 15,000 um and it also changed the non-residential property tax rate to 27.9 where it was 29% in the past um and then the timelines changed um because of the special session um when we're calculating property taxes and looking at M levies um there's really two
063main formula that are used um there's a lot of numbers in the packet but what we're really looking at is an actual value of a home multiplied by an assessment rate um and then that will give you an assessed valuation so you take the value of your home to determined by the county assessor multiply it by 6.7% and that'll give you an assessed valuation you take that assessed valuation you multiply that times the mevy rate of which we're going to approve tonight divide that by a thousand and that gets you to a tax bill or ta estimated taxes and that would be we're talking about PSD taxes tonight um pter School District taxes obviously as we all look at our property taxes bills there's other taxes on there besides just prer School District um so
064here's where uh things have changed a little bit um and I alluded to they did not change greatly at all um you can kind of see that the numbers were almost scary On Target uh so I'd really want to thank RBC Capital markets they are are underwriter and financial adviser they really helped me with those calculations to make sure that we were doing them kind of independently and making sure that we were connecting at the end so uh so that hard work paid off um we got this document it's in your packet this came from the county um it actually was released um uh in December de late in December um so I was able to actually run those calculations over the holiday get them ready for the board packet and get them put in
065um so the new assess valuation came in at 4 billion we just heard it R uh four Bill $4.8 billion um and again we were projecting 4.9 billion so so right on target there just a small variation the other piece of information that we get from this document is the um Abate AB abated amounts um that's shown at the bottom those did not change from the last time we talked um so once we got that that was the number I was waiting for was the assessed valuation number once I got that I was able to run through all the calculations once again um we do multiple things we have RBC Capital helping us with kind of the calculation of the mill rate we also have CDE that provides some tools that provide assistance to us
066to ensure that we're calculating Mill rates correctly so kind of did the double check of all three areas they all checked out and so we moved forward um with that information we draft a resolution that resolution is in your board packet so we'll go through the resolution just to talk through the components again um but uh but nothing again has drastically changed from the last time we talked um there are three components within the mil Levy resolution so let's talk take the first one for or the big one first it's the statutory levies and um those are highlighted in Green in this slide um you can see at the top that we are assessing 27 Mills to generate net tax of about $131 million um the 27 Ms is defined in State Statute by the
067school Finance Act and the only place that that would be able to be changed is if the legislature got together and actually change the school Finance act and and and Chang the the Mills that are uh that are required for school districts to to Levy to help offset the cost of total program um also in there is the abated amount so we settled Mill to collect the actual abatements that were reported by the county again that didn't change um we spent a lot of time on this chart talking about the statutory total program Levy um and uh and superintendent Kingsley even alluded to it in his opening remarks um for the meeting tonight um this is where we talk about the fact that even though our property tax structure is changing we're collecting because that
06827 Mills will bring in more property tax for total program automatically most people think well that means School District's getting a lot more money the reality is we still come back to this this formula the total program formula and the formula is what dictates how much how we get basically 75% of our revenue or total program and when we look at that when property taxes increase State Equalization decreases by the complimentary amount because we're coming back to the same dollar amount where we're taking the number of kids times $10,000 $24 per kid that gets us to $298 million of total program Revenue that fact does not change because the property tax percentage or ratio change um so we're still coming back to that same total program number again again to see more money from this
069we would need a something to happen at the legislature through the school Finance act um the next section of O of meves that we are asking the board to approve tonight are are overrides and you can see that they are all displayed here um most of our overrides are set to specific dollar all of our overrides are set to specific dollar amounts there is one that grows by inflation it is the outlier of the other ones um when we look at this I think this slide does a little better job of explaining this um when we look year toe here uh the prior year is the first set of Demers and then the second year is the um is the um the one on the side on the right side um you can see that
070uh our dollar amounts even though they change slightly because of rounding we're allowed to round to a thousandth on Mills um they're still trying to Target the same dollar amount that the voters had authorized so you see that those numbers do not change as assessed valuation goes up the these the mill levies will go down because we're collecting to a specific dollar amount the exception is the 2019 override you can see that that dollar amount did change or increase from year one year to the next and that is purely taking an inflationary component and multiplying it by the previous year so we use the um Denver Lakewood um I'm going to mess this up because they just changed it Denver Lakewood um it's not gy anymore sorry there's another city that's involved in that um
071we use the formal uh Federal uh inflation rate that's produced by the feds um they release that uh information annually and it's used in multiple venues uh not only for our ballot question here in 2019 but it also applies heavily in total program calculations at the state that's what the base increases by is that same inflationary component so so that's why that override is is larger um and then the last one uh just kind of rounding this out uh we do have to set a levy for our bond Redemption Levy um you can see that that is displayed here um that is is actually another calculation to a dollar amount where we are looking at um making sure that we can make our June payment of Interest as well as our December and PR December
072payments of principal and interest as well as um our plan is to retire some existing outstanding debt with this Levy um so that is the levy for the bond Redemption fund um again nothing's changed greatly here the the numbers have changed obviously in the presentation and your in your packet but the uh the content is still the same um so we're going to see a fairly large increase um going toward total program as we talked about last time our overrides have grown by inflation and then the bond Redemption Levy is set so that it it can uh service our debt um we are looking at a reduction of Mills of 2.43 Ms um based on these calculations again some of them we have flexibility around what excuse me many of them we do not have
073any flexibility around uh the the statutory Levy is set again in State Statute the overrides are set based on specific dollar amounts as well as the bond Redemption fund so so it's really a method or a matter of calculation or math at this point and not something that we have a lot of flexibility or um discretion around setting um we need to set them where they are um we also include in the board packet just a an estimate of tax impact um because the assess valuation increased and because of total program uh the mevy not changing there is going to be an increase in taxes um as we expected although it has been mitigated slightly because we are able to pull those meves down for our overrides so that that did help offset that a
074little bit um right now what we're looking at is a estimate of about 231 additional on a an average home price median home home price today of about 700,000 um so that would be the annual increase um monthly it's about $19 um there's also a calculation in the board packet on and on and on this slide that is different than a comparison from year to year it's just a multiplier so that people that have um businesses can kind of get an estimate of what their taxes might look like under this new mevy so basically for every million dollars of business of um of non-residential uh property that you would have um there would be about a $14,988 tax per million dollars so it's kind of a multiplier for those that have businesses so they can
075do that number quickly um timeline hasn't changed uh got we're we got the information from the count from the county over the break um we were able to actually calculate those get them in the board packet in time and uh tonight we are asking the board to approve the mevy um after that we will uh upload that information into the County's website they have a new slick website where we can input the milies and so we'll do that first thing tomorrow and then we have to also report our mvies to CDE of which we'll be doing that right after um so we're to the end end of that uh sorry I I know that was a duplication of what we did last time but I thought just spending a little time doing it again was
076probably worthwhile given that there's so much talk in the public about assess valuation going up and and some of the some of the just conversations we're having so at this point um I could take any more questions I think we've gone through it quite a bit but I'd take any questions thanks Dave so much really appreciate the fact that you're willing to go through it again and just I think just going back to that slide that we were talking about um you know yeah you know the one that one right there that the total program does not change we do not see an increase of Revenue I can't stress that enough that you know what is happening is that what's the state is giving back to us their their backfill if you will is just
077lessening and so um yeah so we are looking at the the same amounts um that we have been we do not see an increase um does anybody else have any comments or questions or thoughts no that's okay all right we spent a lot of time on this topic you're probably you're probably ready to see this go to a vote and and be done whenever you're ready Jill can you call the vote Jim brokish I Kristen Draper I Connor Duffy I Kevin havelda I Carolyn Reed I Scott Shen Bower I Jessica Zamora I motion passes seven zero thank you appreciate it thank you so much and really appreciate it yep and we'll get we'll get that information reported to the other agencies as as required so that we make sure that we get our property taxes
078sounds good all right next on the agenda we have the intergo intergovernmental agreement for a Southeast Community Center can I get a motion go ahead Scott thank you I move that the board authorized staff to enter into an intergovernmental agreement for the Southeast Community Center and substantially the form attached in this agenda item can I get a second Jess is for the second and before we um is there let's see did we have okay we just standing by and support um so if there are any questions or concerns we can ask gotam I just before we do that I just want to make a statement that I will be recusing myself from this discussion and vote um because it involves the library and that is my uh employment so there's I'm employed at the library
079work doing board work here figured it's the best to just uh not be involved in this one so um anybody have any questions or thoughts questions they want to ask oh I'm sorry Brian yes no apologies necessary I just thought it might be helpful for for people who are watching online to just Orient them to what this opportunity Unity kind of presents to the community to our students uh because it's really super exciting and so uh the proposal that you're about to vote on is three agencies the city of Fort Collins pter River Public Library District and the pter school district who all came together in a shared commitment to open a new community Innovation Center in southeast Fort Collins which is super exciting uh the southeast for excuse me the Southeast Community Innovation Center
080which was promised to the voters in 2015 and a ballot measure passed um by our City's city council will feature a state-of-the-art public library uh multi-use spaces as well as Recreation and potentially Aquatics facilities pending additional voter support uh the center will be built on a pending approval on the 10 acres of land that PSD our district owns adjacent to Fossil Ridge High School um so again in the spirit of true collaboration each partner is contributing assets to this project and our district pending your approval is providing the land needed for the facility so thank you for your consideration thank you Brian questions go ahead Kevin I have a question of a comment um when this was first presented to me um it was a little bit of a head scratcher at first um but
081the more I looked at it the more I reviewed it um I want to commend the leadership of PSD including a general counsel for the negotiation that they've undertaken here this is an asset that we could that we need to use that we have something that we that we have that's a value um instead of just selling it or just giving it away they found a way to maximize not only the value of the asset on our books but also into the future that's going to pay dividends to students and staff um for years and years and years to come it's also going to be a marketing and selling feature of our community Community it's going to be something that perhaps could distinguish our community from others we're talking about teacher retention which is something
082that I hold very near and dear it's offering a service for something that we already have but it's a very creative solution and so I'm voting for this enthusiastically um and as you look through the details and look through the work that's been done to get us to this point I just want to commend the leadership to to bring it to this uh fruition Point Let's see Scott yeah second what Kevin has to say on that I think it's a a great use of the district's uh assets without um a lot of cash outlay um you know in the future it could be even better if we get the Aquatic Center which is I think something much needed in a district that showcases some fantastic uh swim teams um Poss being you know the obvious
083but I really uh command the district on using our assets and and encourage you to look at other assets like this to to help in uh these tight times Carolyn and I will say that I support the district um every time uh in this in this um work that they're doing right now with the Aquatic Center I think when U Brian came here I told him I was looking for more Community Partnerships so that we could leverage our money to get the things that we need for the district I think this is a really great example of the district leveraging what it has with our Community Partners to get what we need for our students and I'd like to also um note that swimming is one of our few non-cut Sports so kids that go
084out for swimming get to stay in swimming I think it's a really important sport for our for our kids I think it really builds character and I I'm really concerned about the lack of Lane time um especially should the um the mberry pool fail which we know it is here eventually going to fail and so knowing that the kids have this to look forward to um I think is really important thank you anybody else all righty let's see Jill can you call the vote Jim broish hi Connor Duffy hi Kevin havalda hi Carolyn Reed hi Scott shanower hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes 60 all right thank you wait oh yes I'm so sorry misreading so next week on on the agenda is the informational reports and discussion items for um n9th and 10th grade
085English language arts adoption overview and go ahead Brian thank you uh providing information on our n9th and 10th grade English language arts adoption overview is our director of curriculum and instruction Mr John pentino John welcome glad you're here okay thank you good good evening uh thank you for having me here superintendent Kingsley and board directors I'm going to go ahead and uh major topic here is our secondary language arts adoption focused on 9th and 10th grade but I also want to want to start by mentioning that we do have some other adoptions in process so I want to make sure the board's aware of that and also that the community is aware um this year we are reviewing a middle school science and this is actually I look back the first middle school science adoption
086we've ever done because the last time we did this we had Junior High School 7 through nine so this is an opportunity to get alignment for our science curriculum in our middle schools we're also doing uh Middle School US History which eighth grade course um High School world history and uh it says genocides and Holocaust there in parenthesis because there are new state standards based on state legislation around that being a required topic or those being required topics for graduates uh and that law is going to effect basically um in July of this year so um we are looking at that adoption as what will be a required course for students to get those that topic covered for them we also have two smaller mathematics um adoptions which are discrete math and data analysis and
087probability and the 910th language arts we'll be focusing on the 910th language arts as it's a strategic plan priority and it's a pretty significant uh topic for our district because we haven't done this work in quite a bit of time as well but as I go through this process we cover when I get to the process piece recognize that all of these adoptions have committees that are running similarly with similar types of evaluation inclusivity and Community feedback opportunities um I'm going to talk just a little bit this is repetitive for those of you who've been watching this but I think it's important to Center our district priority of literacy and that literacy is Reading Writing communicating that is listening and speaking and uh being able to do those well will create Equitable access to learning
088across disciplines so students learning to read and being able to function and grow in their reading throughout their careers creates more access to academic opportunities and opportunities in life um literacy is the key to building knowledge and engaging with the world our focus is not just reading skills it's the content that we're learning as well and using those reading skills to build knowledge as students move through our system and make those connections and then we we emphasize that liter exist literacy exists everywhere um where're reading and writing communicating all the time which means we're applying our literacy skills all the time and in a way every one of our Educators is a literacy teacher as it applies to their content um as part of the work we did over the past year um as you
089know we had a an evaluation from uh tntp about our literacy practices and coming out of that um we developed a literacy vision and that all students is bolded because we want to make sure all students have access to high quality instruction so that that um it's not only do we have the high quality instruction are all students able to engage with it and um they develop imply their literacy skills across disciplines from Early Childhood through graduation this slide I'm just going to quickly go over it you've probably seen it a few times if you've watched some of these presentations um but this is the structure of literacy as we see it uh as a thread starting at the bottom with foundational literacy this is where students learn to read um and this is what
090we addressed very heavily as a first step in our um literacy priority last year through the literacy adoption we did for K5 across the district for the first time in psd's history we have evidence-based science of reading qualified materials in our teachers Hands Across The District so um that is a big first step to making sure students are receiving the instruction they need from kindergarten on up and then uh content are literacy is how we use those literacy skills to continue to learn about our content we need to be able to read and write and have uh listening comprehension to be successful in learning content and that's where apply those skills media literacy is important obviously because of the information that is out there in the world and as we look at media literacy it
091feels even a little limiting what we're trying to say there is students understand how to process information that they are exposed to recognize good information from Bad learn how to synthesize things and make good decisions for their lives and to become um productive syst and at the top of of this piece is disciplinary literacy and that's where students take the literacy skills they have and apply them in ways that are specific to a discipline so the way they read write write reports in science may be different to the way they do research in social studies and that is what we call disciplinary literacy so all of these foundational pieces are important building the content knowledge as we get to be a prepared graduate um with strong disciplinary literacy skills um an important part that we're
092focusing on is students engaging with high quality text to build knowledge they do that in all of the areas that I have discussed um it's really centering good information and texts that are worth reading for students I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in a second um we're going to use the term high quality complex text and we can say that and it's not that easy to uh Define what that is but one way of looking at it is there are three um legs to this triangle here basically uh quantitatively so sometimes we look at text and we can look at it objectively statistically um how's the vocabulary sentence length um word Frequency Word difficulty syllables things like that so you can say what's the readability of this but there's also the
093qualitative piece which is subjective factors themes structure author style is it written well and then the other piece of that is reader and task considerations now that means where is the student where is the Learner in the moment to make sure that this text is compatible and stretching the students learning as they go through so it's not as simple as saying that's a quality text and that's not the context matters as well so as we look at as we select materials put in front of students um we have to consider those things and basically the bolded piece on the bottom text that is worth students time we want students engage with materials that are worthy of their engagement we're not just putting materials in front of them because we have a reading activity um SC
094reading rope comes back and yes this is a high school conversation but um for for those who are not aware the scaros reading rope discusses how reading is reading skills are developed from early ages at the top you see language comprehension students need to build background knowledge vocabulary understand language structure verbal reasoning and build their literacy knowledge as they go in the beginning you'll see the the strands are separated because students may not be able to decode text in the beginning but they do build those skills early and that's what we're addressing through our adoption and our other um supports we have for students but as they're building those skills we need them building their language comprehension and background knowledge but this fits throughout because if you look at the top piece first of all
095we want to continue helping students support their decoding skills and and fluency as readers uh throughout until they get to that skilled reading level but language comprehension it never stops the stretch you come to a new content area you're bringing your back background knowledge you're bringing your vocabulary your language structure changes it gets more complicated it gets more complex and so we want to make sure students are prepared for those challenges as they go so along the right side you see it's literacy science social studies media content we don't want to forget it's not just the content today it's the experience the students are bringing to it and their ability to embrace the new challenges that come through in the complexity so we're looking at it very broadly on how all these things um interweave
096to create successful skilled readers now I'm going to talk a little bit about the adoption process that has been underway uh starting this fall um our team has goals for the adoption and to summarize them the high quality complex text that I mentioned for authentic purpose we want students making connections and we want students building knowledge that will ultimately become transferable knowledge um we want guaranteed access to rigorous skills and standards for all students again uh when we have materials adopted across we can have some consistency across the district um and that will Ure all students have access and that that next bullet is about the consistency across the district and then ongoing professional development aligned with this adoption for cohesive and effective instructional practices a continuous growth model for our teachers um our review
097team has um quite a few people 18 High School Educators one high school administrator and that's not because that's what we limited it to we did open it up but that's kind of it's a big commitment for people and they're busy so but we did get one high school administrator to go through six central office staff a parent again for parents it's hard because it's a big commitment in time um and then we had significant engagement from middle and high school students and that's something new and it was quite insightful when they got a chance to look at the materials and give some feedback on what they were looking for um we tried to have as much best representation as we can with the committee certainly have classroom teachers our language culture and Equity Department
098um was there looking out to make sure we have equity and diversity needs being met and also looking at multilingual Learners and how students all students would be able to access the curriculum and see themselves in the curriculum also support from integrated services so that we were watching how students with IEPs would access and information technology uh day one was spent grounding and research there were no materials on hand just yet but Colorado academic standards which in English language arts and math fully embed the common core standards just so we understand that um we have some curated research articles for for um the team to read checking of biases because we all walk in thinking we're not biased but we have to really reflect on how we see curriculum and how we see students to
099make sure we can remove our biases as well as possible and then we have a literacy instructional framework and everything with a chain link after it has a link to that document so if you want to dig in and you will be able to find the research articles and everything there um we reviewed the imet which is the instructional materials evaluation tool which is a rubric that we use culture responsive curriculum scorecard and turned all that into a combined scoring tool the framework itself and this is our team our our literacy teachers with the lead facilitator Kelly Burns have built this over the last number number of years and what they go their goal is to establish a culture of literacy that's centered on belonging D dignity and Civic mindedness making sure we do cover
100those standards and have Career College and they're insistent on including Community success because we want to really make sure students are prepared in all facets and uh building schools through scaffolded tests and complex Texs that is accessible to all students so we want to make sure that Baseline has that rigor and also accessibility for for students who might need support and then we want to make sure there are diverse voices and perspectives because we want to make sure every student feels empowered and sees themselves in the curriculum I'm going to briefly go through the tools the iMat we used a um primary IM met for the evaluation last year for elementary this one goes up through grade 12 complex texts evidence-based tasks meaning we want students using the text but when we ask them questions
101or to work on tasks they rely on real information they rely on those texts instead of something that might be a little less targeted or focused uh making sure they know how to use that evidence well and that we're building knowledge through content Rich non-fiction and also building our literary knowledge as we go through uh diversity is a big piece um this panel shows the diversity in PSD we don't see it every day we don't think of it this way but we have a 100 countries of birth in and we have 82 languages spoken and the last we updated that dashboard both of those increased so diversity has been increasing over the last few years as we started tracking it through this dashboard so we want to make sure when we look at curricular materials
102that all students see themselves in those materials in a positive light as much as possible and that we recognize that it is a very diverse population and we want to meet the needs of all students and when we talk about diversity it's not just race ethnicity and Country of birth we all are individuals with all of the different pieces pieces we bring to the table main often intersecting many identities that we bring and we want to make sure we can see evaluate our materials to see that they are broadly uh addressing the diversity in our population um this quote really says culture responsive curriculum increases student engagement attendance GPA grad rates Civic engagement and positive racial self-images and self-definition so we can only all live in our own experiences and we see the world through
103our lens we're trying to get outside of that a bit to see that we can evaluate materials so that students feel as though they are affirmed through the instruction we are offering and the materials we're presenting to gauge that we use the cultural responsive curriculum um scorecard which is from NYU steinhart um we did use it last year as well with the elementary adoption it is um as we would call it um aspirational it is really looking to go what we'd like to see it's really putting some some um high levels of Standards out there for diversity and and what the curricular materials can do but it's also pointing us toward how we can deliver instruction and think about what we're putting in front of students as we go like to think about when teachers
104use this kind of culture responsive evaluation not only do they get to evaluate the materials but they get to evaluate their own practices and think about oh I've never thought about things through this lens so it's a professional learning opportunity as well as an evaluation and the tool focuses on representation not only are diverse populations represented but are they not are they represented in positive ways and not in negative stere stereotypical ways that's important um is there social justice orientation and how well do the teacher materials direct teachers to be cultur responsive and give them tips on how to deliver the materials in a more culturally affirming and responsive way so as you can imagine this is a lot for people on our valuation team to to digest and that's why we took a whole
105day to ground in that and um in addition we have accessibility standards that we look at um you're probably aware there's a new state law in that area as well um so accessibility um compliance is essential and is well have to have to it's essential and then the technology platform itself because all of these have physical materials and digital material options and so that's something we're looking at and how well those will integrate with our systems in PSD um so September 14th the work started where there was norming in the research review I mentioned October 16th we had the materials that were uh submitted to us um when it turned out it turned out that only three were really comprehensive programs some had supplemental type pieces or other supports um but the three did meet
106our basic essential criteria of what we want to look for going forward so we moved forward with the three programs on December 6th we had publisher Pres presentations of the top three programs and we had a debrief that is where we had the student engagement and the debrief was quite interesting one thing we learned from students is they do like physical materials they don't want to read everything on a screen and that was that was good to know and um may not fit with how some people consider how young people digest content but that was a message that was pretty clear and there was one there that wants the grammar workbooks which was a surprise we did not expect they'd want that there's it's there's a lot of diversity out there um as we got
107down to it the three program finalists are listed right here hmh into literature uh mcra Hill study sync and SAS my perspectives on this um presentation each one of those is a hyperlink to those materials so you could preview what they look like if you are interested so the work will continue from this point forward the programs themselves met all of the requirements of our RFP which was pretty rigorous which is why we didn't get a ton of returns which helps us it saves us time to screen them ahead of time that way um and they all meet requirements on Ed reports now Ed reports is a nonprofit organization that reviews materials using very similar um evaluation to what we have in the imet tool that I discussed and the Common Core alignment and text
108quality knowledge building and usability and all three of these as you see in that green they meet expectations there so we do our best we can internally evaluating and then we can externally check because they will spend months evaluating these programs and we don't have that time so we are assured that each one of these three do meet the basic requirements of what we're looking for in our adoption next steps uh we'll be meeting again uh next week I guess that is yes uh for a deeper review now that we really know what they are we had the publisher presentations January 25th we are going to have a community engagement session not just for these materials but for all the materials under consideration where we will have them available for review vendors will be there
109um and a Q&A opportunity and a chance to review the materials and then February 12th it's we're set up to summarize everything gather all the information we will collect feedback at the engagement sessions as well and uh see how we come on building a consensus on what we would recommend Feb March we would be John ask you a clarifying question I'm sorry as you were talking about the community engagement session on January 25th you mentioned all other materials under consideration are you referring to the other adoptions in process can you just restate that for the public okay yes for the and I have a whole slide on the next page that that covers it but yes um that is all of the materials in all the adoptions I listed up front we have two to
110three finalists for each of them there will be vendors for each and an opportunity to review those for staff and Community um we will you know we go through the process we we figure out what we which direction we'd like to go we consult with our leadership we finalize a selection we negotiate and then we' come forward with a proposal um when we are sure what we are looking for and that we have found it um I do want to discuss on that a little bit High School is not like an elementary adoption where you're buying a more of a program you there are elements here there are text sets like each of these you might might get three novels and some short readings but they you may even within the same program have to
111select which Tech sets you want to buy so that's what the committee is going to be looking at not only what we want but there there are a lot of nuances and and um combinations of offerings that we have to consider what will be best for us to meet our needs then uh and it is it says likely leure it is leure uh I want to make that clear sorry I didn't think about that uh January 25th staff and Community engagement from 4 to 8 p.m um we will have the preview of finalists for all current adoptions that are in process that I mentioned and we also will have a separate area for elementary literacy engagement we're um midy year in in our first year of the new literacy adoption and we want to create
112an opportunity for our team to be there and um just talk to the community answer any questions they may have share how we just what's going on just making sure our community has a chance to access us and we can understand what they're thinking so with all this going on we really thought it was a good idea to do it all in one place at one time so we could we could manage all that um each of the materials will be in a separate classroom so there's going to be plenty of space and opportunity to engage and that's that okay thank you so much does anybody questions yeah go ahead Jim so thanks for the great presentation it strikes me that if we pick one and then we go off to negotiate we might not
113be in the best negotiating position is there any way to pick two and then go negotiate and then figure out so where how does that work we tend to try to get the best offer from all like we we at the end um we we have to select the best materials right so if there's something that is Head and Shoulders above the others we want to go there um other than that so we don't have a ton of Leverage in that case obviously is what you're saying I would also want that I would absolutely want to pick the best materials that doesn't mean I can't pick two and go negotiate and still pick the best one while they're still two in play to get the best price you see where I'm going and I will
114say that's not my I don't negotiate no it's a great question our approach in the elementary curriculum once we got down to several finalists as we sent out a process to engage in a best and final offer for all of the final recommendations and so we'll work with staff to ensure that there's consistency in that process moving forward thank you yep thank you Jim and then just a point of clarification Brian that is part of our our processes for um negotiating to buy things right there's a we have a process in place that we follow a purchase process I'm going to let Dave speak to that just to make sure that what we share here is accurate different every time I mean we have a process that we follow yeah it's it's our standard procurement
115processes um we we don't necessarily do best and final offers on everything it just depends on whether that makes sense for that purchase or not but the process that we follow and and the determination as to whether to do that or not if we determine to do it we we do it as Brian mentioned we go to the three vendors four vendors whatever ask for best final offer and then make a determination after that but it's not unusual for us to do it thank you you yes Scott um thanks for the presentation I think uh one question I think that will come up when you announce the community engagement is are there going to are there going to be links to the I know you can't go in-depth with the curriculum until people are actually
116there at the at the event but can parents and uh teachers and students get themselves familiar with the three uh programs General outlines things like that will they be linked in that announcement I maybe I should address that to you Brian but uh that's a good idea um the announcement may be going out as we speak so hasn't been done yet um we will put the links to them on our website and um we will we will make this all available everything that's linked here is publicly accessible as well so we're being transparent um but because the announcement lists these six adoptions and all these pieces we didn't actually embed all that information just yet but we will get that on our we have a whole web page on the pstd website under curriculum for
117the current adoptions it describes all of these has contact information we can get the finalists in there so great we can do the best we can to give people a chance to preview yeah I think that's really important because I think they're going to people will want to jump into that uh material but and give you know educated uh feedback and so I think the more we can give them that opportunity to get themselves educated the better very good idea thank you if if those if it's okay um thank you for the suggestion if those links are not in any messaging that may or may not be going out like as we speak we'll make sure to send another set of messages to include it so thank you other questions all good all right thanks
118John thanks for sharing the process and making it so uh transparent and I'll just throw it in that I just love the fact that you're involving the students I think that is phenomenal and I it's surprising right the some of the feedback that you're getting yes so that which is a great thing because it's um we're learning from that so absolutely thank you so much okay thank you oh yeah and Brian go ahead John I just want to publicly acknowledge you your respective team our principales teachers parents students who are involved in this process the sheer bread and volume of work it takes to support the adoption we just launched this year in elementary school while beginning to engage another process for SE separate set of schools and as you can tell there's other adoptions
119all navigating that at the same time is incredibly challenging it's time sensitive it's time intensive and I just want to say thank you and everybody else that's involved for your leadership in that effort okay appreciate that and I appreciate the whole Community Support thanks okay the last thing we've got here is the executive session um can I get a motion go ahead Jim yes sure I move that the board in executive session for the following purposes number one to determine positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations develop strategy for negotiations and instruct negotiators on possible change to the school resource officer agreements between the district and law enforcement agencies as authorized by CRS 24-6 d402 subsection 4 eii and number two to receive legal advice on the District's legal rights and remedies
120to pursue potential claims related to alleged breach of contracts and overpayments to contractors as authorized by CRS 24-6 42 subsection 4B and number three to receive legal advice on specific legal questions related to the current litigation involving the district specifically including litigation regarding a former bus par professional attendant as authorized by CRS 24-6 42 subsection 4B individuals invited to join the board in all or part of the executive session are superintendent Brian Kingsley Chief officers Lauren huon Dave Montoya and Jeff canel Connell sorry uh director of security Frederick Smith and general counsel autum Aspen great thank you Jim do I have a second Kevin all right so Jill can you call the vote Jim brokish hi Kristen Draper I Connor Duffy hi Kevin havalda I Carolyn Reed hi Scott shanower hi Jessica Zamora hi motion
121passes 70 okay 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 to publicly adjourn the meeting the adjournment will be recorded but will not be televised so just so you know the only thing we're going to do is come back and say we're done and that's it thank you all for joining us tonight appreciate it e