Board of Education Meeting: November 28, 2023

001e good evening everybody and welcome to this special meeting of the Board of Education today is Tuesday November 28th and this meeting is called to order at approximately 5:33 p.m. we have a special very special evening tonight we're swearing in uh our new board members and constituting a new board uh to take the district going forward so that'll be a very exciting thing that we're going to do here shortly uh however we do have a couple couple of business items with the existing board that needs to be completed first um and the first question uh oh one other thing if you have a cell phone please uh uh mute it so that it doesn't um doesn't interrupt the ceremony thank you um does would anybody on the board like to change the agenda seeing no

002changes we'll move on to the consent agenda would anybody like to pull any item from the consent agenda Nate yes I would like to pull 4.1 resolutions for acceptance of votes cast from the consent agenda that's not on the consent agenda it's not no it's an action item after the oh consent well then we're good thanks I thought it was on there okay would anybody like to pull anything from the consent agenda it looks like not in which case can I get a motion with respect to the consent agenda go ahead Nate well now that we know what's on the consent agenda I move that the board approve and adopt the recommended actions for the items on the consent agenda do I have a second looks like Jim is a second there Jill will you

003please call a vote for the consent agenda DJ Anderson I Jim brokish I Nate Donovan I Kristen Draper I Rob Patterson I Carolyn Reed I Jessica Zamora I motion passes 70 thank you very much Jill really appreciate it uh our next item is in fact the resolution for acceptance of the abstract of votes cast which is our official way of accepting the votes that were uh tabulated by the county on our behalf uh can I get a motion with respect to this uh resolution Nate I move that the board approved the resolution for acceptance of canvas board Certified Abstract of votes cast thank you very much can I get a second second looks like Jess will give us a second would any uh yeah actually could we well I don't know would any board members

004like to have the resolution read Nate are you saying you'd like to read it go ahead resolution of the pter School District Board of Education official abstract of votes whereas the canvas board has certified to the designated election official of pter school district R1 the official abstract of votes cast for all District Board of Education director candidates in the regular banial school election held November 7th 2023 and whereas the designated election official has forwarded said official abstract of votes to the board of education and the board of education has examined said official abstractive votes now therefore be it resolved that the board of education does hereby declare that the votes cast for each candidate are as follows director District a Scott Shen Bower 4 ,55 votes director District B Kevin havalda 33,8 48 votes Kurt

005casin 24594 votes director District F Andrea boo 26,2726 se7 votes director District G Jessica Zamora 36575 four votes kale Larson 2,630 votes be it further resolved that the board of education does hereby declare the election of the following persons as directors of the Board of Education of pter school district R1 to serve for terms as indicated commen on commencing upon the taking of the oath of office director District a Scott Shen Bower four years director District B Kevin havala four years director District F Connor M Duffy four years director District G Jessica Zamora four years be it further resolved that the secretary to the board of education is directed to deliver a certificate of election to each candidate duly elected and sworn and to file with the Colorado Department of Education the name director District

006address and link the term of office of each duly elected and sworn candidate and if we adopt this resolution will be approved and adopted this 28th day of November 2023 thank you very much I will ask Jill to call a vote on this resolution DJ Anderson hi Jim brokish hi Nate Donovan hi Kristen Draper hi Rob Patterson I Carolyn Reed I Jessica Zamora I motion pass 70 thank you very much Jill and it is my pleasure to uh make my last signature as the president of the Board of Education to be on this resolution [Applause] now all right now for the uh exciting part and that is the oath of office will be uh given to the folks who were elected and I believe I would now like to invite uh judge cure to of

007the eth judicial district court to the podium uh to uh deliver the oath of office to the candidates let me test this good evening can you hear me okay yep all right um I would like to invite uh Scott shanower why don't you stand [Applause] please raise your right hand I Scott shaen Bower I Scott shauer do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will Faithfully perform the duties that I will Faithfully perform the duties of the office of School director of The Office of School director as required by law as required by law and will support the Constitution of the United States and will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the state of color the constitution of the state of Colorado and the laws made pursuant there too and the

008laws made pursuant there too [Applause] here Kevin havalda could you join me at the podium please raise your right hand I Kevin havala I Kevin havalda do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will Faithfully perform the duties that I will Faithfully perform the duties of the office of School director of The Office of School director as required by law as required by law and will support the Constitution of the United States and will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the state of Colorado constitution of the state of Colorado and the laws made pursuant there too and the laws made pursuant there to [Applause] congratulations [Applause] Jessica [Applause] Zamora raise your right hand I Jessica Zamora I Jessica Zamora do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will Faithfully perform perform

009the duties that I will Faithfully perform the duties of the office of School director of The Office of School director as required by law as required by law and will support the Constitution of the United States and will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the state of Colorado the constitution of the state of Colorado and the laws made pursuant there too and the laws made pursuant there too again again thank you congratulations you so much Conor Dy you ready sir raise your right hand I Conor Duffy I Connor Duffy do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will Faithfully perform the duties that I will Faithfully perform the duties of the office of School director of The Office of School director as required by law as required by law and will

010support the the Constitution of the United States and will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the state of Colorado the constitution of the state of Colorado and the laws made pursuant there too and the laws made pursuant there too congratulations thank you thank you very [Applause] [Music] much conations like to thank you uh judge for coming to help us celebrate this special occasion thank you so much so I'm up here um largely in a ceremonial role at this point uh for uh but before we get to the uh conclusion of my ceremonial role I do want to uh congratulate again those who were just sworn in uh it's uh great to have you uh join the board for those of you who are new uh uh new directors welcome to the

011work um and to the new board and to Brian um I wish you all the best as you work to build a team of eight a new team of eight and to celebrate the joys and work through the challenges of the work that will be before you all for the benefit of our students so again congratulations and with that we will now determine the election process for the office of board President and Vice President the two options are an oral roll call Vote or a secret ballot we are going to um have a vote on whether to have a secret ballot so all those in favor of electing the president and vice president by secret ballot say I when your name is called that let me be clear if you say I you're saying we

012should have a secret ballot which is fine we can do that right or we can do just an oral roll call once nominations happen so Jill would you please call a vote on whether we have a secret ballot or not Jim brokish no Christen Draper no Connor Jeffy no Kevin havala no Carolyn Reed no Scott shanower no Jessica Zamora no motion fails thanks very much in which case we will continue with roll uh with roll call voting after we have nominations um nominations are now in order for the office of president of the pter School District Board of Education would any board member like to submit a nomination for president Kevin it's my honor to nominate Miss Kristen Draper for president of the board do you accept the nomination yes thank you in which case

013uh Kristen is nominated are there any further nominations for the office of President seeing none we can declare uh Kristen president by acclamation if the board uh so desires are we good with that in which case I'd like to congratulate you Kristen on being the next [Applause] president okay um so we will now hold the election for the office of um vice president uh and so would any board member like to submit a nomination for vice president yes Caroline I nominate Jessica Zamora for office of Vice President of the pter School District Board of Education and Jess do you accept the nomination yes I do thank you all right um are there any so Jessica zamore has been has been nominated are there any further nominations for the office of Vice President okay seeing none

014um the nominations for board Vice President are closed um and um um so we can go ahead and um vote uh in electric by acclamation if that is okay with the board seeing that that's okay we will do that congratulations Jessica so the next item on the agenda 6.3 resolution of appointment of board Treasurer can I get a motion you res yes if we could read the resolution that'd be great we need a motion though to to I move that the board approve the resolution for acceptance of wait am I on the wrong one no sorry yeah I move that the board adopt a resolution reappointing Dave Montoya to the position of treasure to the Board of Education second looks like Caroline second all right um let's see do we would somebody like to read

015the resolution than Scott be it resolved by the pter school district Board of Education that Dave Montoya Shall Serve as the treasurer to the Board of Education all right excellent thank you Andel can I get you to call the vote Jim brokish I Kristen Draper I Connor Duffy I Kevin havala I Carolyn Reed hi Scott shanower hi Jessica Zamora I motion passes 70 thank you Dave all right the next item on the agenda is 6.4 resolution of appointment of board secretary can I get a motion no I move we reappoint Joe Bruner as the secretary to the Board of Education wonderful can I get a second looks like Jessica Zamora and Jim would you like to read it yes be it result that the board of that the pter School District Board of Education that

016Jill Bruner shall serve as secretary to the Board of Education wonderful and can we get it Jill can you call the vote Jim brokish hi Kristen Draper hi Connor Duffy I Kevin havala I Carolyn Reed I Scott shanower I Jessica Zamora hi motion passes all right the next item on the agenda is 6.5 resolution of appointment of assistant board secretary can I get a motion I move that the board adopt a resolution appointing jacn shapar Sierra to the position of assistant secretary to the Board of Education can I get a second looks like Caroline all right and then J do you want to read it thanks be it resolved by the pter school district Board of Education that jacen shapar Sierra Shall Serve as the assistant secretary to the Board of Education all right wonderful

017can I get a vote Jim brokish hi Kristen Draper hi Connor Duffy hi Kevin havalda I Carolyn Reed I Scott Shan Bower hi Jessica Zamora I motion passes [Applause] 70 fantastic thank you um so this concludes the special board meeting um so we will adjourn now at um 5:51 we're going to take um about a half an hour is that about right till 6:30 um and we're going to reset the room for our legislator legislators um and we will come back and have those discussions when at 6:30 so thank [Applause] you e thank you all right good evening everyone and thank you for joining us I know it is a very festive group it's wonderful so thank you all for joining us and um I would like you to start by asking you to please

018mute your cell phone if you haven't already today is Tuesday November 28th 2023 and this meeting is now called to order at 6:33 p.m. so first thing we're going to do is the approval of the agenda um would any board members like to make changes to the agenda okay seeing none we'll go ahead and move forward uh first action item is yeah okay um the first action item is a resolution support of n a national American Indian Heritage Month um do I anybody who would like to make a motion on that nobody J I mean we don't have mate anymore it's weird right okay I move that the board approve a resolution in support of National American Indian Heritage Month November 2023 a second all right looks like Kevin all right and so if we

019can go ahead and um would you like to read the resolution Kevin would you like to fantastic excuse me um it is my honor to read tonight's resolution in support of national Native American Heritage Month uh November 2023 as I do so I want to acknowledge that I'll be using the English names for the tribes recognize I want to ensure that I do not disrespect The ancestral tribe names with a possibly inaccurate pronunciation whereas in 1990 Congress passed in president pres George H W bush signed into law a joint resolution designating the month of November as the first national American Indian and Alaskan native Heritage Month also known as Native American heritage month and whereas pter School District respectfully acknowledges that our school Community is built on the tradition and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho

020Cheyenne and ute Nations and peoples this area was also a site of trade Gathering and healing for numerous other native tribes we are grateful that these original stewards of the land now known as Fort Collins are part of our community and are willing to partner with us so we may improve and whereas Native American communities face cultural and systemic barriers to an inclusive and Equitable education pter School District commits to close the equity and opportunity gaps for these students and Promises to create and uphold Equitable inclusive and rigorous educational opportunities experiences and outcomes and whereas the pter School District board Administration and staff are committed to making pter School District an equitable and inclusive community for all students families and staff and we recognize there is more work ahead of us diversity equity and inclusion

021are fundamental values in the pter school district and we are committed to ensuring that all American Indian students families and staff are valued seen heard and empowered in our system now there four the pter School District board of education does hereby proclaim the month of November 2023 National Native American Heritage Month in pter school district and encourages students staff and the community to celebrate the Excellence and enriching contributions made from our Native American communities of past and present wonderful thank you and Brian we have someone to introduce this resolution for us thanks yes we do president Draper felt nice to say that uh joining us this evening to present the resolution and support of National American Indian Heritage Month is our diversity equity and inclusion coordinator Miss Delia mahany welcome Delia I also believe you're

022joined by some incredible teachers and some of our wonderful students as well so thank you and welcome all of you hi ooh that one is way louder than the one we normally have up here um thank you super inen Kingsley Board of Education and cabinet to our outgoing Board of Education members thank you so much for your service you will be missed and I would also like to thank this board and um the cabinet for changing the night that we did the Native American Heritage Month resolution this was originally scheduled for earlier on in the month of November but the native commun community in Fort Collins was having a large event that was happening at the same time as that school board meeting so we needed to make a shift from things that were already

023SK scheduled I would like to welcome our esteemed guests and our new board of education members I hope you will enjoy what has become a tradition in PSD amplifying the voices and honoring the lived experiences of members of our community who hold the identities being recognized through board resolutions tonight we recognize native National Native American heritage month since we did this last year we have made the following inclusive advancement to help increase feelings of belonging for our students staff and families who are native American we have changed practices and removed barriers for students who are native American to bead their caps and wear feathers at graduation we continue to financially support the iar program and adapt our approach in how we teach about Thanksgiving in ways that are historically accurate and centered on gratitude and

024finally we have updated options for demographic information in synergy to be affirming and reflective of the diversity within the Native American Community families can now add information about the Native American nation to which their children belong now I would like to introduce tonight's speakers first we will have Sierra bitsy Sierra is a teacher at tinmouth Middle High School she is a panelist for the Native American Community Advisory Group in Fort Collins and this Saturday she is being honored by giving being asked to give the keynote address for the Youth celebrates diversity conference for Northern Colorado which is being held at Colorado State University after Sierra Journey Faircloth and eighth grader at Boltz Middle School will speak journey is amazing and fearless in that she is willing to share her voice for the greater good and

025will Advocate to adults she has never met in person on one project we were working on she it was definitely our process and and what we discussed was made better because Journey was willing to just jump right in and give the point of view of the student and I appreciate Sierra U for always courageously sharing your experiences and journey for bring so brave tonight so Sierra is gonna speak [Applause] first good evening everybody my name is Sierra bitsy I am an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation I'm from the white people Clan born for the black sheep clan um I'm incredibly honored to be here tonight to speak to the importance of celebrating and acknowledging Native American heritage month this is my seventh year working for PSD and in this time I have witnessed incredible

026changes in the district acknowledgement and commitment to diversity equity and inclusion when I first started working I taught at Linton Elementary and I had an experience similar to most of my life in being a minority in the school system that I was serving in um and as I found my place in that school I eventually became a representative and a leader for the native community and I was able to make incredible changes within that school in educating other teachers with the curriculum and resources that they were using to educate their students about Native American culture and history and supporting the few native students that were at our school um I've seen other teachers also bringing in Native American Humanities classes to the high school level um something that we hope to bring to Tim nith

027as well and so I'm proud to be part of a district that has really Amplified the voices and I feel like I found my place and I feel like I feel honored by other people in the district when I'm asked to share my knowledge with other people Fort Collins has been and remains home to people from many indigenous Nations and the city has actually created roles such as the one that I'm currently serving in as Native American Community advisory panelist um to uplift and support the indigenous Community because it recognizes the importance of the unique cultural economic creative and social contributions that indigenous folks make to this community as a member of the PSD community and the native Community I hope that we can continue to work in tandem to improve educational social emotional and

028professional opportunities for the native students and staff within the district although we make up a small percentage of this population in PSD and Fort Collins our community is vibrant and strong and our voices deserve to be uplifted thank you good evening my name is Journey Faircloth I'm an eighth grader at bolts Middle School I'm an honor student and a member of the volleyball and golf teams I'm Cheyenne an Arapaho from Oklahoma and kry from North Carolina I'm honored to be here tonight to recognize Native American Native Indiana Heritage Month my mom Susan Faircloth and her side of the family always made sure I knew I was a native they taught me what it be means to be a native there they are the reason I'm proud to be Native American too often schools treat Native

029Americans like we are history but we are still here we were here first Christopher Columbus didn't discover us because we were already here schools don't teach our cultures or religions or what it means to be native they just teach what the textbook says but it is important for people to know that our land was stolen from us many of us were abused traumatized and killed children were taken to boarding schools where they tried to erase our cultures and beliefs in spite of all this we are still here the least schools can do today is recognize that Native Americans are still here we are still here people need to know that there are many different tribes that still exist across the United States if I could give teachers one piece of advice it would be to

030stop dressing little kids up as Native Americans this is very disrespectful and hurtful it would be better to do things like read books by native authors listen to our drum songs and invite native speakers to visit classrooms it would be even better if we taught about Native Americans all year long and not just the month of November thank you to the board of education for celebrating Native American heritage month this means a lot to me and my family journey and Sierra thank you so much for sharing with us um board members do you have anything that you would um like to say before we call the vote okay yeah all right Jess first just thank you so much for sharing your stories and also telling us you know places that we're getting it right and

031places where we still have Improvement because I know for me like I'm not going to get better unless you tell me how I'm doing it wrong so I really appreciate you your willingness to kind of share and bring in your experience es um for you know our knowledge because I know that takes a lot so thank you so much all right last chance all right absolutely Brian so I I I want to thank both of you for being here and not only representing our district but representing your heritage Sierra what resonated most to me about what you shared is that through seven years of being a part of this school district you finally found your place I find that to be incredibly moving and significant and I want you to know as people like you

032and the diversity that you represent is what makes this District vibrant and strong so thank you for sharing your story with us uh joury I want to thank you and your mom who have a great deal of admiration and respect your vulnerability vulnerability and cander is that exactly what we need in order to make quality improvements for all people not just some and speaking truth to power is you showing your power and your voice and representing all people not just your own Heritage so I just want to say that I'm very proud of you and really glad that you're here today so thank you very much both of you thank you Brian and again sier attorney thank you so much for sharing um with us tonight and we really appreciate you taking the time and

033and and coming to the board meeting um Jill there you are can you call the vote Jim brokish hi Kristen Draper hi Connor Duffy hi Kevin havelda hi Carolyn Reed hi Scott Shan Bower hi Jessica Zamora hi motion passes yay Dalia can we do a picture I'm almost wondering because of space if we a photo over here because we have little squish to first all right wonderful all right thank you so much for um for joining us for that um wonderful presentation this evening um we are honored to welcome lawmakers from across Colorado who are joining us for discussion on education legislation so I just want to take a moment to thank you all for being here taking the time to oh thank you Journey thank you Sierra appreciate it um but want to take

034thank you for taking the time to come um speak to us and listen to us and um we want to take this time right now to um I personally just want to say thank you for what it is that you do um I know just how hard it is that you work um what it is that you have to um do how you have to go about making uh making the sausage if you will um so we know what that's like um and I just want to give you all just a couple of minutes to introduce yourselves um and anything that you think would be important for the Board of Education the cabinet and school district for to know so um let's see do we want to start James do you want to start and

035we'll go around that way sure and I guess I'm thinking like two minutes is that [Laughter] good te counties for Senator Bennett um northern oh in Northern and nor Eastern Colorado um you you know I guess I guess I would just maybe give you an update in in terms of of um and and again um you know Senator Bennett sends his regards and and I can't be here tonight but with very happy to have visited uh back in May uh pter high school and visited with some students and some of you as well and uh to have a a discussion on student mental health and it was was a really great visit it was so moving to him and he um you know continued he talked about it for a while even after I mean

036several weeks later the next time I saw him um but um we can maybe get into that conversation you know a little bit later um I will say that um you know it Congress has been um not very reliable in terms of passing um funding essentially Appropriations and you know we did manage to Stave off yet another government shutdown but um we do see another deadline looming kind of on the horizon um I know that means a lot for for um you know funding for a lot of the programs that that you utilize but uh in and in particular um we have some uncertainty as to um congressionally directed spending requests and as you know we did secure in the Senate Appropriations Bill a million dollars for um the um the pter high school PCH

037uh facility and so that is in limbo until um we can figure out um you know how to get the Appropriations passed and and we still do need to reconcile the Senate and House bill ultimately so we're very hopeful and we'll continue to fight for that and and other congressionally directed spending requests um I won't get into details about other legislative priorities I'll I'll just pass it along now thanks James good good good evening um Sally Bella I'm the Northern Colorado Regional director with us Senator John hickin Luber um thanks so much for inviting me um couple of things is I wanted to also mention this CDs but James already did that so um but I wanted to congratulate you all on uh receiving your rise award for um $475,000 9999 um so congratulations on

038that and uh I'm really excited about hearing uh maybe tonight we can talk about uh apprenticeship programs that's happening here um the senator is really big on apprenticeship programs we got a couple bills and um that he's introduced and so really excited to hear about what pter school district is is doing in that space um so yeah just wanted to briefly just mention that and thanks so much for have me thank you so much I'm Janice Marchman oh gosh this is hard uh I'm the state senator sd15 um so I go I've got five school districts um but the schools that are in my Senate District um are Wellington and generally some of the um western western kind of area Horsetooth area so they go to you know choice does all the things so um

039but um I do represent part of Fort Collins um I serve on the State education committee um at the Senate I'm the vice chair so I get to see all the things that come through there um it's a lot to look at and a lot of fun but um I've got great colleagues that I work with with and I enjoy enjoy doing that um my three main issues last year was my first year um this year what I'd like to partner with um school districts on um is teacher Workforce we um ran an apprenticeship Bill last year um teacher apprenticeship but in general we want to make sure that that is rolling out well um want to make sure we continue to get more mental health for kiddos as well as for teachers and staff

040um so any opport Unity for that is something that we're interested in and personally and I've spoken to um all of our federal folks here about the need for air conditioning in our schools um it's essential um it's it's it says a lot when you sit in a 93 degree room and you're expected to learn teach or work it's a challenge and more than half of our students around Colorado are doing that and yet with CDE we don't really track that data so I'm really looking to the school districts to help inform um what this might look like um I'll also say um rep nuse's office in particular shared with us there's some Department of energy grants that are available that um I'm hoping that pter will look into to help with the AC there

041are there were like 23 it was you it was it was Senator Bennett sorry love repn Goose um but it was Senator vennett um who shared that um and so there are grants available 23 were awarded tons were awarded last year none in Colorado and so I really want uh this school district and our local school districts to try to take advantage of that and utilize all of us to um assist with that so all right I'm gonna pass thank you thank you uh representative Mike Lynch house District 65 don't believe the name Peg but I tells me this has been around for a while CU it used to be house District 49 um I am also the minority leader down at the in in the house and so I don't sit on committees um

042oversee who goes on them instead um uh in both of my children uh graduated this last year out of PSD so I don't have quite the pulse that I used to when they'd come home and tell me what's going on so I apologize for that uh you know one of one of the things that I'm keeping a sharp eye on down at the capital is is what's going on with the opioids and uh the fentanyl issues that we're seeing um it's a a passion of mine to make sure that you guys have whatever you need in the the way of tools to uh uh to keep kids alive if that becomes the case and and also keep those uh sort of substances out of our schools so um other than that I think we're going

043to finally maybe get you guys fully funded we have somebody from JBC that can fill us in on that a little better but um thank you for having me tonight and look forward to uh discussion thanks I'm Kim red with Congressman Joon nuse's office and I handle one in my portfolio I handle education issues everything from prek to higher education for the congressman and over the past year it has been challenging in Congress that's for sure in 2022 the congressman did introduce uh opportunity for all agenda which was very focused on K12 prek k12 and then higher ed and it included everything from lowering child care costs to ensure families pay no more than 7% of their income for care and to to enact Universal preschool for three and four year olds on a federal

044level and he introduced that it was in the build back better um plan from the Biden Administration and it did pass through the house it did not uh go through the Senate and it was dropped out of the billback better um act but he does have the intention of trying to strengthen the child care or address the child care issues that are facing this country in addition in the opportunity for all act he also had investing in teachers and students and he had uh a piece of legislation called teachers are leaders act which expanded leadership opportunities for K to2 teachers to address and to address High teacher attrition rates by providing grants to school districts through the Department of Education again that did not pass through um and get signed into law but it is

045something that he's very focused on as well as full id idea funding and so that's been part of his agenda all along and continues to Champion that one other thing I just wanted to mention this evening um and I know we're focused on on prek and and early childhood education but there are EPA clean School Bus program um rebates that are out there that are available until the end of January the application process ends at the end of January and we can write letters of support if PSD is interested and pursuing anything like that we have quite a few within our congressional district we've had quite a few of those grants and rebate programs be granted to our school districts so it' be happy to give you more information on that as well and thank

046you for having us this evening hello my name is Emily Breeze um I am a work-based learning coordinator and I have the honor and privilege of serving Centennial High School pter Community Academy pter Global Academy um Polaris and Futures lab so I'm here to answer any questions on work-based learning hello everybody I'm Becca Benedict I am the director of Early Childhood for pter school district we serve about a thousand uh students from 0er to five um in pter school district we're in 20 different elementary schools and 94 homes across lmer County hi everyone welcome my name is Liz Davis I you she her per and I'm the senior executive director of student services and that includes integrated Services language culture and Equity student services and you know mental health counseling is out of our offices

047behavior um lots of other important supports for students and so grateful that you're here this evening and look forward to the conversation nice to see you James again yeah yeah nice to see you James um hi haven't seen you in a while you to see all the time uh anyways I'm state senator Barb kckm I'm from Senate District 23 which is essentially the I25 Corridor um parts of lurmer County it's within my district those parts like around berad um Johnstown and Windsor those areas essentially within my district otherwise pretty much all the rest in W County uh I currently sit on the joint budget committee I did serve on the Senate education committee for two years also was the vice chair of the uh School finance inim committee uh so I learned a lot there

048carried a couple bills made sure that we got the increased funding for the special education portions um got that up to the funding that was promised all the way back from 2006 so and got inflation added to those every year as well so that was like hundreds of millions of dollars um work to get the uh full buy down of the the budget stabilization factor and the provision in law that says it will be fully bought down this year so uh that wasn't Governor polus doing that that was uh actually Senator Marchman and I made sure we got that on the amendment in Committee in education so along with a few other folks but that was good um last year I also was the co-prime sponsor on the office of school safety bill with Senator

049Bridges so um very interested to hear how early childhood rolled out up here and uh interested to hear anything else you want to talk about hi I'm Angelica schroer I have represented uh pter school district for 15 years on the State Board of Education I represent the second congressional district which is um I think 14 counties it's really a fabulous District because it goes all the way west so I have little districts and big districts and ski areas and University towns and just a tremendous microcosm of the entire state which is really great um I could talk about what the state board is working on right now but I'm thinking you want to get back to that and just have us introduce ourselves or do you want me to talk yeah short I can make

050it short um I'm glad that we're talking tonight about uh secondary and postsecondary opportunities for students I've been a member of the task force was 12:15 and it was about making recommendations to the legislature and to school districts about expanding the opportunities for seniors that report will come out this Friday um about a 25 page lots of recommendations on things that we could be doing in this state for our kids the main impetus of that task force was that there's been a lot of good stuff going on through throughout the state but it's all organic right every District does something or some things and we have so little equity and so the focus on this is to provide more opportunities across the state lots of some universities some work rated Etc so I hope you'll

051look forward to that the State Board continues to emphasize third grade reading we are now hoping to help school districts incre increase math achievement it has really suffered during the um pandemic but frankly we were very flat prior to that as well we some years ago we had a lot of growth and then it just sort of flattened out and not sure why um the board has been looking at the accountability Frameworks from a somewhat different point of view than the current accountability task force um what we've been looking at are the factors that are already in the law that should be put in there trying to trying to come up with an accountability measure that works Psy psychos symmetrically um but also achieves what some of the wishes are from the school districts I'm

052excited about the accountability the 1241 task force I don't know if they know exactly what they're biting off but I I really do think there are some solutions um finally we are in the middle of updating the school Finance rules what we learned during the uh pandemic but what was already underway was to have a lot of opportunities for Blended learning but our finance rules didn't really follow the fact that sometimes you've got kids in seats and sometimes you have kids online and how do you appropriately fund that so that's a big push for us for the next couple of weeks thank you good evening and uh thank you for having us my name is state representative Andrew baser I have the privilege of representing house District 53 at the state capital that's West and

053North Fort Collins um all the way up to the Budweiser plant and all the way down to JJ's at Harmony and Taft if you're familiar with uh that stop um so um and I do Kathy Kip the favor of saying that because then she can say I have everything else um so um I serve on a number of committees at the capital housing transportation and local government I serve on the state Civic veterans and Military Affairs committee the Appropriations Committee and then also the legislative audit committee and so as you can imagine from those names I don't hear a whole lot of Education bills inside of those committees but we do intersect with issues that impact Learners and certainly Educators in the pter school district every day uh in particular I've worked in the past

054and will continue to work on legislation related to affordable housing uh gun violence prevention is also been a Hot Topic over the last several legislative sessions I anticipate it will continue to be so um just received an invite from some students at East High School who are wishing to dialogue about that same issue um obviously healthc care is a huge concern and a cost driver for folks in our communities as well so that continues to be an area of legislative Focus um my points of Pride however are being a PSD parent I have three students in the pter school district uh elementary middle school and high school right now so if you want to say a little prayer for our family it's always appreciated um and we are grateful every day for the job that

055our Educators do on behalf of students and certainly we have benefited from that um excellence and education every single day um and I'm also a former teacher I used to teach k35 elementary school music at a tital one school in Florida and so um like to bring that experience into um the conversation as well and certainly appreciate the conversation here tonight so thanks so much for having us um hey everybody thank you for having us tonight um as I know a lot of you because I used to serve on the school board here um for about seven years prior to joining the legislature so um thanks for having us back and continuing the tradition of legislative night we always appreciate the opportunity to talk to our local school district um so I served on the

056school board from 2011 up until 2019 and then in the legislature from 2019 till present so um been in both roles a little bit of time now I've run um I'm not currently on the education committee I guess I should say where I am I am um a representative I represent the parts of Fort Collins that Andy doesn't so that made that really easy thank you and um I um serve on both the energy and environment committee and the finance committee I also serve on a couple of interim committees but they weren't really relevant to all well actually I guess they are pension review commission that's really relevant to a lot of you because a lot of you get perah so yeah feel free and um the other one is the sales and use tax

057simplification task force which I have now learned to say in one breath because that was a long time um okay we get that thank you and um so yes I'm not currently serving on the education committee I was on it for a couple of years but um I basically got booted off in order to go chair another committee so I am currently the chair of the energy environment committee so I always do some kind of um every year I do some kind of climate legislation um this year will be no different um I have also um education bills pretty much every year so I'm I I do have a little bit coming up um I think the teacher mentorship one might be the one that's most interesting to all of you to expand teacher mentorship

058opportunities which I think are really important because they help teachers at both ends of the spectrum most our more experienced teachers and our less experienced teachers stay in the field and I think you've probably heard and probably know that Colorado currently has I believe our teacher shortages exceeds 9,000 teachers it's ridiculous um I have a kid who want to become a teacher now so that's good he might add to your Workforce a little bit but um we need more than that um I've also done a number of bills to work on the um teacher Pipeline and teacher diversity and a lot of that money was funded through pandemic funding so we are hoping that the results prove um effective so that the JBC might be willing to continue those programs on into the future because

059we've just heard rave reviews about what's been going on um with those programs um and with that um let to your questions but thank you for having us tonight we really appreciate it yeah you know what let I think if we just do go around quickly with for the rest of us just because there are new faces here and it' be great to ABS introduce everybody hi everyone my name is Dave Monto I'm the chief finance officer it Jim Brook boort of educ CAS Kevin Nela board of education for PSD Scott sh Board of Education PSD as well carollyn Reed PSD Board of Education Jessica Zamora PSD Board of Education and Kristen Draper PSD Board of Education welcome again it's great to see you I'm Brian Kingsley I'm the proud superintendent for PST Conor Duffy

060Board of Education all right wonderful thank you all so much again for for joining us I know this is um for some of you this is quite a track to come up here for others this is home um so just welcome thank you um actually what I was thinking is we might be able to um start this off um Becca if you wouldn't mind sharing some of the um upk um um how that was implemented and how it's going in PSD um I think it would be really useful for um everybody here to hear that um I know that we had given out some information to everyone to sort of have some background knowledge on that but I also know that that's that's a point of interest for everyone here um and so if you

061would like to kick that off that would be wonderful thank you well thank you for the opportunity um I would like to start by saying that upk is an amazing dream that we need to keep working on it's incredible to provide access for all of these kids in a variety of settings we're creating more choices for families we're creating options and uh we're giving kids the chance to be in school um and whether that's in the school district or in a neighborhood provider um families are able to decide what works best for them as a school district uh the implementation this first year has been Rocky um I will say that uh we are a blended funded program we have head start funding State funding special education funding and tuition funding so we're not relying

062solely on one type of funding source but Colorado preschool program and early childhood special education funding was replaced by Universal prek this year um and that has created some gaps that didn't used to exist for families and so while the goal of this program is to increase access for students what it's actually done is made access more difficult for our um most vulnerable families so um as we are working through this and problem solving with the state uh we have some major asks from our program and um and that's what I have provided in your um in your little front and back sheet here uh our first ask is to look at school districts um as a school district entity in the past school districts were recognized um as the provider for Colorado preschool program

063and we could contract out with School uh with neighborhood providers by combining us all in the same pot some of the rules that have come out for upk don't align with the laws and and rules and regulations that we need to do as a a school district what that has created is pretty much every contract every agreement has to go through legal and we basically need to write a waiver so that if we follow upk rules we don't break idea rules or if we follow this rule we can't follow another law that's required for school districts so I would ask that we look at that legislation and see if we could separate school districts to be managed under School District rules and daycare providers um a different set of roles one good example of this

064is the hours required for Universal prek so you can see that prek hours are 10 hours 15 hours or 30 hours and you can see the total numbers per year but all of our pre uh services are offered in elementary schools and if you notice um a halftime kindergarten would be about 450 hours but a halftime pre the requirement is 540 hours um a full-time kindergarten would be required at 900 hours but a full-time prek would be required at80 hours which actually matches High School minutes for instructional time so by separating it from CDE and creating it under the cdec we have made it more difficult to navigate the rules and regulations within the school district so um just hoping we can look at some of those things another opportunity for school districts we are

065the provider for special education services it was very Rocky for our families this year we had families that applied in the first round of matching um that did not get a placement until the third round in matching because they couldn't get through the state system in the past they would qualify with their IEP and we would place them in the site that worked for the parent and the program that was offered and um we were not allowed to do that initially under bridge care now we are allowed to direct place these students and we have one point of contact that we can call and say this student has an IEP this is where we are placing them and we don't have to have them go through the multiple approval process through the state we are

066not sure if this is going to continue next year we really hope that it is but that is something we really fought for this year um and it's it's really great because they've established a system right now where we can call one person and we can make it happen for families um know when that happened well um we had one version of it happen in March another version of it happened in May another version of it happened in July so um the placement process for students with integrated Services needs I mean the one point of contact close to the beginning of the school year so like end of August um we were working through the enrollment process since January 17th and so we what ended up happening is students with um special needs or risk

067factors often didn't get placed in that first round even though they applied at the same time as students without needs and we actually created an equity Gap by um setting the system up this way so but you still don't have access to bridge Senator Kirk can I just ask you to use the um yes thank you that way our our listeners on YouTube can makes sense so do you don't have access load to bridge care uh we do have we do have access to bridge care but we don't approve the local community organization approves and so families have the option to choose five different sites and what we would have is families would choose five different sites but if the child had a special program need for special education and that site wasn't involved they

068would get denied and they would go back into the system into the next round and they would get denied and go back into the system um and if we could connect with them and call them and talk to them and say what schools would you like uh we weren't allowed to directly place them in our own programs um because the state felt that was going to take away Cho the other choices um from the families so we ran into um the very first experiences kids and families had with the school district where we w a relationship for 15 years not one was horrible because they didn't know who to call they would call us and we couldn't help them we would call the help desk and they would tell them to call the lco the

069lco wouldn't know they would call the state um we we would have trouble finding answers um we had a situation where we asked for four months um the same question to ask for an exception we wanted to change schools kids in a school from a halfday program to a full day program Bridge care didn't allow families to drop and reapply to the same school so we needed a a bypass it took four months for them to answer that question so it four months is too long for families that are trying to plan child care and education for their kids they they will give up and I don't want them to give up I don't want them to lose hope so um those are the things that as a school district I think would be really

070helpful um for us the other piece that I would just um this is more not a legislative um but a plea to the CDC that there are clear systems of communication um there were so many changes in the system throughout this process um that it became almost impossible to plan ahead we were always being reactive um an example could be that when the risk factors came out in December we made plans for how many full-time slots we would offer how many halftime slots we would offer based on the risk factors that they released um they realized that there wouldn't be enough money to fund all of those uh slots and then change the rules about who would qualify for risk factors midstreet now we had already opened classrooms or planned for one set of rules

071they changed the rules and then they didn't inform families until the last week of July and the first week of August that they no longer qualified for 30 hours so families in July and August we trying to figure out how to pay the extra 15 hours of tuition or how to drop a full day placement to go to a half day placement and by then their options were very limited because it was far into the enrollment season uh so what we're really asking for is that school districts are allowed to enroll our own students if a family comes into our building and wants to enroll in our school that we would be allowed to enroll them and then um do similar to the process that Colorado preschool program had where we would enroll students in

072the seats and then we would turn that in on a count day or something similar like that so we're hoping for that we're currently allowed to do that they stopped matching rounds at the beginning of November and we were allowed to direct enroll right now till the end of this year when we start enrolling for the new year we don't know what that is going to look like um currently we don't know when the first round of matching is starting we've heard uh last year it was January 17th I've heard rumors about March um it is impossible for us to plan hired teachers especially early childhood special education teachers if we don't have a timeline we don't know when we're going to get built we we are trying to to create additional spots for students

073in in the school district but we have too many variables that are shifting and we can't use this year's data yet I still don't have correct numbers I have not received a monthly bill that has been correct yet um each month I have to go line by line tell them this number of hours is wrong this site is wrong I we're in November I've received August September October and November and all of them have been wrong so we we can't even make a prediction for next year based on the revenue coming in because we don't know what it's going to be we also have not yet been paid for our three-year-olds that's supposed to come this month um we have completed our attestation but we I haven't seen it yet I'm looking at Dave maybe

074he's seen it but I haven't seen it yet so if you could imagine trying to plan to open classrooms hire people um without a budget we have a hope and a dream and we have a lot of support with people that are willing to do the work um and we have set aside some reserves to give us a cushion this year um this year we also used uh over 470,000 of an additional grants money to round out the tuition for those kids that were supposed to get full day but they took away in July and August so we ended up footing the bill to the tune of almost a half a million dollars with stabilization grant money I don't have that for next year so I'm looking at next year you're going do I need

075to plan more full days do I need to plan more half days how am I going to fund it um so I'm I'm working on those pieces right now would love some clear communication we've been asked to provide feedback on a provider handbook which is great I did that I haven't seen the handbook yet but I'm still hopeful um and we just want timelines to be established prior to for matching rounds for billing for enrollment prior to the start of this of the Year this year we one matching round would close and we wouldn't know when the next one would open again so we couldn't even tell families if you didn't make it in this round don't worry you'll hear again on this date we couldn't even tell them that because the state did not

076have that planned out ahead so we're really hopeful for year two that that's going to work better um I think the equity issue for me is really about communicating with families when they apply they need to know what they're going to get funded for so telling a family that you have these risk factors so you may get 30 hours caused a lot of confusion for families because they then sought full day programs and many of them ended up with a $456 bill for the other half of the tuition that they didn't get from the state so um if we don't have enough money to fund all of the risk factors that that we have wanted to do we need to tell families what exact they qualify for have them make plans and then if the

077money comes in that they can shift their plans but we need to be open and honest upfront um from the state system so that the school district isn't the one saying I'm so sorry you're going to have to pay for tuition to stay in the slot that you deserve we want our most atrisk families in those full day slots we want to give them more time um and so the ability to choose that really depends on let being honest with families about what they qualify for um another challenge that we're running into that has been created by the upk system is um the seeking additional funding sources for children with disabilities and three-year-olds so I'm going to address both of those um separately under upk school districts are the only provider that can provide services

078for students with disabilities and the only provider that can um you do three-year-old services using upk funding PSD U was awarded 88 three-year-old slots um that number came from the number of three-year-olds we served last year um so that is what we were awarded this year um we have over a thousand slots so 88 is not many um in the percentages but um what has happened now is that we are turning away more threes than any other category three-year-olds than any other category we are turning away every single matching round kids that want to come to the school district um but we do not have additional spots to fund them so what I would ask this legislative team is um for those of you who are in financial committees and looking for Avenues there are

079ways we could create additional funding sources that aren't upk that could supplement some of these needs um they did that historically in the past using CPP and eare Slots they added ecares later when they found that CPP wasn't covering all of the needs that we have so that's an Avenue that we might try um for students with disabilities in the past we used to be able to stack funding sources so I could put a state-funded um child and a child with an IEP two half day slots together to make a full day now those two funding sources are both upk and so they only qualify for a half day so either we find other money to pay for the other half of their day or that family with a child with a disability has to

080pay tuition to come to a full day of school we want those students with disabilities to have access to more time it it works they work very hard and um we need to give them more time but we have to create a funding source in order to do that I had a grant this year it's gone so I I'm looking for other avenues to fund it the other thing I will tell you is that as part of um preschool Services we are required to have no more than 50% of our preschool classrooms have students with IEPs so we have an integrated classroom if half of the students are typically developing and half have identified needs right now um we are struggling to keep our classes at that ratio of of 50% because we have all

081of the students with disabilities but we don't have all of the four-year-olds so we don't have the balance so I'll give you an example I have a a site that has seven students enrolled in the classroom which means I have nine open sites or open seats I'm turning away three-year-olds every single day because I don't have funding for them but I also can't put another IEP in that classro because it would tip it over the 50% and so that classroom until I can find a typically developing Pier is stuck at seven and I need to find those peers I'm asking for more threes to do that uh because I think four-year-olds have tons of options in the community and uh the 88 just isn't enough um to create the balanced classrooms that were required to

082have by law the state's response to how are we supposed to do that was to go ahead and enroll the additional three-year-olds without funding so go ahead and just invite them into class and then there won't be any money or Revenue coming in for them but at least then you won't be breaking the law about the ratio for the 50% um that is not a feasible answer we've we've underfunded education for a very long time we cannot make our plan just go ahead and fund them yourselves or let them in for free because I have teachers to pay and um instructional Paris to take care of and um we need to have adequate funding in order to do that I will tell you though every single day I'll invite you to the classroom life is

083good in preschool and I will I I keep talking to parents about this and and it was so rough in the spring trying to get them into the program but once they're in they're so happy and they they get to play with each other and learn together and it is a great place to be if you have a chance to visit a prek classroom or want a chance call me and I can make that happen for you um we have 42 classrooms in the district um it's a good place to be we know how to preschool we just have to work out how to get them there yeah thank you so much Becca thanks for sharing all of that um yeah Angelica did you have something I don't know if this is helpful or not

084but I did run this by the Department of Education today you're two-pager um and I want to say when you talk about the state you're not talking about the Department of Education we have been very very frustrated because we are still responsible for special education preschool kids and yet most of the decisions are be made in a different organization and there's been some real very serious communication problems the good news around that one is that there's a new deputy director who apparently is really changed the [Music] tone can say I don't know she doesn't know Etc so I hope you've been in touch with her because I think terms of school districts that are upset were directing them to this individual in order to get things kind of straightened out a little bit and that

085that'll be really helpful um I don't know if you know there's a lawsuit around this whole thing this whole issue I don't know if that's helpful the Department of Education was also sued um because of our responsibility for special ed kids and we've requested that it be vacated because these are policy issues these aren't there isn't anyone um doing illegal things here certainly not intentionally if there is anything illegal so it isn't really about a lawsuit but it is about people coming together at the table identifying the problems as you have and starting to look for Solutions some of which not not that many from what I could tell can be resolved by the legislature except that when the bill was passed it had it specified certain hours for kids and the fact that that

086doesn't align with what school districts need suggest that there might be a way to fix that legislatively fairly quickly with the right discussions right because we put out the legislature put ours in there and don't not sure where they came from probably from somebody who hasn't implemented something like this so hopefully that that's something that can be addressed pretty shortly communication has been a huge problem and that's not something that you can legislate that's not something you can litigate but that's something that's got to happen and I think the the C's the case casby folks the ones who um put out the lawsuit probably can help facilitate some of those discussions that are necessary that haven't happened um so I think there was a lot of agreement from the Department or let me put this

087way they looked at your note and said yes these are things that are happening and they're not just happening in pter they're happening all over um there are their promises not kept to parents and that is a huge concern for everybody there's another piece and you didn't exactly ing it out but when the Department of Education was responsible for early childhood and they had the CPP opportunities they were distributed based on need they were distributed not to to high-risk kids now the program doesn't differentiate sufficiently in the opinion of the department to actually get the highest need kids in there first and I think that's caused a lot of Anguish at the school districts because that's what they're used to doing and what we actually believe we should be doing it's the whole idea behind

088it I don't know how that can be resolved maybe some you have some ideas but that's one of the things that's really made everything made everybody very uncomfortable about the whole process and the change the effort was to allow private greater opportunities for private vendors to be able to provide the services but I'm not sure it's provided it's not really provided a a a priority for what the priorities have at least been historically and probably are still the priorities for most school districts we just get the neediest kids in there first I do believe it's a solvable it's great that you've got um you've articulated a whole lot and hopefully you're working with the other districts to to show I don't know the the bridge whatever it's called Bridge care one of the things that

089I heard I guess over the summer was that they purchased the cheapest version and it didn't work very well and that that part of the problem is simply the technology which you know you just can't we just can't do that and I also asked today whether the the the uh item that we passed on the item I I yeah yes the additional money whether that was going to make a difference or whether we knew what that was going to be and the answer from our staff was we don't really know I think we're GNA get throw that throw that back to you okay okay okay thank you does anybody else have any questions thoughts yeah go ahead Scott yeah thank you so much for uh that summary Becca that was fantastic I think there's a

090ton of frustration in a lot of school districts uh a lot of parents um as well just poorly executed roll out of this that um I run a small business and and I always look at this type of thing from that kind of perspective and I think there was a lot of over promising and under delivering and that is a poison pill in business where you literally will lose customers forever and so um I think that's I think I read in your summary about parents just giving up like it's just not worth even and trying and that um that hurts us in ter as a district in terms of getting people into the flow and and introducing them for you know 12 15 years um so I think that that causes people to look at

091Alternatives homeschooling things like that that's going to hurt our enrollment um you know we want to talk about school consolidation let's talk about that right now probably not we don't want to talk about that but that's that's where we could end up um leading to by not rolling this out well so uh it also provides or hurts small providers it's really causing them Havoc I think the change that happened this summer uh in terms of the funding uh going from full day to half day uh not only shocked parents who might have been planning for that but really shocked those those businesses and the school districts that are trying to staff for this like that is the hardest thing to do especially in this environment you guys are seeing this every day I'm sure Ryan

092is is just hiring good people and keeping them and in an environment like this you can't have that kind of you know just mystery as to where the money's going to come from so that worries me a lot um my kids went through uh preschool here in town amazing amazing uh providers in this town really high quality Decades of experience um and I worry about those small providers just giving up because of this so I just plead with those that can make a difference at the the state house to really put some pressure on this department to get their act together maybe walk before you run you don't have to do everything you promised right out of the gate let's do some things right and then we'll build on that going forward Senator Kirk Mar

093did you want to did you want to say okay um I just wanted to say thank you to Becca and the school district for keeping um keeping me a prize throughout all this I know um we have facilitated a couple of conversations with the Colorado Department of um Early Childhood one of them is happening next week I believe um so we will continue to facilitate those conversations but I mean I I think to the school district and to anybody else Whoever has trouble navigating state government that's one of the reasons that uh we are down there is to help you navigate that state government to try and get you the help and resources and get your questions answered and hopefully to um improve the situation but um thank you for keeping us surprised thank you

094I have so much to say but I probably shouldn't say all of it um the frustration that you've experienced is frustration that we've experienced at the Joint budget committee back in September we had the department of Early Childhood come in for a special session in front of the joint budget committee and um they couldn't answer all of the questions so uh you know I'm pretty well aware of your comments um not because I've heard them from you but because I've heard them from school districts across the state so it's not just your school district um I I will tell you that within the budget they ask for 25 hours worth of funding possibility to get up to 25 hours they started off with the 10 then said we'd try to get to 15 but there

095are others we want to get to 25 somewhere in there they switched things and decided that it should go to 30 um based on their experience at least the the executive director of that uh Department said it was based on her experience in the Denver public school system Bridge care came from the Denver public school system they used it there that's why they went with it at the state um I would agree with um State Board of Education uh here you know member here that uh there is no board so no one holds them accountable uh we are trying to hold them accountable at the Joint budget committee but again we don't get the whole story uh it's hard to get the numbers I will tell you we're pretty disappointed so when they say it's

096about funding um conversation I had with the governor was to inform him that it's not about the funding the Colorado preschool program cost us $135 million and it ran it had um 29,000 kids involved 8,000 approximately of those kids were getting full days so we funded basically about 36,000 uh total slots for $135 million Proposition E came through gave him another $190 million iip passed I think that's about another $20 million that yes is supposed to go towards early childhood development that's what it was passed for and also just so you know uh Senator zenzinger and I pushed and got put into the school Finance act an additional $10 million to help cover the backfill if you will or I can't think of any other name for it but um to cover any ere expenditures

097that you might have with regard to special education children because we were afraid of what was going to happen there um and so everything that we thought was going to happen last year is happening even though we talked to them about um trying to get their act together rolling it out slowly working with all of their Partners both private and public I will just tell you there seems to be an aversion that public schools um basically are whining because uh it's about the the you don't want the private providers to have children which is not true um but that's what comes out from it so the money is there the um Administration and the the administration of this program and the accountability is not there so your frustration is our frustration as well but we

098do have a meeting in fact budget hearing with them the Early Childhood Department here sometime in the next uh week or so um so believe me I will have your notes to go along with all my other countless notes um to see what I can do to make sure that we're holding them accountable and it's not just me on the joint budget committee I would say of the six members all of us are pretty darn frustrated with the Early Childhood Department in fact one of our members was a prime sponsor on the bill that passed um so she's having some concervation as well in fact it was representative serota so um there's a lot going on here there's a lot to do here uh you know there's nothing I can tell you that you don't

099already know you probably know it better than I do but uh we are trying to do the best we can do on it uh this is the first I've heard about the hours though you know the 450 hours versus the 540 hours or 1080 versus you know all these other hours kind of thing uh that's interesting I haven't heard that one before so I will take that back and ask them what's going on with that but just so you know I mean I actually said in I don't know if you were on the call or if the superintendent was on the call the town hall meeting that um director Medlock right isn't that who this one is I get this one and BHA mixed up um because they're both doing a horrible job um but

100just saying they're not running I mean they just aren't they're not running very efficiently and they're not getting done what they're supposed to be done but I was on that first town hall meeting in fact started asking questions and if you know she tried to get off the phone and tried to get everyone else off the phone and then I actually had a further conversation with her after that though instead of having more Town Hall meetings they canceled the town hall meetings and started having just direct one-on-one meetings with school districts so y'all wouldn't know what was going on apparently they don't think you talk to each other we do yeah but I'm just saying so that's the kind of stuff that we're up against so it's not just talking to legislators you need to

101start having conversations with the governor directly and having those kind of conversations because this is his Department I mean we can only do so much from the legislative side um and then you know the whole rul making Authority again no board there is no board the lack of communication that doesn't occur between Department of Education and the department of childhood just absolutely amazes me um so you know I don't know what else to tell you other than it is a mess we're trying to get it figured out as best we can but it's not about the money it's really just about poor management and not understanding how the program works and trying to change everything too dramatically in the first year with not having a clear understanding because I will tell you that they also

102moved over the CCAP program you know the the Child Care Program over into from Human Services over into to um the department of Early Childhood as well and um counties who you know use the CCAP program to deal with foster children and make sure that they were getting the resources that they needed in child care U that's an issue as well so we're having problems there as well and um there's just a lot going on here that shouldn't be and I do know that when the bill went through I actually got an amendment on through sen with Senator fenberg because he was the sponsor on the Senate side that said they were supposed to put together basically a business plan before they started implementation uh they didn't do that so just saying so thank you

103for all the notes thank you for all the information uh I'll see what I can do from The Joint budget committee but um I don't I don't know what to tell you from this point other than we're all feeling pretty frustrated but the money is there so when you're looking for especially with the special education kids um you know your IEP kids um there is money within the school Finance act in fact it's still rests with the Department of Education to help provide some funding there so you should go look there thank you Kevin you had something had a question um first of all thank you this is the second time I've heard this presentation or a synopsis of the life that you've had to lead in the last year um and I want to

104commend you for doing it with such Poise dare I say humor I don't know if I'd have the veneer sanity that you do sitting there so thank you you are a treasure and thank you for doing what you're doing please don't stop doing it um so that my question is this I I want to understand better the private provider aspect of this what incentives there are for private providers if there is I'll kick it back to legislator I heard what you said Senator but I I I do think if there is some sort of tax incentive for private providers that has not been explored or that could be explored I wonder if that's one potential Avenue to incentivize and I I'll make this anecdotal my my youngest uh school just got bought out by a

105very large child private childcare provider and so the reshuffling of the composition of students that are in that school is likely going to change and so I wonder um if these monster private providers are coming into our our community and they're benefiting from our community I wonder what they can be asked to give back and I wonder if you had any thoughts or could educate us on that I have a slightly different view on the private provider um we have a child care desert in this area we do not have enough slots compared to the number of students and we need all hands on deck cuz kids deserve school um the incentive that um private providers have is the same rate per pupil that school districts would have so it's access to public money um

106to fund these Child Care slots um there will be quality standards that are introduced that hopefully will um maintain a level of Excellence for kids uh the quality standards are not in place yet they are in development um also as they're developing quality standards that's another example where the two systems don't talk to each other they're requiring a certain number of professional development hours without thinking about the number of professional development hours that teachers already have to do and so um we would be adding hours and hours and hours of similar trainings to teachers as a result all of this is in development so we are literally building the vehicle but we're not sure if it's an airplane or a submarine um it looks different every level so you can have a child care provider

107that only offers two Universal pres preschool slots and they would get the same Revenue that the school district would get per pupil um in order to fund that child's placement so the money is coming from the state instead of the parent um large child care providers I'm sure are accessing this I I have a network of childcare providers that I am frequently in contact with I sit on the ecclc board as well um there's there's snafus the scale is what makes it so obvious in the school district because we have over 500 upk slots in the district where sometimes smaller centers where they only have six they can problem solve the six um when I am problem solving 300 kids instead of six that's it's just a different scope and a different scale um the

108financial piece I don't understand how any provider can manage the way the billing is set up right now um we literally don't know and can't predict how much money is coming in um we know how much we're supposed to get but our bills have not been correct yet now of course we're problem solving I expect some hiccups but I think every provider is dealing with that every small provider every large provider um they're in it for the right reasons you don't go into child care to um get incentives and you you go into child care because you care about children and you want to help our community grow and um I don't feel like the outside providers are stealing our students away um I feel like families are getting options some families need places that

109are open six to six and offer WRA care other families need their child to be in the same school as their third grader and so by giving those choices that's not a bad thing in my mind um but what what it's created the system has created is that those that with the most advantages are getting first in line first pick first everything and those who have difficulties like accessing technology when you have to apply approve your approval we have to approve it then you have to go in and accept it you have to check your email three times if you don't have a device to do that as a parent you're you're losing your spot because you didn't answer in time all of the things that we can handle face Toof face with a direct

110enrollment process families are the families that need us the most are are getting turned away basically um but it it isn't there isn't a tax incentive that I know of with universal pre it's just about a flat rate of funding and it's based on the area in the state so um and the cost of living in that area there's a very very complicated formula that Dave could explain to you um I just look at the overall number and add the kids and do my little calculator math and hope it hope it works out um but I'm I'm hoping that the financial pieces of this won't syn some of the providers that are trying to offer services other questions so go ahead I mean my first part is just more of a comment because going back

111to what Becca said earlier where our students with IEPs are most in need and also the earlier we intervene and get them support theoretically either we have a consistent level of support or even for some students we can offload some of that support they can become more integrated so these this early funding is really important so I really do hope it is fully funded um my other curiosity I have I watched something a few years ago where we changed the requirements for those Early Childhood IEPs and we made it harder for kids who maybe at one point they were only 25% need and we changed it the 33% need I believe which now yeah we're serving more of the highest needs or the higher need but now we're missing that gap of students so I

112would I would recommend that we look back and consider how we're going to fund them as well um but going back to the hours that you brought up I would be curious if we do change our 30 hours that 1080 hours per year to 900 hours to meet kindergarten I wonder how many seats that opens up like how much funding does that or how many seats does that open up for kids that currently just don't have access at all maybe that's the three-year-olds I don't know but I would like to see us get as many kids as possible because Becca's right we do early child well you guys do early child very very well and as a school district serving the special needs students we kind of need that that special service opportunity so thank

113you carine did you have something or well it's just sitting here listening to you talk Becca I just you know getting the impression our house is on fire and it really scares me because our our Littles are so important and and that early intervention is just critical I mean in a in a lifelong span of a child that early intervention carries through the rest of their experiences in school right and so um I would just encourage all the elected here to work together to to work with our departments to to solve some of these issues um I think it's really critical that we get this funding issue solved like like now like that we get this figured out now and so I would appreciate any help that any that the elected officials can give the

114district and helping to solve this funding issue for us and and then start to work on all of these other issues as well because um we can't fail at this we can't fail our little kids we just can't thanks Becca go ahead just sorry um one more curiosity how do we get early childhood a board of directors so that they have that oversight so it's not just your team any ideas good Lu um we actually tried that during the legislative process when the bill was going through in fact I had an amendment to do that and it was killed in committee but they did say they would look at it two years later so why because they don't want to have a board so I'm just going to say this I think everybody in this

115room feels the frustration but we're in the legislative branch we don't have control over the Executive Branch other than what we put into legislation and then you know we can try to hold them accountable as best as we possibly can but execution of the law is based it's on their side so the money is there this is an execution problem and they just need to figure it out so I know I mean we can try and help and we we can try to I guess carry a bill uh it will probably have to be one of the Democrats in the room to do that to carry a bill to see if they can do something with the hours um then we can look at what a fiscal note would look like on that we could

116carry a bill to put in that they have to have a board but we're still way behind at that point I mean start thinking about bills don't pass until this next legislative session they don't take effect till July 1 of 2024 we're a whole another year behind and then you have to go through and start doing the rules so you just keep getting farther and farther behind so this is an Administration executive branch execution issue mean there there's only so much that we can attempt to do in a bill but we're still really behind on it and I'm not sure that the bill would pass and get signed by the governor that would just be my comment my observation but I do know that the funding is there I mean I gave you some pretty

117rough numbers it's there when we had a very successful for like 20 years Colorado preschool program and then we turn around and in our Colorado preschool program we had 8,000 full day kids to turn around the next year where they're hoping to get to 6,000 maybe they're only at four now that's a problem that's on the Executive Branch if I could ask a followup to that so what what do and and this is for all of you actually um what do you see as board members um that we could do to um I understand the executive branch that um Governor polis understands that this is this has been an issue um that we are you know we are ever so grateful for the upk money for have getting our kids into the district um at

1184 years old and particularly for our um you know our most um challenged kids who need this so much we need to be able to to provide for them um but how would you recommend us telling our stories to them tell having parents tell their stories having uh what would be a great way to to let people know that you know it's not when we talk about money's not matching when we talk about um it it it doesn't sound um compelling it doesn't it sounds like a a mismatch problem how do we make this a compelling story to make it get fixed quickly yes so you have a couple of options um you gave us this casby kind of the casby re uh resolutions and I would just say I would push on casby um

119You Are Not Alone they're certainly doing their lawsuit and all that kind of stuff but they are also your voice at the capital and so I it it's interesting that it's not on the resolutions and I've I've talked to people across the this the state too school board members who are so frustrated and what do we do what do we do and and I would say certainly push on casby uh that's that's one option I'd say for fun I listened today to JBC and it was en enjoyable to hear you talking to DOA today Senator gerk Meer but it is fun to hear she has she knows the direct question so I would encourage you I think it's December 4th or 5th I can't remember but it is coming right up that JBC will be

120talking to um to CBC um feel free to reach out to any of us with specific questions or concerns Senator Kirk me's going to represent this very very well at JBC um but it might also be cathartic to listen to her so I'd encourage that I'm I'm looking up the date here and and I would just suggest more than just listen in you know I don't I think it's just it's the hearing it's the first part of the hearing but I would send comments directly to the JBC to all the JBC members um I would send your I mean actually I took one of your I'll see I've written all over both of them now um but I was going to make copies and hand them out hand them out to the JBC members in

121the first place but um so that is that's a great suggestion by Senator Marchman to engage with the JBC uh because the first portion of it the way it's it's handled when we're developing the budget it's probably similar to like your early warning budget session where we have briefings so our JBC analysts will brief us on the requests that are coming from in this case the department of early childhood and we will get a briefing have an understanding of what is in the governor's proposed budget request as well and where they're trying to go the Second Step so that's kind of like similar to an early warning budget session the second step is um the department then has a hearing with the joint budget committee and while that's not open to you know there's not

122like a public hearing for you to come in and make comments there is the opportunity for you to send your comments directly to the Joint budget committee or questions directly to the Joint budget committee that you would like to have answered by The Early Childhood department and in fact if you send those to me um or to any JBC member we can make sure and get those introduced first off in the hearing portion of the process where it's just us and our JBC member talking about the JBC analyst talking about the department of early childhood and we post questions to the department that we expect to have answered when they come to the hearing so again there's some opportunity there um you know I can think of several questions from your comments here um but

123the other thing I would do is um I would invite the governor or the executive director of the Department of Early Childhood to your school district and not just for a photo up I would invite them into your classroom and I would invite them to engage in a conversation with you about the issues that your school district has had specifically and at that um meeting I would try and get maybe three or four of your parents that have had issues trying to you know um go through the process and you you know tell their story directly to the governor because I will just say and I know people are going to think wow I can't believe you would say this but I'm just going to say this I've had conversations with the governor and he

124really just thinks the school districts are whining those are my words those aren't his words but that is my impression of what's going on here he thinks that you do not wish to have children in the private setting which again I know is not true there are enough kids to go around for everybody right there is he'll try to say it's about the money I will tell you again from the joint budget committee side of things um and even dealing with the school Finance act last year uh myself and Senator zenzinger have tried to do everything we can to put buffers and put additional money into to the system to try and help out the school districts um through this first year because uh we saw what was starting to happen last year I mean

125it wasn't wasn't a surprise we saw what was starting to happen last year we were working with the Consortium you know the special education Consortium folks um so we've tried to do things of that nature but if you've got some other ideas just let us know but if you've got any direct questions you want asked of the department send them to me I'm more than happy to ask and if they don't answer them in the briefing in the hearing um I will continue to ask them at the hearing when they're there wonderful thank you yep be ready for your inbu to be flooded K it's uh always is but I'm going to look up and let you know when the exact date is okay so Sen Kirk me there's something Friday December 1st is that

126it it's the briefing for sedc that's it right this Friday it's already Friday it's 9: to 11 I'll be teaching know it's coming up yall enjoy it's fun no you can I give you my email it's really easy yeah Department of Early Childhood staff briefing is um okay so this is the briefing so this is just the JBC with the staff the department will not be present at at they won't be speaking to the JBC so they'll probably be present listening in though um so that is is this Friday from 9: to 11:00 and my email is very easy it's sen scen Kirk me gmail.com and if you send me this document email me this document I'll make sure that all of the JBC members receive it and any specific questions you have send them

127my way we'll get them asked if nothing else I'll make sure that they are asked within the document so that the department has to answer them great thank you Kathy you had something right very briefly just wanted to say um first of all uh sorry um yes as school board members we've had um former and current Schoolboard members um you know trying to keep us up to date on what's going on and we really appreciate that so I would encourage Schoolboard members in the district to continue to reach out to those of us who represent your area and the other thing um I'm sure uh Senator Kirk Meer knows us that JBC does get an unlimited number of bills so um you guys can perhaps uh deal with that since a lot of us have

128all of our bill titles committed so just pointing that out and we're happy if there's something we can do to carry a bill but our bills are not necessarily about policy they have to be about the finance side of things I mean sometimes we can try to squeeze some of that in but um it really should be related to that because that's that's just how it works at the JBC but thank you I remember all right thank you were there questions yes Brian Becca I just want to thank you for your leadership uh in the midst of a storm you're still leading from a place of strength and it's I find it to be inspiring the fact that you've positioned our district to be advising the state on this is incredibly commendable so thank you

129for being you yes thank you so much yeah all right um do we have other questions before I I was going to turn it over to to do just a brief um Dave if you wouldn't mind just sort of doing a brief pres uh not presentation sorry um just update on the budget um what we're what we're looking at sure as far as for this year and for next year yeah so um the governor's budget proposal came out in November and what they're looking at is funding the inflation rate and it it's already been alluded to um also included in that Governor's budget proposal is the the buy down of the negative factor that as mentioned that's been in the legislative it's been in the the law so that's not something that came directly from

130there but it is in in the budget proposal um those are probably the big pieces that we're looking at right now um I I think probably one of the big well I've got the floor here for a second one of the big concerns I have and I've been doing this for quite a while is and I've been in a different time when we were doing this is with the negative factor going away or the the budget stabilization Factor going away we're going to be potentially in a situation where where people feel like we're exactly where we need to be for k12 and I want to remind people that there were adequacy studies done many many years ago that been been updated multiple times but even when we get to the budget stabilization Factor being gone

131I think we're still behind and we have some some traction to do there great thank you yes so again I would just say if you've got some ideas on things that need additional funding please forward those to the JB this is a very favorable joint budget committee towards education like very favorable we increased all the categoric goals by inflation last year all of them right we add it to dramatically to special education um again not just tier a but also tier B you know so there's a lot that we have done we've made sure that the State education fund has been held you know very tightly to ensure that once we do Buy down which will be this year because that was the promise that was made last year by Senator zenzinger when I was

132like you're not getting far enough right so we got there within a two-year deal um we've also got I don't know if you go after best grants or things of that nature but we made sure that the funding there was held harmless essentially and made sure that it came through especially after what happened you know with all the increases in the cost so if you've got some ideas of things I know um I'm just saying this is this is it this is a very favorable JBC to education and Senator zenzinger is term limited so she goes off after this year and I we don't know who comes on next year the following year so this is the year so if you've got some ideas send them our away thank you yep wonderful thank you Kathy

133I'd like to point out that one of the things I pushed really hard for and got into the school Finance act this year was um adequacy studies and my understanding is that the adequacy studies will be um they'll be putting out an RFP for those next month and what will happen there is it basically what we mean when we say we bought down the negative factor it means we're getting back to 1986 levels of school funding who says that was right is that where the gold post should be so we asked for two adequacy studies because sometimes there's a difference in perspectives we wanted to make sure that they were all covered and what we'd really like for those adequacy studies to come back and tell us is what is an adequate amount of money

134for any area of the state for any type of kid in order to properly fund their education so I'm really hopeful that we'll get good adequacy studies done so that we can then figure out where the goal post should be and thank you for doing that that's very important because I think don't think people do understand that it does bring us back to as you said 1986 that's rather frightening um levels of funding um even with the BS Factor being bought bought out so um and and I I believe you know this is kind of a question that I have for for everyone here too um is there are a lot of grants that are out there we grar mentioned earlier about um the department of energy um and that sort of thing um but

135what is it that we can do and um I'm trying to remember who mentioned air conditioning um yeah you guys S A March there you go um because that that is part of what we're looking at too is you know just buildings um you know a lot of our buildings were are they're aging um they don't have the air conditioning they don't have the um let alone air conditioning they don't have the electricity standards to put in air conditioning we'd have to change all of that some of them don't have the you know fans if you put too many fans together you blow a fuse um so what is it that we can look at um from state and federal as far as um buildings so um as a legislator I get to introduce up

136to five bills um each of us get to introduce so between all of us that's 25 bills total what happens and the way the governor's budget occurs is some of the things in the governor's budget also require bills and so the governor's bills may be way more than the 25 in this room so very sadly um I had 21 Bill drafts pulled this summer um nine of them I got it narrowed down to nine and the air conditioning one is number six I introduce five and it's because I'm going to need it's a big heavy lift so what I want you to know is this when I reached out to the offices of our federal delegation when I reached out to my um General Assembly member colleagues to let them know that students are melting

137and you know ambulances are showing up at lovelin high school all the time my daughter is sending me messages my makeup is literally melting off I have a migrant can I come home they didn't know they thought this was just a Denver issue really and so I mean you know that was just and that's not no no no no worries that's okay but we need to make it really really known um I mean I spoke to rep to right right to right to her she goes what really more than half of the kids in Colorado yeah it's more than half I mean and that's really anecdotal that's me going I think so but I mean if you look at the majority of our schools so what what we what we could do and what we've

138talked about but it's not a bill this year because I don't have enough um support yet um is we're going to have to prioritize some of the best money quite likely and we're going to have to probably do a carve out for um who needs it the most sadly when we build new schools we're building them with air conditioning that's not sad the sad part is the old schools sit and they are hot and it's more expensive to change infrastructure on an existing School than it is to um build it new and so it it's just something that I think that's what we're going to have to do I had lots of conversations like with the governor's office and I talked to some JBC folks and they think that's the way to do it but

139there wasn't enough of a push to make this happen this year and that makes me sad because our climate is being impacted more in Colorado than in many other states in terms of um temperatures above like 80 degrees so thank you for letting me share that I Senator Marchman and and all of you I want to thank you for your advocacy in this particular space like just to put some numbers to what this means specific for the pter school district sitting today we have 54 schools including our five district sponsored Charter Schools 33 of our 54 schools do not have air conditioning we did add adequacy study not adequacy we did a study to identify what the cost would be and it's roughly just under two from a range of I think 199 million to

140$260 million over the next five to seven years because we wouldn't be able to install air conditioning while students are in our buildings so you're looking at a long-term effort uh we are an advocate and have applied for several best grants we recognize that they are predominantly driven to rural communities which we believe is a need that is well it's a perfect fit based upon their ability to fund uh but we don't find ourselves well positioned to be able to attain any of those particular dollars and as we you know grapple with these challenges what I'm most proud of in this community is our ability to come together and be creative you know we don't know if our taxpayers are interested in investing in this particular initiative and I wouldn't even say it's an initiative

141I would say it's a human right to be comfortable right to feel good to be feel Joy and to experience learning in a work environment uh where you want to come back to the next day uh but that small piece of the puzzle that I shared with you 200 approximately $250 million is only 25% of the total infrastructure need that exists just in PSD there's over a billion dollars in infrastructure need so I think this is not just a state issue it's a federal issue the history of you know prior to climate change becoming what it is today historically you know we kept our doors open we kept our windows open but those days in in terms of human safety in public schools are yesterday they're no longer our present or our future but as

142a result of doing that we have $25 million in door needs of repair to make sure that they're secure I share those things with you not to be gloom and doom because I'm hopeful that we know we're trying to be creative uh this is the first time our calendar committee I believe in the history of this District at least for a long time has suggested let's move our school calendar back a couple of weeks closer to Labor Day to let some of the extreme heat in the summer kind of not be an issue that we deal with we know that sometimes there's hot days extreme hot days after Labor Day that certainly happened I think a couple of years ago uh but even in trying to identify Creative Solutions around our calendar we're kind of

143in a position where by doing that we're no longer aligned to Colorado State University's calendar Front Range Community calendar which by moving our district calendar back several weeks would actually exclude up to 3,500 of our students from dual enrollment concurrent enrollment opportunities and they're just getting themselves aligned on their calendars across the state too and as I talk to my colleagues across the Front Range who are you know superintendents they're dealing with these same issues and I think the the compression that's happening and again I promise you uh this is not a gloom and doom session this is just speaking truth to people who want the truth um the reality is that we're also losing students there's declining birth rates across this country they're higher across the state of Colorado they're even higher in this

144particular area of Northern Colorado there's extreme growth in other sectors of Northern Colorado but it's not PSD in order for a population simply to replicate itself you should have on average about 2.1 birs per age bearing person in PSD today it's 1.09 on average our graduate class is about 22 to 2,300 students this year's kindergarten is under 1,600 and so as we're trying to tackle providing our employees a livable wage as we're trying to tackle a billion dollars in infrastructure need we're projected to lose 10% of our student enrollment due to declining birth rates and fertility rates in this region specific to PSD over the next five years that's a $40 million problem in the next five years and we have about 4,500 empty seats in our buildings today so I share that with you

145is that our school districts and our current School Finance you know model is not designed for us we're having to choose one problem over another rather than dealing with all and making anything whole and it's creating morale issues um and I think there's ways for us to think creatively about this from higher ed to the community nonprofits like we could have year- round schools we could be solving some of our upk scenarios in the summer there's ways of us thinking about not just solving our air conditioning issues for two weeks it's really a yearr round experience that I'm not saying all students should be in school year round but keeping our build our buildings open year round provides a Community Asset and resource that they want that they desperately need our students are begging for

146more places of belonging and I can't think of a place that's better than their schools and I was sure if as we're talking about this from a legislative standpoint if I can prioritize any aspect of the air conditioning it's safety it's not not just the experience that they're having in extreme heat the the ability for us to send people home in our early release day because they have extreme heat creates a ripple effect throughout this entire Community for halves and have knots but our abil is to keep our building secure a single point of entry all of our doors secure while grappling with that is a very very difficult situation that I know that you're aware of but it goes well beyond the air conditioning some people in our community Believe air conditioning is a

147nice to have we''ve all heard those stories my you know my parents used to tell me they walked uphill in snow both ways home and you know two um but I do believe the reality is we've have schools in this experience that had persistent heat in the '90s or it's just incredibly uncomfortable but to send we send the entire District home as a result of some of those experiences and that creates creates another scenario for our Workforce um so I just if there's any way from the you know infrastructure dollars that have been arranged at the federal level for for Safety and Security if we can see air conditioning and HVAC systems as a part of that that and funnel that through the state whatever the model might be to combine funding sources above and

148beyond just going out to our local tax base uh I would just you this system would greatly appreciate it go ahead Connor Thank you very much one thing I would say on the AC issue that I haven't heard a lot of um over the last six months since this has kind of come up one is within our own Community we we see this as a divide uh Tim nith alone where I live one of the schools really new within the last 20 years AC it's fine nobody thinks about it right on the other side of town one of the oldest schools in the district it is the major issue and that's an equity issue amongst the people there longer term um air conditioners are extremely energy intensive uh as somebody in the energy industry I

149think that some of the policies in the past that are presenting the situation now are going to be repeated if we just slap the cheapest inefficient air conditioning unit on any school just because we got to get air conditionings in we're just exasperating the problem for something that's going to be down and have another board to deal with in 10 or 15 years so I'm not sure if the federal dollars or State dollars or if they're even available or if it's going to be written in there but some kind of requirement that the energy feed stock uh have a better Diversified mix uh right now it's probably not possible that it's all renewable but in the future um some kind of requirement in there would be really important not only for our students today but

150for our students in the future totally agree Connor um totally agree and that's something that we've talked about as we're talking about how do we solve this problem we I used the wrong word and I'm sorry I said air conditioning not really it's really like air quality because it's a combination of the humidity and the temperature and I'll just throw out there I only teach like 22 kids I'm a math interventionist and nine of them have Asma it's actually something that's a big problem so I really like what you said about uh this is a safety issue this is about health and safety and wellness so thank you thank you and let's see just and then Scott so I think in all of your opening statements you almost all said something about either Workforce Development

151or um concurrent enrollment and all the things and to Brian's point if we have to move our calendar we're taking those opportunities away from kids which nobody wants so if we can figure out how to make sure that we can keep our schools open on the same schedule as the partners that we have to continue working with we can continue to offer those things to students so it it doesn't sound like they go go together but in a way they do because we have to match our schedules so go ahead yeah and I I think that's exactly right I think the athletic uh schedule too is also an important thing too that means a lot to a lot of kids here um I I not just because I you guys haven't had a chance to

152say much but I actually would like to bring the Senator's offices into this discussion um we have done a good job I think Liz has done a really good job getting and things like that in this District but navigating the federal system to get grants is there anything that that your offices can do to help school districts in Colorado navigate that find that is there a liaison who's like an expert on getting grants for this particular type of issue or other issues yes um thank you okay so with the Ia and the IRA it was supposed to be to create Equity okay okay so what the senator has found and what we have heard in our conversations with um local government County and the state is that there is a capacity issue you know um

153so what the senator has done is we created a position so we do have a federal grants navigator on staff and so um I I don't know I guess Jill will be able to give my email out and then you can just contact me directly and um and then we can start trying to figure out some buck get for you um but in regards to what what Brian was saying I mean that's a huge fiscal tag I mean that's even if we could make a dent you know um some of the things that we've seen to tackle problems of large proportions such as that is you know people who you can't do it alone right so your community can't do it alone your school districts can't do it alone the state can't you know all

154of us but but if you combine maybe public private Partnerships you know maybe get involved with your businesses your your business Community you know um also state and federal governments and and and residents to invest they they everybody needs to invest in their infrastructure um so I don't know it's just some of the things to think about but um it's a huge huge task to to tackle and you're not alone um and so yeah I just want to put that out there we do have someone um we I'd be happy to to help you out with that um we we do have someone who compiles um a Grant's newsletter that we send out monthly and um I'm not sure if anyone here gets that newsletter but you can get the newsletter and and sign up

155for that now that and but that is even you know that person and I'm sure I believe it's Helen in your office I mean they're doing a lot of other things so a lot of those opportunities even kind of skirt by us too and so we it's kind of catch as catch can and you know I guess maybe it's kind of a good problem to have is that we were able to you know pass so many bills um that provided so much uh investment uh in in the next 10 years or so I mean through you know I I know that some of that was through you know the cares Act and the American Rescue plan work really you know um a response to to the the P pandemic mic and some of those um

156you know just shortcomings that we saw in local governments and I know a lot of of of um districts and local governments and state governments were able to take advantage of those but then we were able to make investments through the bipartisan infrastructure law or the iig ja um historic Investments there and th those are still coming out and we're still um you know seeing that money I mean it's going to be hitting the ground for years and then the the inflation reduction act which you know we were talking about and to your point Connor and and to um uh you know to in in terms of that Doe program I believe that was an IRA spec climate specific so a lot of those those funding Investments are climate specific and and for HVAC systems

157that are efficient I don't know about you know solar powered or anything like that necessarily those are over subscribed I mean that that that particular that first round I I think there were probably 10 times more schools districts that applied than than they were able to award and and so there is going to be another round coming up next year but I mean that's just a small drop in the bucket compared to the the greater need there and I I don't know you know we were able to to get these bills passed um we are able to um to to help navigate that but DOA also um took we've partnered with DOA uh Department of local Affairs of the state then they have Grant Navigators for specifically for these um uh these grant opportunities and

158so there is somebody and I forget her name she's working out of um Upstate Colorado for this region um oh Katie McGuire Kate McGuire anyway yeah I don't want to say it on the record I I don't know but I mean they do have those around around the state and so um you know I think that the state has recognized that need as well and so hopefully we can you know join forces and and you know make sure I think the goal here is to make sure that we can get as much um of that funding capture as much of that funding as possible as a state in Colorado and um you know I guess I hate I um I know this is slightly um off topic but this is infrastructure as well and it's

159broadband and you know we were able to get um $800 million and change um through the bead program for the state and you know we're really looking forward to seeing that uh funding hit the ground and to get um you know folks connected especially in in parts of the state that haven't you know rural parts of the state including in lore County I'm sure including in your District um so um I guess I'll stop there I I guess one one more thing that I would say is that it's unclear whether or not we're going to be able to pass anything in the near future at the federal level as significant an investment as we have been able to do in the in recent years and so um we want to do our best with what

160we have you know what we see coming down the certain you know the funds that are are there to do our best to one make sure they're not clawed back by Future legislation which is also a possibility but um but as well to um to make sure that we can catch that that funding while it's here so Kim while our office doesn't necessarily have a dedicated person to Grants I will keep my eyes open for things that are related to education to infrastructure structure uh I think being here tonight and hearing about your infrastructure needs and the degree to which uh you know that's really driving decisions for calendar and students and the health of students and safety all of those are tied together and I think that's very important I will share this with

161the congressman as well I know he's very concerned about this and as James said this clawing back is something that we're very well aware of and trying to do whatever we can to keep that from happening because those infrastructure money are critical to our communities so do feel free to reach out to all of us I think when you um also need any kind of letters of support if you do find grants but we'll also keep an eye out and try to keep you informed wonderful thank you other questions yeah Caroline oh Brian okay I I want to just share some gratitude uh because since the last time I saw many of you a year ago in the same space uh our district in service of supporting our District priorities which we have three of

162them and they're outside of the infrastructure space because that's just not necessarily the most engaging thing to be talking about all the time across our school system but we prioritize literacy mental health and belonging and ensuring all of our students can graduate with options whether it's going directly into the workforce 2-year program four-year program the military like really taking those things seriously as human rights that we want to ensure that our diploma has integrity and people can ensure that our graduation diploma equals a living wage uh and I'm really proud that this school system when you look up across the Front Range as our students enter four-year programs two-year programs their freshman GPA on average is higher than our state peers really proud of that because of the things that we're doing uh but I'm

163really proud of you too be but because of you engaging with us in the process of governance from a mental health and belonging space just in the last year we achieved 11.26 million in mental health supports $9.7 million in partnership with CSU to put 45 additional social workers in our schools over the next 5 years another project aware Grant at just over 1.5 million to expand existing mental health programs and services that's super significant um and one of the highest Grant Awards I think across the country um and we just recently were informed that we received one of the rise grants to expand apprenticeships and internship programs for transportation for cyber security for Construction and design uh that's just at uh I I'm going to round up it's at $476,000 so that's super significant to

164advance our district priorities and our former board and current board has been also putting skin in the game around putting our own District resources to advance those even further and I think as I shared with you earlier and I don't want to go far too far but this is what's really special about this place is it's a regional effort when we're looking to expand Workforce Development we're not looking at just doing it with PSD we're partnering with Thompson School District in Loveland and trying to identify if you're offering a program or a pathway there how do we ensure our students have access and you have access to ours to ensure that we're looking to build a talent pipeline where it's really hard to fill some of these teaching positions in those particular spaces that we're

165thinking about it and that's one of the reasons why our County and local philanthropies are contributing over you know almost $2 million to each of our school districts as well to further support those efforts so there's money coming in from different spaces as a result of Us coming together representative Kip you shared something that stuck with me early on about teacher mentorship I just want to say thank you for referencing that as a priority our existing Grant to support that space sunsets at the end of this year and the success and the data that we're hearing uh from our Human Resources Division and our beginning in new teachers has been quite phenomenal in terms of it being a high quality induction program we're struggling to identify resources financially to extend that and expand it to

166be quite honest with you uh but I do want to share gratitude to to your Collective responsiveness to continuing to figure out ways to match existing dollars uh to programmatic needs that we know our students are crying for so thank you for that well I think I'll jump on that because that was really kind of what I wanted to talk about and um Sally I know that Senator Hickenlooper even when he was governor was really interested in getting kids into Workforce training while they were still in high school and getting them into the trades and to jobs that are available that are going unfilled and I think when I think about installing air conditioning even if we had all the money in the world we don't have all the trades people we need to install

167those air conditioning systems and I think that in the past we have not done ourselves any favors um by um being my opic about where kids should be going after they leave um high school we have a lot of kids who really like to work with their hands and really enjoy that kind of work and we haven't really in the past done a really good job of getting them um like work-based Lear learning and so um I really appreciate that since Brian has um come to our district he has put a lot more emphasis on that we have Emily here who probably can talk a little bit more about our work-based learning I mean we are doing really great things here in the district and and I'm so thankful for that and then Kim I

168just wanted to um commend Joe for working on getting idea fully funded and I just wonder is there any idea of when we will reach the promised land of 40% funding I have no predictions in that regard I it it's tough It's a tough environment right at the moment so but he is still advocating uh all the time and trying to find any way that he can put that in to legislation that's pending and looking at the Appropriations um but as James had said too it's it's a very difficult environment right now so but he will keep beating that drum for sure thank you and I just want to jump on this too um before I invite Emily to talk about um what's going on with um our students and graduating with options but just

169to to tie what you had said um Jess what you had said and then what Brian had said kind of into a a hopefully a nice little bow for everybody is when we're talking about graduating with options and and the 3500 students that might get disrupted because if we shifted school they would no longer be able to go to Front Range um that's not just um people who are taking AP courses or people who are taking um IB or people who are taking courses at Front Range for um English or math or something that's also welding that's Automotive that is there's a lot there that we are using um in you know um in conjunction with F frcc that if we didn't have access to because we shifted our calendar those kids would lose out

170um or we'd have to build our own second program which is cost prohibitive so there's there are things that we're talking about with calendar um that are safety um they're we're talking about we can't close doors can't close windows when it's 90° out and we're baking um literally um we are talking about um not being able to graduate with options because if we take if we shift our calendar nobody shifts with us we've now eliminated graduating with options so it's not just um you know it be it's not a nice to have it's a need to have at this point um that our facilities need to have um what the kids need in order to graduate with options so I just I just want to point out that it all ties together um it's not

171just you know we're pick we're we're sort of picking these kids and it'll prevent us from moving the calendar and those things will prevent us from from shifting for some for a different reason um it all ties together and that's all about what the kids can access and what they need in order to graduate with options um and with that I want to invite Emily to um talk to us about um our all of our wonderful things that we're doing for our students hi I'm Emily uh again I work at the in my opinion best schools in the district um Centennial High School PGA PCA Polaris and Futures lab so I cover our small schools um I work with students who have a lot of needs thank you for the rise award it's amazing having

172more apprenticeship opportunities is incredible um I have students come to me all the time I want to go into cosmetology I want to go in automotive what do I do and we just don't have the breadth of opportunities that we could have um I'm proud to say that last year was my first year at this job and we served 7,691 students in work based learning in the district um we do have a full-time work based learning coordinator at all of our larger schools which is incredible as well so thank you for whoever made that happen thank you so much um what else do you want to know we do wonderful things for kids we I again going back to the apprenticeships um having more opportunities for kids is always extremely beneficial having to tell a

173kid H I don't have that opportunity for you doesn't feel great so having more opportunities for kids is always beneficial um we have a business liaison that we work with her name is Stephanie Merill she's housed at the um Chamber of Commerce she is on a grant right now and that Grant is about up she is the person who reaches out to businesses in the district and makes those contacts for us so having someone to do that is is also extremely helpful for all of the coordinators in the district we are student facing we don't always have time to like cold call a business and build those relationships um so having having more help to get these opportunities would also be extremely beneficial as well in a moment if it's okay with you all I'll

174share with you a copy of our high school planning guide that outlines our existing Pathways that are available across this district and that does not yet include the ones that we are now able to create as a result of the rise investment uh so there's an incredible amount of work you know when we identify students who take four or more of the courses that are in each of these Pathways their graduation rate is 98% % so the significance of investing uh in this particular space is is proving the return on the investment is quite significant so I won't Orient you can read it at your leisure but I just want to make sure that you have a copy of it so you can begin to kind of better understand how that plays out uh across

175PSD yes go Angelica do you grant certificates and how do they fit into your graduation requirements we do Grant industry certification so just last year we had 628 students earn industry certifications in PSD uh it is not yet uh a graduation requirement uh but that is a conversation I don't mean a requirement I just mean fulfilling one of the I'm assuming that a graduate has choices they do more more choices than you can imagine uh across different schools um and so you know we're taking a closer look at that to try to figure out how to provide more flexibility in our graduation requirements that allows them to take potentially more courses that align to these specific Pathways um and so we're taking you know yeah we're we're grappling with that as a governance team um

176here in the very near future which I'm excited about that's one of the things that'll that are discussed in that report that's coming out thank you yeah we'll take a peek at that yeah go ahead and then Emily you said you work with someone from the chamber um there's an Economic Development Council that's really really well supported by the governor and all the people and I would certainly um I think it would be a good place to start also they often are the ones who are bringing businesses to the community so they're bringing businesses to to Wellington and to Fort Collins and um and and when we talk to those business is they say wow I wish our Workforce was like this because we could really use this and so I think that's where the

177economic development I know Michael Connell used to do it here but um that might be a really good connection for you um if you if you're not out of utilizing it we we do we do have a connection with the lmer County Workforce Development team yes thank you okay questions or Brian do you something well it's just more of an invitation that if you see I want Senator Marchman thank you for making that connection if there are state level organizations business roundtables economic development that I can as the superintendent provide a K12 voice and perspective uh I would invite you to make that connection with me uh so I can continue to be an advocate not just for our district but how this plays out across the state questions yes go ahead Conor well not

178to be Debbie Downer but here it goes would it be me if I didn't as this one from a budgetary standpoint uh you know declining enrollment is going to require us to make Cuts I see tremendous value in here on the return on investment graduating people into our community who can actually stay here um some of the salaries there are more than living wage in lmer County however I think I'm in the minority on that if we have to face budget cuts in three four five years how does that affect your program because I think there might be a lot of people in the community will say Hey you know that's a private program for an HVAC company to train their students why are we training them with our dollars in the school district so

179if we have budget cuts which may be inevitable where does that leave these programs you know I just think Connor that's up to us yeah you know we're the governing body we're the people who would make those decisions and I think that there's going to be a a lot of hard decisions that this board is going to have to make and we're going to have to work with our community to figure out priorities but I will say that I think I have heard loudly from the community that they value these Workforce experiences for our students and I think if we go back to what Brian said about kids gradu graduating at a rate of 98% if they take some of these courses when we connect kids to their interests they um they just Blossom right

180they automatically Excel if they're connected to their interest and so I don't see how we can take away um student driven interest like you in education and make kids have to sit in front of a chalkboard and try to learn and it when it doesn't work it doesn't work for some kids kids well some kids are very experiential they have to touch they have to learn they're Project based and so I think when we talk about budget cuts I think that this board is going to have to make those hard decisions but I would ask our our state senators and and our state to let Representatives here um to support us with money to keep these kinds of Workforce programs going because I think we proved that they're really important not only to the students

181but to this to the community in providing the workforce that we're going to be needing along the front rage going forward I think when I used to go to the Workforce Development Center and they would talk about the number of people leaving the trades and how many people were going into the trades there's a horrible imbalance and and if we don't create that pipeline I mean we're all in trouble we we can get all the money we want and we're not going to have that AC unit it will never get installed if we don't have Pipe Fitters they will never be installed so these are important programs I don't think we can sacrifice them that that's my opinion yeah I agree I think there's they're important educational um aspects that we we need to would

182be warrant a pretty healthy discussion I also want to invite um let's see Dwayne's gonna I'll invite the back row here thank you hello everyone um so my name is Dwayne schmidtz I'm the chief institutional Effectiveness officer at PSD and I just want to talk for just a moment the grant that Emily mentioned ear earlier that's an important grant that helps fund a position of a job coordinator at the Chamber of Commerce not at PSD is called the innov or is called the workforce Innovation Grant and all the lawmakers and folks with clout in here I just wanted you to walk out of here with that name Workforce Innovation Grant because it is coming to an end I heard that there is some movement to refund that I'm just letting you know it was really

183important to us the the lady's name is Stephanie who is that coordinator and she actually works as um superintendent Kingsley mentioned not just for pter school district but also for Thompson School District and Estus Park so she really serves this whole region and it's so important to have that voice it's not a district voice helping connect our district kids with work-based learning opportunities so that's one piece I wanted to get out to if you have a voice at the state to please push to continue that funding because it's very real what it's doing for our kids the second thing I want to mention is pter School District is going through a process of trying to make sure that our Career Tech Ed or CTE courses and instructors are aligned with credential programs because when they

184are aligned the courses we offer and the instructors that teach them have the credentials when they are aligned we get 30 to 40 cents roughly back for every dollar we spend so that's part of to the answer of like how do you financially kind of do this this is why the state provides that reimbursement funding which is substantial because they recognize like um director Reed is pointing out the value of these programs which require generally speaking smaller class sizes highly trained industry Partners who are in fact instructors and equipment at times for things like Advanced manufacturing and culinary arts and things like that where some of the programs don't require extra equipment some of them do so anyways anything you can do to keep pushing for that funding because pter school district has done a

185lot of research and work as superintendent Kingsley mentioned mentioned earlier he just he just kind of cherry-picked one data point which is the graduation rate we see for the students that we call concentrators students who have four or more career teched courses it's off the charts it's so high and the and the and when we divide it by subgroups so we even look at kids who are free and reduced lunch eligible and yet they're Career Tech Ed concentrators their graduation rates exceed that of the general PSD population which is one we're already proud of that is true for English language Learners it's true for students that are eligible for free reduced lunch it has a big impact and it all comes down to students being engaged and having agency in their education and these programs

186by the way go all the way down into Middle School it doesn't just start at high school and the last point I think I want to make is some folks think of Career Tech Ed and work-based learning as an alter as a as maybe a non- Col pathway that is outdated thinking there is all types of of in fact two years of free college that students can earn towards becoming a licensed educator nursing is on is is in that realm there's all kinds of careers that kids get a running start at through this so it's for literally all kids with all different interest College you know students that are heading for college students that may not choose to go to college so my number one ask tonight my hope that this would come up in

187this meeting is just funding for Career Tech Ed funding for work-based learning if there's anything that's going to counter concerns about enrollment and its real impact on public education it's absolutely at the middle and high school grades at least all about career connected Pathways so kids can start pursuing their interest at younger ages than maybe some of us were able to and thanks a lot for giving me a moment and Julie I don't know if you had anything you wanted to add thank you Jo yeah go ahead Kevin sorry oh someone else want to say no you go ahead please I also wanted to add if you want to see The Human Side of this uh please email me come see my students um I'm working with a student at PCA who just got an

188internship um through Coline to get her CNA credential she will be the first person in her family to do anything remotely like that her family Works in fast food they are living in poverty this one experience is not just changing her life it's changing her entire family's life so if you want to see the stories please email me I will take you around to my five schools you can meet the kids and experience the wonderful things that's happening thank you you Emily sorry I wanted to piggyback because Dwayne and I must have been in mind melt um I this this this notion of outmoded thinking I think I I want to hit again um they've done a system like this in Lexington Kentucky where I came from they called them Academy systems so there's there's

189other complimentary systems out there that that we can look to to say look it's working in other places and I think the notion that I want to pick up on the most is that of Duality and that there's an intersection here with the the federal folks is that we know that college is getting prohibitively expensive especially for those kids who can't afford it right so this notion that you have to pick and choose whether you do a career path or you go to college is outmoded thinking and this is this is something that lexingon is doing I know they're doing it here in PSD imagine a kid that can't afford the $250,000 that's going to be required 18 years from now to pay for public school in our state because that's what it's projected to

190be state tuition and $250,000 to get you through a four-year institution so that kid is now choosing between what do I do with my life if you can equip that kid if they if they go through Health Services tracked they can become an EMT and that kid can now have a ser a certification that can they can monetize immediately after they graduate from our schools and they can choose to finance their way through through uh college or medical school so it's not an either or this is a duality and it's meeting kids where they are it's giving them the options and I will with every vote that I can defend that choice and that priority thank you for that other yes very spirited are there other questions or comments all right well it is 5

191to 9 so I think this is a probably a good time to wrap it up does anybody have any closing comments that they wanted to to say Brian you thinking about it just thank you I I know that we're talking about challenges but hopefully you're also walking away knowing that there's a lot of good work and great work being done in collaboration and just really appreciate the spirit of collaboration that exists in this state as a result of your Collective leadership so thank you just to piggyback on that I I love that you guys all came thank you for coming with your authenticity and your ideas I think the thing I gathered most from this was that you're coming with Solutions right there's there's a maybe a limit to what you can do in your

192respective offices but you're also saying hey we may not be able to fix it but hey here's a grant you can apply for here's somebody you can talk to I really appreciate that because it's these conversations that give us access to the people that we need to connect with so thank you so much for your engagement and not and just knowing all the things that we need to know yeah and I want to Echo that thank you so much for your engagement for listening um I know sometimes it's really hard to hear um what you know sounded like a a wonderful thing and and the the frustrations that maybe come with it sometimes um and I just want to thank you for keeping education in the Forefront at all times um we I think all

193agree on the fact that education is is one of the most important things that a child can have and we are ensuring that from three on up we are doing our darnest um to get the kids in PSD the best education we possibly can and you are a part of that um and we just want to thank you for that so Caroline I am so sorry I did think of one question that I wanted to ask Mike so Mike you had talked earlier about um about getting to schools the things that they need for opioids and Fentanyl problems and so um so give me an idea of what kinds of solutions you have for us or what kinds of uh ideas you have for us regarding opioids and INF fentol and other drug problems that

194we were dealing with thank you well education is not not something I deal with a whole lot but opioids is um so there's a lot of funding in the state through cdph for antagonists you know to to keep people alive in schools so one of the bills I ran or was going to run and ended up things ended up getting messed up down there and oh by the way I'm in the minority so I don't get a lot of stuff passed um was to ensure that the money that we had set aside a couple years ago was was getting to schools because I heard so many stories uh in committee where you know kids would go into a bathroom and it was that story over and over into a school bathroom and get the wrong

195drug and and be dead so um with the money that was set aside from um from the fentanyl bill that we ran a couple years ago um I was concerned that that like what are they doing with that what's cdph um and as we've discussed you know our state agencies sometimes don't run the most efficiently and so it was my concern to make sure that that the schools had those in in them and needed them um what we discovered from that was there was a lot of stigma associated with that where schools wouldn't even ask for this stuff because they didn't want to be known as a place where kids could go uh overdose which was news to me as well so so that's one of the areas to make sure that we get past

196that stigma issue uh that we have the right uh tools that are in place at the schools so that's that's one of the areas um and and then obviously some um uh some legislation that that allows these things to be accessible is are things that I'm working on down there as well but but it's more more that money that's already been appropriated is getting to you guys at the school level to make sure that you have uh antagonist opio antagonist available to you so I I really appreciate your view on that because I I do think you're right that there is a stigma against having antagonist in schools and and there shouldn't be they should be readly available they are life saving you know um I'm also Ser on on the board for Summit Stone

197and and I think I've been really um disappointed right that those aren't more readily available for for teachers and nurses in our schools and I think um you're right we need to get rid of that stigma we have to acknowledge that our kids have real problems and and that we have to be ready to take care of them to save them so I appreciate that work Mike thank you yeah Mike I want to add on to that thank you I um work at a library and I'm n Naran trained and it's um you know I'm going to knock on what I haven't had to use it yet but um the fact is that several of my staff are trained and we are ready to at any moment and um it's you know unfortunately public libraries

198it's schools it's um you know you can walk downtown and and see it and you you may need it so um you know if you can get trained do um and if you can carry an our can please do um you never know when you may save someone's life thank you yes go ahead Bob um thank you I just want to say thank you to all of you for inviting us here um I this is my first time here so I really appreciate it appreciate the cander the information that we received the very the very honest you know information that we received this evening it's extremely important um education is one of the things that we can give to our children to ensure that they have an opportunity for success in the future and it's

199very gratifying to be able to sit in a room where everybody just cares about that so thank you you all very much and thank you for inviting me up here tonight all right well thank you and um I think with that this meeting is adjourned now at 8:59 p.m. on November 28th still